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The study (PDF) from the Pew Research Center's Economic Mobility Project, released Tuesday, reports that the US prison population has more than quadrupled since 1980, from 500,000 to 2.3 million, making the US's incarceration rate the highest in the world, beating former champions like Russia and South Africa.
The average elementary school classroom has at least one student whose parent is in prison.
And our prison population has quadrupled in the past thirty years to give the US the highest rate of incarceration in the world.
This is just astounding, and unacceptable.
The study (PDF) from the Pew Research Center's Economic Mobility Project, released Tuesday, reports that the US prison population has more than quadrupled since 1980, from 500,000 to 2.3 million, making the US's incarceration rate the highest in the world, beating former champions like Russia and South Africa.
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The war on drugs combined with a law enforcement infrastructure that operates on quotas and feeds the private corrections system are to blame. Creating more laws that aren't needed just creates more criminals who shouldn't be criminalized in the first place. The three strikes law is another example of judicial atrocity. Violent crime and murder have been on the decline for the past decade or so even though reporting has increased something like 200%. (I forget the exact number, read it a long time ago.)
There is no real justification for the number of people being in prison that are. Canada's federal conservatives have increased spending by about $3 billion to fund the building of new prisons, even though they aren't needed. More prisons means more need to fill them, which means more useless laws. I don't usually play the partisan card but it's typically conservative powers that increase prison populations with their straight punitive model.
The war on drugs combined with a law enforcement infrastructure that operates on quotas and feeds the private corrections system are to blame. Creating more laws that aren't needed just creates more criminals who shouldn't be criminalized in the first place. The three strikes law is another example of judicial atrocity. Violent crime and murder have been on the decline for the past decade or so even though reporting has increased something like 200%. (I forget the exact number, read it a long time ago.)
There is no real justification for the number of people being in prison that are. Canada's federal conservatives have increased spending by about $3 billion to fund the building of new prisons, even though they aren't needed. More prisons means more need to fill them, which means more useless laws. I don't usually play the partisan card but it's typically conservative powers that increase prison populations with their straight punitive model.
good post... and today I learned that the USA ranks 38th in technological infrastructure out of 40 polled and has one of the highest Infant Death Mortality Rates out of all 1st Wold Countries. There are far more important things to worry about than all the petty crimes people are getting charged with. Factor in the ****ty health care system and the near criminal behaviour of insurance companies and oil companies... puts things in perspective. But then again, I've lived my life very well and had tons of adventures and have never been arrested. Was easy... so what is with all these people breaking even petty laws? Seems like they have some problems...
good post... and today I learned that the USA ranks 38th in technological infrastructure out of 40 polled and has one of the highest Infant Death Mortality Rates out of all 1st Wold Countries.
There are far more important things to worry about than all the petty crimes people are getting charged with. Factor in the ****ty health care system and the near criminal behaviour of insurance companies and oil companies... puts things in perspective. But then again, I've lived my life very well and had tons of adventures and have never been arrested. Was easy... so what is with all these people breaking even petty laws? Seems like they have some problems...
Also the highest maternal death rate in the developed world. It has to do with the way children are born. I highly recommend watching the documentary "The business of being born". It's not sensational and just gives you the facts.
Funny this is brought up.
A guy that I used to work with, as of this week, got busted making meth.
It's his third strike, so he's getting 25 to life.
He's got a kid too.
Really screwed up stuff.
Don't put to much stock in that statistic.
There is a lot that effects infant mortality, beyond U.S. medical care.
All those drug crimes adding up
[citation needed] There may be pocket areas of isolated incidents involving quotas, but setting quotas is unlawful.The war on drugs combined with a law enforcement infrastructure that operates on quotas
Funny this is brought up.
A guy that I used to work with, as of this week, got busted making meth.
It's his third strike, so he's getting 25 to life.
He's got a kid too.
Really screwed up stuff.
They do what they do and they know that it is wrong, and they know that there are consequences. Parents who discipline the way you suggest we should treat criminals in society... their children grow up to be those criminals.The thing is that it doesn't make any sense from a social standpoint. Most petty felons do what they do because they lack the resources and training for anything else.
So there is always a "aww poor criminal" excause to why someone is a criminal? You think they make these decisions because of some societal problem and not because they lack the motivation to work hard for little instead of working little for much? The drug sales business is easy money and becomes an addiction.It would be cheaper to imprison them for the short term, rehabilitate them, and then put them into halfway houses and external training programs from there on. They are repeat offenders because they either have little recourse or their crime communities draw them back in once they get out. OR, their criminal tendencies are heightened from being around other criminals in prison! It's just absurd.
A do nothing about crime system does not rectify criminal behavior, it enables it furthur. In order to talk about this subject matter any, You'd actually have to get to know some criminals first bub.A crime and punishment system does not rectify criminal behaviour, it just enables it further.
That's true, but when you compare developed nations there is an obvious disparity between the U.S. and everyone else.
They do what they do and they know that it is wrong, and they know that there are consequences. Parents who discipline the way you suggest we should treat criminals in society... their children grow up to be those criminals.
THAT is why we have so many criminals, parents aren't doing their ****ing jobs of enforcing doing right from doing wrong.
So there is always a "aww poor criminal" excause to why someone is a criminal? You think they make these decisions because of some societal problem and not because they lack the motivation to work hard for little instead of working little for much? The drug sales business is easy money and becomes an addiction.
A do nothing about crime system does not rectify criminal behavior, it enables it furthur. In order to talk about this subject matter any, You'd actually have to get to know some criminals first bub.
Other nations don't have the same cultural problems that the U.S. Does.
I am not saying that we should let criminals run rampant, so I don't know where you got that idea from. I also don't think hands-off parenting is a good idea. In fact is the probably one of the worst parenting methods. But just because we need to address criminals doesn't mean the system has to be all about punishment. "Corrections" means rehabilitation, something that the focus has been taken away from. Prisons have become places where criminals get sent and they become better at crime, forming connections on the inside.
Nowhere was I excusing criminal behaviour, but I did say that some things which are crimes should not be crimes, like drug possession.
I never suggested we do nothing. Non sequitur, bub.
You're right... other nations have worse cultural problems, but their prison populations are nowhere near the percentage you see in the U.S.
And how is their actual CRIME RATE ye of many answers.
Three strikes rule: Applies to California. How about the rest of the state???Generally, it is lower... because they shift the penal system toward rehabilitation instead of punishment. Prison sentences are lower for non-violent offenses, and you will never see anything so absurd as the three strikes rule for felonies.
Whcih is no different from many areas of the US.In Canada for example, sentences tend to be halved according to good behaviour and co-operation with rehab programs.
Blah Blah, Conspiracy, Blah Blah.There is no benefit to society by keeping non-violent offenders behind bars for the long-term. But of course, they already know that in the American system, they just don't care. The prison system is big business, and the more fodder the better. You can almost always trace the problems back to money and profit motives.
You've broken laws. We all have.
Every single one of us is a criminal; some of us just haven't been caught.
White skin tends to offer one 65% decreased visibility to cops.
Affluence offers the additional protection of privacy in which to commit one's crimes.
Shows how weak the minds of our society are that they allow some stupid substance to control it like that.....
*shrug* No sympathy. They knew it was illegal.
It also shows how weak minds are willing to pay fifty or sixty grand a year to keep an addict locked up.
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