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25% of all the prisoners on earth
- Thread starter apophenia
- Start date
Time for a shameless plug.....
Vote Libertarian!
Kathryn
It was on fire when I laid down on it.
Right on!
"There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws."
Guess who.
Shuddhasattva
Well-Known Member
Right on!
"There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws."
Guess who.
Tipper Gore?
Chisti
Active Member
Dang! Sounds like Tom Jefferson, Ayn Rand, Ben Franklin, Noah Webster or the talkative half of Penn & Teller.Right on!
"There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws."
Guess who.
Whoever said it, he/she knows where his/her towel is! We're all criminals now.
Skwim
Veteran Member
"A U.S. Justice Department report released on November 30 showed that a record 7 million people -- or one in every 32 American adults -- were behind bars, on probation or on parole at the end of last year. Of the total, 2.2 million were in prison or jail.
According to the International Centre for Prison Studies at King's College in London, more people are behind bars in the United States than in any other country. China ranks second with 1.5 million prisoners, followed by Russia with 870,000.
The U.S. incarceration rate of 737 per 100,000 people in the highest, followed by 611 in Russia and 547 for St. Kitts and Nevis. In contrast, the incarceration rates in many Western industrial nations range around 100 per 100,000 people.
Groups advocating reform of U.S. sentencing laws seized on the latest U.S. prison population figures showing admissions of inmates have been rising even faster than the numbers of prisoners who have been released.
"The United States has 5 percent of the world's population and 25 percent of the world's incarcerated population. We rank first in the world in locking up our fellow citizens," said Ethan Nadelmann of the Drug Policy Alliance, which supports alternatives in the war on drugs.
"We now imprison more people for drug law violations than all of western Europe, with a much larger population, incarcerates for all offences."
Ryan King, a policy analyst at The Sentencing Project, a group advocating sentencing reform, said the United States has a more punitive criminal justice system than other countries.
source
I believe a lot of the responsibility for the country's large incarceration rate lies with the intolerance fostered by the fundamentalist Christian attitude toward particular acts they regard as harmful to society, which, in other countries, are more accepted or at least tolerated. That and the large population of poor in the USA, primarily minority groups. 15% of the US population live in poverty*According to the International Centre for Prison Studies at King's College in London, more people are behind bars in the United States than in any other country. China ranks second with 1.5 million prisoners, followed by Russia with 870,000.
The U.S. incarceration rate of 737 per 100,000 people in the highest, followed by 611 in Russia and 547 for St. Kitts and Nevis. In contrast, the incarceration rates in many Western industrial nations range around 100 per 100,000 people.
Groups advocating reform of U.S. sentencing laws seized on the latest U.S. prison population figures showing admissions of inmates have been rising even faster than the numbers of prisoners who have been released.
"The United States has 5 percent of the world's population and 25 percent of the world's incarcerated population. We rank first in the world in locking up our fellow citizens," said Ethan Nadelmann of the Drug Policy Alliance, which supports alternatives in the war on drugs.
"We now imprison more people for drug law violations than all of western Europe, with a much larger population, incarcerates for all offences."
Ryan King, a policy analyst at The Sentencing Project, a group advocating sentencing reform, said the United States has a more punitive criminal justice system than other countries.
source
* source
Skwim
Veteran Member
Absolutely. Victimless crimes like recreational drugs, prostitution, pornography, certain sex acts, public nudity or partial nudity can all get one thrown into the clink.
Perhaps we need legalized combat arenas for folks to violently vent frustrations free of legal consequences? Ah, those were the good old days: deathmatch gladiatorial arenas. Now that's real sport! >_<;
Shermana
Heretic
And the Prison Guards Union is quite happy about this fact.
apophenia
Well-Known Member
That seems to be the crucial point. I posted this thread after watching a segment on Stephen Fry's show QI, and he listed many of the products manufactured in this penal slave industry. One of the main customers is the US Army. A lot of soldiers' kit is manufactured exclusively by prison labour.
Some years back I watched a documentary about this, and it was pointed out that whereas towns once resisted having prisons, they now compete for them because there is so much employment in the town for the infrastructure that goes with the prison.
apophenia
Well-Known Member
If you can find a copy of Timothy Leary's book 'Neuropolitics', read the essay 'The Outlaw Industry'. There are many more professions than just prison guards for whom this system is bread and butter.
We'd have a lot less prisoners if we just shot people on sight and/or chopped off appendages instead of throwing people in prison. Less costly also and probably more effective.
We could use some better rehabilitation though to keep the people out of prison after they served their time, the system just keeps people in and out of prison for life.
apophenia
Well-Known Member
So you are suggesting sharia law would be preferable ?
That is the point. The system is designed to do just that. The 'three strikes and you're out' policy means that there are people doing long sentences for stealing candy bars. We aren't talking about 'serious crime' for huge numbers of those incarcerated.
What does this system really say about America ? Are Americans really way more criminally minded than any other country on earth ? That seems like a totally unlikely concept to me. I live in Australia, and our rate of incarceration is 1/7 of that in America. China is often discussed in the news as being a country with a dubious human rights record, and yet also incarcerates people at a rate of less than 1/7 of the rate in the USA.
It is easy to derail discussion of this peculiar fact by starting endless moral debates ( I'm not suggesting that is your intention here idav), but that just avoids the really big question - Why does the land of the free, the land of opportunity and justice for all, have such a staggering number of its people locked up ?
That seems to indicate that either Americans are more inherently criminal, or having these people locked up is a big plus for some other reason. That reason seems to be - slavery is a good business model.
Personally I think less serious non-violent crimes should be tackled with more community sentences and fines.
Skwim
Veteran Member
So which less serious crimes do you think merit community service?