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08-18-2013, 9:07am | #1 | ||||||
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Prison population
I have been saying this for 30 damn years. That would have put me at 18 years of age, smarter than most of our dumb ass politicians. Prohibition doesn't work, we have made the crime, stuffed our prisons, ruined countless lives for minor infractions and victimless crimes, and the list goes on. Don't get me wrong, Holder should still be in prison for some of the things he has done that are completely against the law, but you would've thunk, that after alcohol prohibition that maybe, just freakin' maybe, we would have learned something. Well, I guess not, but hopefully late is better than never. The drug war has always been a farce and always will be. Our bad policy has created part of the mess we are currently in. And as I've said on here many times also, prisons for profit are dangerous things. I pulled this off CNN which I don't consider by any means the best source for news out there. I just hope enough people wake up before it's entirely too late.
August 17th, 2013 U.S. wakes up to its prison nightmare By Global Public Square staff I was struck by a piece of news recently that is good for America, shows that our politicians are learning from their mistakes, and are actually cooperating with each other – on both sides of the aisle. Sounds too good to be true? For many years, the United States has had a growing problem in its criminal justice system. As Global Public Square has pointed out before, the United States is number one in the world when it comes to incarceration – by far. In 2009, for example, for every 100,000 citizens, 760 Americans were in prison. That was five times the rate of incarceration in Britain, eight times the rate in Germany and South Korea, and 12 times the rate in Japan. This trend began about 40 years ago. In 1970, state prisons had a combined total of 174,000 inmates. By 2009, they had 1.4 million – an eight-fold increase. And these correctional systems cost a lot of money of course – nearly $80 billion a year, more than the GDP of Croatia or Tunisia. Well it seems that finally, common sense is prevailing. Attorney General Eric Holder made an important speech this week admitting that our prisons are overcrowded and costly. He specifically called for a reduction in mandatory sentences for low-level drug offenders. It's important the attorney general brought up drugs, because the numbers are startling. Federal prisons, the group Holder was referring to, account for about 14 percent of our total inmates. In these prisons, the most serious charge for nearly half of all inmates is a drug offence. Compare that with state prisons, where only 20 percent of the inmates have a drug offence as their most serious charge. More from CNN: Shame of mandatory minimums Now, here is what is interesting. The federal prison population has increased every single year since 1980. On the other hand, state prison populations have been declining in recent years, so much so that the overall number of inmates – state plus federal – is actually down in each of the past three years. And here is the best part: the declines encompass 28 states, red AND blue. Part of these declines are because budgets were simply collapsing. But it could also be because of a growing acknowledgment that the war on drugs has failed. According to the pro-reform Drug Policy Alliance, the United States spends about $50 billion a year on the drug war – adding up to a trillion dollars in the last four decades – but there has been no real change in addiction rates. Americans are not more prone to drugs or crime than citizens of other countries, so why should we put so many people in prison? Well, the good news is that the numbers are finally too large to ignore. The states are already acting. And Holder's comments will add momentum to a growing chorus for reform. The greatest challenge in pushing these numbers further down will be the prison lobby. Believe it or not, many of our prisons are run by private companies that then lobby state legislatures massively for bigger prisons, larger budgets, and of course more prisoners. According to the non-profit Justice Policy Institute, the two largest private prison companies in America together generate revenues of $3 billion a year – paid by taxpayers, of course. These private prison companies also happen to be major donors to a number of state campaigns, lobbying for more resources. If our politicians can take on the prison lobbies, there really is hope for America. |
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08-18-2013, 3:42pm | #2 | ||||||
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A few years ago a group from the German prison system came to California to study and exchange information with our correctional system. They chose California because we have roughly the same population as Germany, so they figured there would be similarities in the two systems.
They were astonished to find that we have more correctional officers than they have convicts. |
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08-18-2013, 4:59pm | #3 | ||||||
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Its not just private prisons that are pushing the agenda for more inmates. Public employee unions like the California Corrections officers union has been very vocal in pushing three strike and tougher prison sentences.
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08-18-2013, 9:06pm | #4 | ||||||
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Everything is one huge vicious cycle. Amazing that we have that many people imprisoned.
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08-18-2013, 9:23pm | #5 | ||||||
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I Will BET, I am the ONLY MAN ALIVE who has been inside ATTICA, WALPOLE, LORTON, and New Mexico back in the mid 80's.....with the inmates....
you can just GUESS WTF I think..... kill all the max guys, make room for more..... the drug problem is another story..... MAX?? YGTBFKM.....take out back and KILL THEM NOW!!!!!!! all else is bullshit.... |
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08-18-2013, 10:57pm | #6 | ||||||
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What percentage of the prison population are illegal aliens? Start getting rid of them to make room for citizens.
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08-20-2013, 2:08am | #7 | |||||||
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Three strike laws I tend to agree with, because idiots who are given two extra chances .. and continue to feck up need to be removed from society. That being said, I do not think that many people in jails/ prisons should be there though. |
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08-20-2013, 8:23am | #8 | ||||||
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How about instead of punish criminals less, why don't we make prison more of a deterrent? No AC, no TV, no Privacy, no luxuries, and of course manual labor. I'll bet we could even make money on our prison system if we leased the manual labor force out to local business to pay for their prison stay. You want to do something more than twiddle your thumbs or hard labor? Read a book. You want out on parole? you better have done something during your stay to better yourself. Sound miserable? You damn right it is, as it should be.
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08-20-2013, 10:33am | #9 | ||||||||
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Quote:
California’s prison guards lock up reforms | CalWatchDog Quote:
What we need to do is start flogging people again for minor crimes. Like Singapore. Take them, whip them with a cane then tell them "Next time it doubles". Watch the recidivism rate drop |
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