Slammed: Welcome to the Age of Incarceration
What happens when you lock up 1 in every 100 American adults?
The number first appeared in headlines earlier this year: Nearly one in four of all prisoners worldwide is incarcerated in America. It was just the latest such statistic. Today, one in nine African American men between the ages of 20 and 34 is locked up. In 1970, our prisons held fewer than 200,000 people; now that number exceeds 1.5 million, and when you add in local jails, it's 2.3 million—1 in 100 American adults. Since the 1980s, we've sat by as the numbers inched higher and our prison system ballooned, swallowing up an ever-larger portion of the citizenry. But do statistics like these, no matter how disturbing, really mean anything anymore? What does it take to get us to sit up and notice?
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The MoJo Prison Guide
Everything you wanted to know about prison but were afraid to ask
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Probation Profiteers
In Georgia's outsourced justice system, a traffic ticket can land you deep in the hole.
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When Prison Guards Go Soft
Even California's powerful prison guards' union thinks more prisons are a bad idea.
Apparently, it takes a looming financial crisis. For there is another round of bad news, the logical extension of the first: The more money a state spends on building and running prisons, the less there is for everything else, from roads and bridges to health care and public schools. At the pace our inmate population has been expanding, America's prison system is becoming, quite simply, too expensive to sustain. That is why Kansas, Texas, and at least 11 other states have been trying out new strategies to curb the cost—reevaluating their parole policies, for instance, so that not every parolee who runs afoul of an administrative rule is shipped straight back to prison. And yet our infatuation with incarceration continues.
There have been numerous academic studies and policy reports and journalistic accounts analyzing our prison boom, but this phenomenon cannot be fully measured in numbers. That much became apparent to me when, beginning in 2000, I spent nearly four years shadowing a woman who'd just been released from prison. She'd been locked up for 16 years for a first-time drug crime, and her absence had all but destroyed her family. Her mother had taken in her four young children after her arrest, only to die prematurely of kidney failure. One daughter was deeply depressed, the other was seething with rage, and her youngest son had followed her lead, diving into the neighborhood drug culture and then winding up in prison himself.
The criminal justice system had punished not only her but her entire family. How do you measure the years of wasted hours—riding on a bus to a faraway prison, lining up to be scanned and searched and questioned, sitting in a bleak visiting room waiting for a loved one to walk in? How do you account for all the dollars spent on collect calls from prison—calls that can cost at least three times as much as on the outside because the prison system is taking a cut? How do you begin to calculate the lessons absorbed by children about deprivation and punishment and vengeance? How do you end the legacy of incarceration?
The US holds 1 in 4
of the world's prisoners.
This is not to say that nobody deserves to go to prison or that we should release everyone who is now locked up. There are many people behind bars who you would not want as your neighbor, but in our hunger for justice we have lost perspective. We treat 10-year sentences like they're nothing, like that's a soft penalty, when in much of the rest of the world a decade behind bars would be considered extraordinarily severe. This is what separates us from other industrialized countries: It's not just that we send so many people to prison, but that we keep them there for so long and send them back so often. Eight years ago, we surpassed Russia to claim the dubious distinction of having the world's highest rate of incarceration; today we're still No. 1.
If awards were granted to the country with the most surreal punishments, we would certainly win more than our share. Thirty-six straight years in solitary confinement (the fate of two men convicted in connection with the murder of a guard in Louisiana's Angola prison). A 55-year sentence for a small-time pot dealer who carried a gun during his sales (handed down by a federal court in Utah in 2004). Life sentences for 13-year-olds. (In 2005, Human Rights Watch counted more than 2,000 American inmates serving life without parole for crimes committed as juveniles. The entire rest of the world has only locked up 12 kids without hope of release.) Female prisoners forced to wear shackles while giving birth. (Amnesty International found 48 states that permitted this practice as of 2006.) A ban on former prisoners working as barbers (on the books in New York state).
POPULATION GROWTH
Sources: Bureau of Justice Statistics; US Census
ARRESTS AND INCARCERATION
(rate per 100,000 people)
Sources: Bureau of Justice Statistics; Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics Online. (No 2006 drug data.)
America is expert at turning citizens into convicts, but we've forgotten how to transform convicts back into citizens. In 1994, Congress eliminated Pell grants for prisoners, a move that effectively abolished virtually all of the 350 prison college programs across the country. That might not seem like a catastrophe, until you consider that education has been proven to help reduce recidivism. (This was the conclusion of a recent paper by the Urban Institute, which reviewed 49 separate studies.) As the New York Times' Adam Liptak has pointed out, our prisons used to be models of redemption; de Tocqueville praised them in Democracy in America. Many prisons still call themselves "correctional facilities," but the term has become a misnomer. Most abandoned any pretense of rehabilitation long ago. Former California governor Jerry Brown even went so far as to rewrite the state's penal code to stress that the primary mission of that state's prisons is punishment.
Our cell blocks are packed with men and women who cannot read or write, who never graduated from high school—75 percent of state inmates—who will be hard-pressed to find a job once they are released. Once freed, they become second-class citizens. Depending on the state, they may be denied public housing, student loans, a driver's license, welfare benefits, and a wide range of jobs. Perhaps there is no more damning statistic than the fact that within three years, half will be convicted of a new crime.
Recently, there have been some hopeful signs. In April, the Second Chance Act was finally signed into law; it will provide federal grants to programs that help prisoners reenter society. But our punishment industry—which each year spends millions lobbying federal and state lawmakers—has grown so massive and so entrenched that it will take far more than one piece of legislation to begin to undo its far-reaching effects.
Just look at our felony disenfranchisement laws, which prohibit 5.3 million people from voting—including 13 percent of African American men. These numbers actually underestimate the scope of the problem, as many ex-prisoners believe they cannot vote even if they can. And so the legacy of our prison boom continues: We've become a two-tier society in which millions of ostensibly free people are prohibited from enjoying the rights and privileges accorded to everyone else—and we continue to be defined by our desire for punishment and revenge, rather than by our belief in the power of redemption.
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Time and time again I have been locked up for traffic tickets.....No DUI's, no accidents, no speeding, nothing but being poor and not being able to either afford insurance (gasp!) or pay the damn fines.
The last time I was locked up in Jefferson County for a ticket I couldnt pay for a light violation (taillight)
ticket and they locked me up and didnt give me my meds....I almost died, my blood pressure went up so high so fast I literally keeled over from withdrawls of my meds. Then they fined me $800 dollars on top of it....Of course I cant pay it and I will end up being hauled away again sometime for the same damn ticket. 2 other countys want me for the same piddly crap.....They have taken my license which took any chance of making a good living with it....
Now I have sold my truck and am sliding face first into economic disaster of
end of days proportions. I am 45 and my wife is 47 and a cancer patient as well as a diabetic. We take 23 prescriptions combined per month. How long do you think we will last?? Not long...as we get evicted in 9 days and I dont even have the means to move my stuff.
All for a traffic ticket, thanks so much.
Pig State America
Your msg resonates loud and clear-------wish I could help but this country has become a gulag archipelago going back to FDR. It sounds like you live in cally-----the Yellow State. I would renounce my US citizenship just to never have to see this god damned State of californicate ever again. California's coprophagous system of traffic and vehicular legislation, enforcement and adjudication is the most execrable swindle this side of the far side of Hell, next to the federal reserve bank.
Corrupt public and private office holders need to die en mass in the bloodiest holocaust (a real one this time) since the dawn of mankind.
I'm sick of this country and its rat fart regime.
Prison
I think it sounds like Colorado, the prison state. My life ruined and the kidnapper rewarded. Haven't seen my son in five years and I lost my teaching career over a custody dispute...not to mention three years in prison. Same "crime" is a misdemeanor here in NM. Can't find a job, I am 55 with a Master's, and have lost everything through lies and being made a commodity by the State of CO that never allows pardons or to "pay your debt to society." Guys, just take your kid over state lines and tell CO courts bs about your ex and you too can get your ex put away when she crosses the same state line with custody papers to retrieve her child. Oh and record anything she says....Yeah, big criminals you are putting away...
traffic ticket incarceration/fines
I am in total understanding and empathetic RTMAN, to your situation...it parallels mine almost exactly. Due to ammended traffic law in pennsylvania (which ,of course,I was unaware), I've spent a total of 9 month incarcerated over the past 5 years due to being illegally profiled and subsequently pulled over time after tiem for driving under suspension. This suspension began due to a lapse in insurance coverage and too many points on my then active license...over a 5 years, l.e. have been relentless in pulling me over and their reason?..."we know your license is suspended". That is NOT A LEGAL/CONSTITUTIONAL MEANS FOR PULLING A PERSON ON A PUBLIC HIGHWAY OVER. Beseides the incaceration, i have a 2 year tail of probation in which, upon adjudication, this 'county' judge stated that due to the terms of the type of probation (intermediate?), if I 'screw up' in any way, the remainder of my probation will be served in state correctional facility????????
I'm 28 and have chronic pain issues and I'm the single parent of an autistic young adult...the date I'm priviedged to get my drivers license back is 2022...The system is broken and due to this, lives become broken and paralized. I'm so frustrated that I've actually thought about checking out. As you stated, I now have no ability to go to work and I'm a registered medical assistant. Not to mention the missed opportunities that my autistic son has been deprived due to to the legal money making life destroying hold which the government sanctions without pause. The best ot you and your wife. Peace.
traffic ticket incarceration/fines
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I am in total understanding and empathetic RTMAN, to your situation...it parallels mine almost exactly. Due to ammended traffic law in pennsylvania (which ,of course,I was unaware), I've spent a total of 9 month incarcerated over the past 5 years due to being illegally profiled and subsequently pulled over time after tiem for driving under suspension. This suspension began due to a lapse in insurance coverage and too many points on my then active license...over a 5 years, l.e. have been relentless in pulling me over and their reason?..."we know your license is suspended". That is NOT A LEGAL/CONSTITUTIONAL MEANS FOR PULLING A PERSON ON A PUBLIC HIGHWAY OVER. Beseides the incaceration, i have a 2 year tail of probation in which, upon adjudication, this 'county' judge stated that due to the terms of the type of probation (intermediate?), if I 'screw up' in any way, the remainder of my probation will be served in state correctional facility????????
I'm 28 and have chronic pain issues and I'm the single parent of an autistic young adult...the date I'm priviedged to get my drivers license back is 2022...The system is broken and due to this, lives become broken and paralized. I'm so frustrated that I've actually thought about checking out. As you stated, I now have no ability to go to work and I'm a registered medical assistant. Not to mention the missed opportunities that my autistic son has been deprived due to to the legal money making life destroying hold which the government sanctions without pause. The best ot you and your wife. Peace.
I have been watching this occur closely now since 1994. It is ony getting worse. Think what it will be like when all cash is electronic... the government will be the paymaster, and the grocery store cash register. Aeronautical engineering prison 4 anyone?
This really isn't that complex.
We have a high percentage of minorities and a lack of common social norms and mores.
Countries with common social norms have less of a need to enforce standards for behavior with imprisonment.
We have a great deal of diversity of views and norms. We have several large groups of races and ethnicities with significantly higher rates of criminality. Again, persons with those same ethnicities in their home countries (e.g., Ghanans) aren't in jail, because there are common standards for behavior there. Here, their 85 IQ, lack of education, inability to delay gratification, and so forth causes them to break laws and go to prison.
Increasing secularism causes the lack of common social norms to become more pervasive.
Not saying any of this is good or bad (my parents were immigrants, albeit from a country with low criminality), and I'm not religious. Just pointing out the obvious. If you have seen the U.S. compared with other countries lacking the huge blocks of Hispanics and blacks, the answer to this becomes painfully -- both in terms of implications and extent -- obvious.
Why we can't talk about this in this country is amazing to me -- we have the constant focus on stopping racism and discrimination while promoting multiculturalism and secularism, but we're not allowed to discuss some of the downsides of that focus. Ridiculous, really, in terms of getting actual improvement.
"Multiculturalsm" does not cause mass incarceration
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It is truly repugnant to see people trying to claim that racial diversity or "a lack of common social norms" causes mass incarceration.
a) why did the USA have an incarceration rate on the global average until the mid seventies ? Were there no non-wasps in America before then ?
b) why don't other countries with wide ethnic diversity have the same incarceration rate ? Italy with immigrants from all round the Middle East and Africa has amongst the lowest incarceration rates of any first world country. India with insurgencies in Kashmir and East Bengal, Tibetan a Tamil refugees and no common language or religion among its citizens still has amongst the lowest incarceration rates in the world.
The US is not very culturally diverse when measured against many other countries - without exception it has many times higher incarceration rate.
What US culture has is a self righteous love of inflicting unlimited malice on others - manifest in paranoid militarism in foreign policy and notion of "justice" that thinks it proper to have police permanently patrolling inside schools to arrest pre-teens and haul them before courts in leg irons and belly chains - while "protecting children" by trying them in secret and applying indefinite detention by default - so they are no longer children by the time they get a chance to tell of the abuse.
Sven, you're a moron!
"We have a high percentage of minorities and a lack of common social norms and mores.
Countries with common social norms have less of a need to enforce standards for behavior with imprisonment. "
Sven, my sister-in-law is from Ghana, the country you so thouroughly deride as an example of a country with "low IQs" and she has a PhD. Other Ghanians that I know are highly intelligent, not to mention usually better-behaved and better Christians than most "Americans" I know.
If multiculturalism is to blame, why aren't ALL multicultural countries faced with an enormous prison population? Canada is also an immigrant nation, as is Australia; neither of them incarcerate a huge percentage of their population.
Many years ago, Americans were hysterical about the "hordes" of Irish immigrants, who were said to be of inferior intelligence and genetically prone to crime.
Nowadays, we here the same about the new immigrants, from Asia or Africa.
The fact is, immigrants are less likely to have lawyers or even a rudimentary knowledge of the American law system. Therefore, they are more likely to be convicted of crimes than those with money and power.
However, most of the people in prison in America are NOT immigrants. They are Americans, born and raised here. They are usually poor people, Americans with low IQs and little education. Wealthy criminals (I can think of quite a few) get "off the hook".
If it weren't for the Christian immigrants from Korea, South America or the Carribbean, America would probably be entirely atheist. Along with this would come the eroding of a belief in morality. The immigrants I know are more hard-working and more moral than most Americans.
Your lack of reasoning proves that perhaps you are the one with the 85 IQ and "lack of common social mores"!
Heres an idea why don’t you teach English overseas? Good $$$ http://www.eslbean.com
Pig State USA
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Yes. but the man has to escape from the "freedom loving" US and get over there first and that costs an arm and a leg------clearly he doesn't have that kind of funding.
Teaching overseas may be an option....as long as you don't choose to do it in China like a good friend of mine, the late Daniel Handley French (1971-2007) made the mistake of doing.
Long ugly story.
Teaching English in Europe
I do this already. It doesn't cost "an arm and a leg", it just requires some intelligence, maybe some kind of college degree, and a bit of resourcefulness. You have to be able to get a cheap plane ticket (you don't need a visa to go to Europe) and a European cell phone, talk your way into getting some kind of teaching job , get a work permit (AFTER your successful job search, of course) and find place to live. It helps if you learn the language. I did this 5 years ago, becuase I was sick of the situation in the US.
Unfortunately, many in America are trapped, not only by lack of money (which is bad enough, but can be overcome), but by a lack of education, resources and imagination. They can't see a way out, so they convince themselves that it couldn't be better elsewhere.
Seems to me that states are enacting and enforcing stupid laws that are causing the increase in prisoners! Stupid states and stupid kangaroo court systems.
You should be proud that you have so many criminals locked up where they deserve to be. Here in the UK, criminals can do exactly as they please. You can literally get caught burgling somoenes home a hundred times for drug money and still get away with it if you promise to cut down on drug use in court. Nowhere is safe anymore beacuse our government refuses to tackle crime and lock the scumbags away. Despite massive immigration of criminals from Eastern Europe the government is actually trying to find ways to REDUCE the prison population, not increase it. That is absolutely crazy if you ask me.
Gulag Archipelago USA
Sorry, mate....this is one yank who has no pride at all in the Pork State that this so-called "freedom loving country" has morphed into----and you are wildly missing the whole point: we have the single best LAW ever written...the US Constitution and "laws made in pursuit thereof"----in America the few good laws we have (and more than which we have never needed) are the ones that are never enforced-----the bad "law" that is either un-or openly ANTI constitutional is what is always shoved down our throats. You obviously don't realize that there are three separate and distinct "laws" for every two people walking the streets of America TODAY.....whether they belong here or not. This country and its people have been drowned in a tsunami wave and back wash of nomographic diarrhea
To a hammer, everything is a nail. To a right wing republican, everything is an excuse to cut taxes and deregulate. And to a racist, everything is an excuse to trot out "IQ85", "meritocracy" and "political correctness." But you missed the point of this article. The point is that EVEN IF everything you say were 100% correct, our incarceration rate has increased disproportionately to our rate of immigration. And for that reason, we can't afford to keep locking people up. That's the issue.
Actually the UK system isn't that bad, other than it going the american way and locking people up for piddling drug offences, we also don't murder people for any offence, I'd rather have our system than the american one. And there are areas with a disproportionate black population, bradford being the obvious example of that but oddly that doesn't equate to much higher crime rates, it's a cultural problem and american culture is based on discrimination as it has been for many years, change that and the rest will follow.
Whats there to complain about? As Americans, we've been virtually asking for it for years now. We blow a lot of hot air about freedom, yet freedom is the first thing we put on the chopping block when one of us wants to make a difference.
When the government took it upon itself to influence the culture, few cared and many supported it. When the government took it upon itself to start arresting people for exercising their rights, no one came to their defense. When congressmen decided to dictate terms to the courts through mandatory minimum laws, few cared enough even to understand the implications. Now, with over 2 million Americans behind bars, it is still just a few fringe groups making an issue out of it.
America has become the land of the nominally free. If we don't demand radical changes, the model for our future society is Federal Prison Industries. The only issue remaining will be size and sustainability.
Hmm...I see you using the term lucky. Did you not read the comment about the guy going to jail for a traffic ticket? Screw it, why don't we all just go to jail so those that don't understand politcal oppression and freedom of choice can live in their pre-planned lives prepared for them by the very government they worship. BTW, I'm white O.O
this is why you should get a job as a CO. I.e. if you can't beat em join em
just look at the following MONTHLY salaries
http://www.doc.wa.gov/jobs/
i mean yes you have a high rick of being shanked
YOUR VOTE DON"T COUNT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
we have been lied to all along we dont live in a free country ! you have the right to do what you want as long as you do what your told !!! and thats it so tell the truth !!!!
Who do we have to thank for the upsurge of our prison population? the nixon administration. The war on drugs used to be called the war on poverty, but nixion needed a scape goat to divert the media attention from his illegal bombings in cambodia. So he started the longest and most expensive (in terms of money and lives) war in history. Look at the timeline of our incarceration rate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:US_incarceration_timeline.gif
Those that defend the war on drugs seem to think that people that use illegal drugs deserve what the get. However, these people fail to see the actual statistics of how much damage illegal drugs really do. Alcohol, nicotine, and prescription drugs kills at least hundred times more people than illegal drugs do each year (directly and indirectly). But yet over 50% of our prisons remain filled with non-violent drug offenders. Where is the logic in this?
The real damage of illegal drugs is the tax payers and the people spending years in jail for petty non-violent crimes.
Guess who benefits the most from our current drug policies? The alcohol and nicotine industries. They have strong lobbies that continue the war to maintain their monopoly on addictive substances. Pharmaceutical companies are also deeply involved trying to keep marijuana illegal so that people won't be able to grow their own medicine without their intervention. Don't forget the multi billion private prison industry whom makes more money the more prisoners they hold.
Prohibition never works and only results in a dangerous unregulated black market and persecution of those that get involved.
I am so glad to learn that I am not waging a battle all by myself. The Christian religion (which is one of the largest in America) simply does not use the most important gift they were given "FORGIVENESS". Regardless of whether or not they continue to serve a term behind bars, it is our responsibility to forgive them for their mistake in judgement and try to help them to change their lives. Anyone who is a parent knows that if you overuse punnishment on a child, it ceases to work. These are just grown up children.
It's not a matter of
It's not a matter of forgiveness but what is right. When people break the law, they are subjecting themselves to the punishment dictated by law (and the state). Once that punishment, however served, is done, they have paid the price for that crime and should then be able to continue their lives. You do not continue to punish people after they have served their punishment! It doesn't make any sense, and that's what's so messed up. Even if we don't agree with the type or length of sentences handed out, the fact that their crime follows them AFTER they have so-called served their sentence is abominable.
Reading these comments I finally came to the one written by Jakeman, and I have to say he hit the nail squarely on the head.
It's the so-called "War on Drugs" that has caused the prison over-population. Here in California, we voted to have drug users assigned to court-ordered recovery houses (both state run and private industry). But somehow that doesn't always happen.
My wife spent 15 years as a Program Director at a private drug rehab house. Their success rate was very good for those who had not learned to become career criminals though repeated incarcerations. Many clients came out of prison to rehab because their sentences included prison and rehab.
It's the war on drugs.
The latest problem in California is the "Sieze & Sell" policy. The authorities sieze your property and sell it. They then spend the money on themselves - leather jackets, sports activity tickets, and even party houses. A recent case in California found two officers guilty of targeting Medical Marijuanna users (permitted to grow a maximum 20 plants) of growing illegal drugs. After going through the courts and found not guilty, they couldn't get theuir assetts back because it would cost more in legal fees than the assets themselves!
But then this is only one failure of the so-called war on drugs.
To the guy saying that my points were made like a hammer trying to hit the nails of immigration and 85IQs, consider the distinction between "immigrants," on the one hand, and "minorities," on the other. They're not one and the same. Try to read more closely next time, particularly before using patronizing language.
By the way, I also agree that the "war on drugs" contributes to the U.S.'s disproportionately high incarceration rate.
Sven, what planet are you on? How does increasing secularism cause a lack of common social norms? You are speaking as if a moral commonality based on religiosity is the adhesive to keep a society crime free, when there are many countries around the world that are highly secular yet have low criminality.
Have you ever thought that it IS racism that leads to the high incarceration rate of blacks and Hispanics in this country rather then their inability to assimilate - especially since many of these people are actually American citizens, not immigrants.
Want to read more on why this may be happening? It COULD have something to do with privately run prisons. See www.dunwalke.com
It certainly opened my eyes.
Peace.
Uh, Sven...you may be a little out of touch here. Diversity does not lead to incarceration. Harsh drug laws, kangaroo courts, police and DEA corruption, the tendency of police to lie after an arrest...these are the types of things that contribute to high prison populations. If you are convicted of a drug crime, the police can take your home, car, possessions, even children. Our laws need to be changed to minimize victimless crimes.
Of course it has everything to do with contract prisons. These operators grease the palms of "law and order" politicians so that more people are locked up so that more prisons have to be built because there are more criminals "out there"...
Sven - you disgust me. You really don't have a clue. Color, ethnicity doesn't cause the problem - the TREATMENT of color and ethnicity causes the problem! (Yes, there are exceptions to everything - good from bad and bad from good.)
all hail america . nice job !! outstripping russia for 1st place . in a country where murder is less important than a bag of maryjane to prosecute . when you turn normal folks into criminals everyone is guilty . heres a thought: lets give the people who police the system a " ZERO TOLERANCE" policy. cops who commit crimes should be serving double time for infringements, any infringement. CEO's who rip off taxpayers should be put to death . religous leaders who are pedifiles should be neutered . politicians who line their pockets at the taxpayers expense should be publicly beaten on tv .
lets face it. we are living in a natzi police state .
It is the "war on drugs" that has caused our beloved freedoms to dissapate away. The "war" is actually a civil war as any nation that makes war on it's own people is in a state of civil war. This goes hand in hand with the war on private ownership of firearms,(must disarm the enemy) and private for profit prisons (money to be made in concentration camp contracts)as well as new private mercenary armys (unbeholden to any known command structure or accountability). Our freedom is LOST! This is why 75% of Americans say we are going down the wrong path, because none of us signed up for recruitment to the kind of corporate dictatorship this once great nation is turning into. I had kinda hoped Barak O'bama could turn it around but now he's pandering to the same goons who wanna preserve their corporate hegemonies. Sure he'll be better than Mcain (100 years in Iraq hah!) but will he end the war on drugs? (as a former user he can't really continue it without tacitly agreeing he should have been busted himself, and if he had we wouldn't be considering the option of having him as POTUS).
Part of this is that the world at-large has become more populous, and the United States along with it. How scammy is the legal system? Well, when you can buy your way out of prison, for all intents and purposes, with a high-dollar lawyer, pretty scammy. Law enforcement can also be a job-for-life thing, and the wages are a pretty penny, to boot. 3,4,5 thousand dollars per month, and beyond. Slam, bam, thank you mam, plant some drugs and then a fake 'bust', and you've got yourself another prison inmate roll statistic/budget justifier for several years. Jobs for america. And, there's other interesting aspects to all this prison stuff, 3 hots and a cot, free medical, now free college education, heck, in some ways, you get further ahead by stealing a car than driving one to work everyday. Prison is a great way to push forward a government agenda, when you basically decide that your citizens aren't good enough, or, have civil rights and stuff and are generally bothersome and in the way and all, and they can be locked up while your new, better-trained, more obedient 'suddenly citizens' hold the machine gun trained on em etc. Well, that's one way to look at it, anyway, another vantage point is that there's so many laws, and so many people that flat don't know the law, that there's bound to be legal trouble. I'm for public oversight of law enforcement and jails and prisons etc. There are genuinely Not Nice people in the world, and the other alternative to having courts and jails and prisons is to have everyone go back to carrying a gun all the time. Which is better? Difficult choice, I think it's all symptomatic of one thing, though, we are in the process of losing our civility, in general, our capacity to treat one another with respect and look out for one another a little bit, as opposed to elbow-in-the-face-onomics. When you have a limited number of jobs, homes, and other resources, and the community of people has a higher demand than what's available, you have a mess in the making, an accident waiting to happen. That's why it's so important to have things like good schools, and public participation in government, so forth and so on, so that problems can be identified, trends be spotted, BEFORE we end up with 10, 20, 30 million people behind bars, some for life. Welcome to the 21st century, your papers, please...
I just loved how they added that remark about '13% of African-Americans'... Seemed prudent, huh?
What a shame America has become. We leaders that should be behind bars but we put people in prisons for 10 years or more for having a joint or two. Something that grows wild. There is no parole for any Federal Prisoners, they have to serve the whole time execpt for any good time granted. Where is the compassion when our political leaders would rather destroy countries, then educate our children. It has been proven, a good education keeps people out of prison.
blah, burn 'em at the stake and be done with it. Not everybody is worth saving, some people are just worthless.
We haven't forgotten how to turn prisoners into citizen's, the prison system in most cases was not designed to rehabilitate prisoners and I believe they have no desire to do so or they would be doing it. A large number of prisoners are recalcitrant and unable to be rehabilitated and there are many who could be if there was a desire to do it.
Have you noticed that anything that the "powers that be" declare war on,be it Illiteracy,Drugs,etc...whatever the subject,it's a lost cause for the gov't.
I think that Sven has a point. Many in the minority community do NOT have the same attitudes and morals and morey's that the rest of the north european society brought to this country. It might not be their fault, but you would think that after all these years they would have assimilated more than they have.
And many in prison have the worst attitude when they get back to the world, they are preditor and should NEVER be let out.
I like that one comment about everyone being able to carry a gun...:-) Then we could start removeing many criminals and not have to pay for them.. When they try and rob a GOOD citizen, they would be shot in self defense, and no more trouble..!!
Bill
I've got to agree with Sven. I spent a lot of time a trainee teacher in some pretty tough neigbourhoods in New Jersey. Almost all of the attitude, bad manners and disrespect I got while teaching was from the black students, it really did amaze me. The white, hispanic or chinese kids were just as under-priveleged but not nearly as aggressive or intense. The schools I worked for were good schools too, all students treated with equal respect and care.
Don't get me wrong, I love black people and it horrified me to think that racists who constantly spew out psuedo-scienctific evidence of black people being more likely to commit crime might even be 1% right, but my experiences certainly changed my perception.
The prison population would reduce if more people decided to just obey the law. Its not that hard, whether you agree with it or not, just go with it and don't waste your life in jail. While we might not all agree with the legal system in the US I'm comforted to know that the police get results - we all know that the vast vast vast majority of convicted criminals are guilty as charged.
I work with juvenile delinquents and their families. I currently have a 16 year-old facing some pretty serious charges. He is being tried as an adult and faces a possible 20 year prison sentence. The problem with juveniles is that they are exactly that. They are not adults, and giving adult sentences to crimes committed by juveniles deprives them of any hope they ever had of a real future. This CHILD is no hardened criminal, although he probably will be by the time he gets out of prison in 10-20 years.
This is not a case of being overeager for justice. This is just plain racism against non-whites. The prison industrial complex is big business and free labor for corporations. It also makes white people feel safer, many of whom are terrified at the thought of having empty prisons. All of this is by design. Whites always need a boogeyman, something to fear and the government always gives it to them. This is the same racist, white supremacist country it was when it was founded at its core because the descendants of the same people are still running it. We deserve our imminent fall from grace in the world and I welcome it wholeheartedly to give white people a big fat dose of the hell they've been imposing on others for centuries.
Random thoughts regarding jail/prison:
Elected officials (Police chiefs, District Attorneys and judges) are major contributors towards this 1 in 4 statistic. Its all about their numbers. All concerned with re-election need to pad their statistics as much as possible.
Victim-less crimes should not result in serving time.
Article VIII in the Bill or Rights states: "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted." How did our country stray so far off course, where it no longer resembles the the vision of it's founders? And how is it that the courts and prison system are not held accountable?
Not every white person is a racist you bloody idiot.
Dear Benjamin,
I too am a teacher--a black teacher. I find disrespectful behavior among teens because of their age, not their race. Your comment "I love black people" reeks of racism. It's the kind of thing racists always say when they don't want to take ownership of their racism. There are cultural differences between different racial groups in terms of how they express themselves, etc. I would wager that the supposed hostility that you perceived from these black teens was in large part you projecting on to them your own feelings of hostility. In terms of criminality among minorities, did you know that according to the Center for Disease Control, white teens were more likely to use and sell drugs, have sex at an early age, carry a gun to school than an other ethnic group? I think that throws your morality claim right out the window and exposes you for the aversive racist you truly are. Perhaps it is stereotypes about black youths that leads to a higher incarceration rate rather than a lack of morality. Perhaps it is also their inability to receive a decent education, especially when the teacher before then has nothing but hatred for them that also contributes to a disproportionate number of them dropping out of school and eventually being locked up. I've had many a white teacher like you--a hypocrite who won't admit just how much they hate black people all the while ignoring the needs of these students in class, sterotyping them, and refusing to understand them. If I were your student (and believe me, your black students know just how you feel about them) I wouldn't respect you either.
In 1990 or close to it The Bureau of Prisons released its business plan showing its intended growth curve. I was amazed by it. How could they tell that ever more people would break laws? They could not. They knew that they would greatly encourage recidivism. If you can't get new customers encourage repeat business. I saw it in a business magazine whose name escape me at the moment.
So between 1970 and now we have grown 11.5 times more diverse and less civil? Bah humbug! Silly rationalizations should be unworthy of any of this magazion's readers.
