The article uses a woman as an example and gives her crimes as: "trespassing, prostitution, drugs, disorderly conduct, petty theft, drinking in public".

The petty theft is later discussed as theft from a supermarket, probably of some small food item.

As to the others, why should any of them be imprisonable offenses? Drinking in public? Drugs? Prostitution?

Trespassing is not breaking and entering, which is reasonable as an imprisonable offense. Shouldn't trespassing be an infraction with a modest fine?

Back to that food item she took from Whole Foods. In a fabulously wealthy nation, how is it that she has come to need to shoplift food to be able to eat. Is that not a failure of the society as a whole?

The proposed answer in the article is to have them committed by some sort of court order and place them indefinitely in a "secure nursing home" facility with an ankle bracelet. That's likely to be more costly than prison since it requires round the clock medical care, and is no better than a prison since they are locked up.

I propose a better solution. Decriminalize all of these things, leave this woman alone, and save the $719,436 it cost to imprison her for minor and non-offenses.

The article also makes the claim, "If someone decides he wants to walk around naked, or cannot give his name to a police officer, the likelihood is that he will end up in jail." If police are arresting people without probable cause or even reasonable suspicion, then it is the police that are acting illegally here. You are not required to identify yourself to any police officer just because he asks, and if he asks without reasonable suspicion or probable cause (it depends on the state which one is the threshold), and you refuse to state your name, then he can not arrest you for that sole reason. If he attempts to do so, it is false arrest, and you have the right under the law, upheld by the supreme court, to use any necessary force to resist illegal arrest.

Regarding walking around naked, that is permitted or tolerated in some areas such as nude beaches. There are also issues where people ask why it is that it is legal for men to go topless, yet is criminal for women to go topless? Should not the law apply equally to both men and women? That is a reasonable question and there is no answer that justifies this discrimination that is not intrinsically sexist. Is that what we want? What is so wrong with even total nudity? There is an old man in Barcelona who is well known for going about completely naked, wearing only his tattoos, pierced foreskin and often a full erection. The police do not bother him.

http://chrisrako.blogspot.com/2007/05/naked-man-of-barcelona...

Has Spanish society collapsed as a result? Is it obvious he should be in prison as The Economist advocates as common sense?

Or consider the Jainists, many of who walk about India naked because of their religious beliefs. Are they criminals as well?

http://s781.photobucket.com/albums/yy95/phuongvien_bucket/Do...

I propose that public nudity and refusing to give your name to police when they have no cause to ask it are both fundamental rights of man and that any society which denies these rights is tyrannical and any person who denies these rights is an enemy of humanity.