Planet Earth has an overpopulation problem. It's something that has been abundantly clear for years now, and has been examined from a whole variety of different angles in regards to A. whether it is true and B. what we can do about it. The problem with overpopulation is that this leads to a deficit of resources in many cases, and consequently, it makes us wonder whether or not we are making accurate use of all the land and resources Earth has to offer us.

One incredibly valid claim about things taking up land that isn't totally useful is the amount we dedicate to prisons. In America, we have the largest prison population in the world, and it isn't particularly close either, which has led to politicians such as Hillary Clinton noting the disparity between our share of the world's population and our share of the world's prisoners.

One of the bigger reasons for this is the mass amount of people we have in prison for either small crimes, particularly those related to drugs, and to get even more specific, with minorities. I could write many articles about how racism, racial profiling, and police brutality are not only alive and well in America, but prospering, but I'll use to make the point that in America many people are in jail for things that wouldn't put them there in other countries.

Even worse, a decent amount of people in our prisons aren't even guilty. Again, this is something that is increasingly common amongst minorities, as just last week now ex-Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Lucky Whitehead was cut from the team following accusations of shoplifting, and a warrant being placed out for his arrest. From a football perspective, the Cowboys cut a player who was already expendable, and in light of the charges, wasn't worth the trouble. Then it came out that he wasn't guilty, and was in fact mistaken for another man who fit his description (racial profiling, which again I could write many articles on). The charges were dropped, but he was still cut from the team, and sentenced to playing for the New York Jets.

In all seriousness, Whitehead is one of the luckier ones. Dewey Bozella, an African-American, was falsely convicted and served over a decade for crimes he didn't commit, a story you can see here:

We need to overhaul our criminal justice system severely. When as many innocent people are imprisoned as they are, clearly there is an issue. In general, we need to do a better job of deciding who should be locked up, and who should be given a second chance. There are plenty of people who make one dumb mistake in the heat of the moment that ends up costing them years off their life, and frankly, does a decent job of preventing them from making a living. To summarize, there are plenty of people here in America who the justice system has failed, ruining their lives, and making them pay too harshly for the crimes they may or may not have committed.

Michelle Carter isn't one of them.

If you haven't been following, Michelle Carter was a 17 year old girl who was in a relationship with Conrad Roy III, who was deeply depressed. He informed Carter of his plans to possibly commit suicide, plans that she endorsed on multiple occasions with texts that quite frankly ruined my day in regards to how they treated someone planning on killing themselves like going and picking up groceries. While she did initially urge against it, she quickly switched to not only encouraging him to do so, but told him upon exiting his truck in which he was trying to suffocate himself from carbon monoxide to "get back in the car".

I couldn't find a short summary of the trial, so if you have the time and want to get into the nitty gritty, here's a episode of '48 Hours' CBS published about it.

There are plenty of people who legitimately just messed up one time, maybe were in the wrong place in the wrong time, maybe they were put in a situation out of necessity, but whatever it may be, there are plenty of good decent people with good morals who were put behind bars.

I'm aware that she was just 17, I'm aware that I and basically every other human do stupid things at that age, but I can honestly say that I am proud to never know someone who has such morals to actively, consistently, and graphically consider anybody, let alone somebody who you supposedly love, to end their life. I've already written about suicide as a whole, along with the increases of teen suicides in this country, particularly those who, like Roy, suffer from social anxiety:

Michelle Carter, based on the messages, clearly had the ability to prevent somebody from doing something that would harm many people, particularly someone she loves, Roy himself. There are definitely cases in which one's life is unbearable, and isn't worth living, but by encouraging Roy to kill himself and go through with his intentions, Carter made him do so at an age where he hadn't even begun to theoretically assess whether his live was actually in fact worth living. I'm not going to say that suicide is selfish, and why I disagree with Roy's decision vehemently, I can understand given both his disease and the environment around him, particularly when one of the people you love is urging you to do so, is encouraging it. I can't imagine telling somebody to kill themselves once, let alone repeatedly, seriously, and giving them specific methods on how to do so, especially if they were actually considering it and had a history of attempts.

I'm admittedly fairly passionate about the topic, but in my view, what Michelle Carter did is in fact, by definition, involuntary manslaughter, which is why when she was sentenced to 2.5 years in jail (15 months before a parole), I believe she got everything she deserved. It wasn't her decision to kill Conrad Roy III, but you can't deny her impact, and you can't deny that particularly seeing how she talked him into it DURING THE EVENT that if she said he shouldn't do it that wouldn't have mattered. There are too many people in our prisons, many whom are innocent, or are there for punishments that don't fit the crime. Michelle Carter helped kill Conrad Roy, and while I've said that on many occasions people can mess up in the heat of the moment, I wouldn't consider manslaughter or murder "messing up." Nobody with morals worth a damn would do anything directly resulting in the death of a loved one. In this case, the justice system did it's job.