handofdave
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Edited Feb 29, 2008, 12:15
1 in 100 US citizens behind bars
Feb 29, 2008, 12:03
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http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation/bal-te.prisons29feb29,0,2057053.story
.... And the vast majority of prisoners are nonviolent drug 'offenders' railroaded into jail via mandatory sentencing concocted in the 80s by 'Law and Order' Republicans.
Sentencing laws are changing, but not fast enough. The costs of keeping people locked up has exploded along with the numbers of people incarcerated- some states spend as much on prisons as they do higher education. If that's not a wake-up call, I don't know what is.
Curse that bastard Rockefeller, he was such a stupid git...
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Rhiannon
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Re: 1 in 100 US citizens behind bars
Feb 29, 2008, 12:41
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That's such a mad statistic I thought you might have got the number wrong, but of course not.
here's a list of the world's prison populations:
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs2/r234.pdf
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handofdave
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Re: 1 in 100 US citizens behind bars
Feb 29, 2008, 13:09
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We have half the convicts for the whole human race. It certainly is madness.
There's a certain very punishment-oriented thread of thought that runs thru the American psyche.
It extends all the way up to natural disasters- you'll hear all sorts of gnashing about how 'God is punishing the USA' from the psycho Christian camp.
It gets worse the farther you travel into the middle of the continent. My neighbor spent a year in prison out in Kansas for possession of marijuana. A year of his life, costing the state over 15,000 dollars, because he had some smoke on him.
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