5% of the population, 25% of the prison population

S.A.M.

S.A.M.

uniquely dreadful
Valued Senior Member
A record number of Americans served time in corrections systems across the country in 2007, according to a report released Monday by the Pew Center on the States.

The U.S. correctional population -- those in jail, prison, on probation or on parole -- totaled 7.3 million, or 1 in every 31 adults.

The Pew Center on the States compiled the information from Justice Department and Census Bureau statistics.

America's prison population has skyrocketed over the past quarter century. In 1982, 1 in 77 adults were in the correctional system in one form or another, totaling 2.2 million people.

The United States has 5 percent of the world's population, but 25 percent of the world's prison inmates, the center said.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/03/02/record.prison.population/
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These are some freaking weird statistics. Is there so much undercounting in other places?:confused:
 
There's just more laws that have been enacted as well as better policing of crimes in general.
 
drugs are not only sold or used by black people. far from it. this whole thing of using a race of people to make a negative point is creepy. this is a gratuitous race baiting thread anyway.
 
and i know plenty of areas where black people own nice homes and have good jobs. maybe you should visit some Bowser.
 
cosmictraveler said:
There's just more laws that have been enacted as well as better policing of crimes in general.
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Good point. Let's compare the police forces between the world, including the availability of equipment and training, as well as the number. There are many countries that have more drug tolerance than the US. I mean how many of the 25% are for possession of marijuana?

Let's also compare the numbers. Okay USA is 25%, but does China have 75%? Perhaps 25% is an average number for a country.

The statistic 25% is taken out of context here. We need to know more information before we can draw any conclusions about what the numbers mean. This article has the case shut and closed already. Jeeze.

IOW, 25% doesn't mean jack until we do more research here.
 
John99 said:
drugs are not only sold or used by black people. far from it. this whole thing of using a race of people to make a negative point is creepy. this is a gratuitous race baiting thread anyway.
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No, but they are overwhelmingly incarcerated for them. There are a number of reasons for this. One is the difference under the law between crack and power cocaine. Another is that they live in greater density because they tend to be poor, and so they go outside to do their drugs, where the police can find them. Another is that they can't afford attorneys, so they use public defenders who don't defend them adequately (just consider Rush Limbaugh's light punishment for drug trafficking).
 
This is interesting:

A captive labour force

What has happened over the last 10 years? Why are there so many prisoners?

"The private contracting of prisoners for work fosters incentives to lock people up. Prisons depend on this income. Corporate stockholders who make money off prisoners' work lobby for longer sentences, in order to expand their workforce. The system feeds itself," says a study by the Progressive Labor Party, which accuses the prison industry of being "an imitation of Nazi Germany with respect to forced slave labor and concentration camps."

The prison industry complex is one of the fastest-growing industries in the United States and its investors are on Wall Street. "This multimillion-dollar industry has its own trade exhibitions, conventions, websites, and mail-order/Internet catalogs. It also has direct advertising campaigns, architecture companies, construction companies, investment houses on Wall Street, plumbing supply companies, food supply companies, armed security, and padded cells in a large variety of colors."

According to the Left Business Observer, the federal prison industry produces 100% of all military helmets, ammunition belts, bullet-proof vests, ID tags, shirts, pants, tents, bags, and canteens. Along with war supplies, prison workers supply 98% of the entire market for equipment assembly services; 93% of paints and paintbrushes; 92% of stove assembly; 46% of body armor; 36% of home appliances; 30% of headphones/microphones/speakers; and 21% of office furniture. Airplane parts, medical supplies, and much more: prisoners are even raising seeing-eye dogs for blind people.
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http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8289
 
spidergoat said:
No, but they are overwhelmingly incarcerated for them. There are a number of reasons for this. One is the difference under the law between crack and power cocaine. Another is that they live in greater density because they tend to be poor, and so they go outside to do their drugs, where the police can find them. Another is that they can't afford attorneys, so they use public defenders who don't defend them adequately (just consider Rush Limbaugh's light punishment for drug trafficking).
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there may be different penalties for crack and powder cocaine but i am not so sure if that is true or not. if you get caught with $20-50 worth of either you are going to be arrested though.

afa lawyers, rich black people can afford them too. that is a problem but what is your solution? unless you want all lawyers to be public defenders and get paid like them. is that what you want? i know that i have no problem with that at all.
 
Anything to benefit Wall Street. Even the average American is willing to be enslaved to the nth generational debt, so whats a few [million] prisoners?

But it certainly makes sense that its about money. Few things today that are not.
 
John99 said:
there may be different penalties for crack and powder cocaine but i am not so sure if that is true or not. if you get caught with $20-50 worth of either you are going to be arrested though.

afa lawyers, rich black people can afford them too. that is a problem but what is your solution? unless you want all lawyers to be public defenders and get paid like them. is that what you want? i know that i have no problem with that at all.
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Instead of jail, these people should get free drug treatment. Legalize most if not all drugs, remove the profit aspect of it and the criminals will have to do something else.
 
John99 said:
as it stands now the best solution is spidergoats. the elimination of high priced lawyers.
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I doubt if that will make any difference. I was wondering why any US taxpayer would want to pay for the care and feeding of prisoners since they are strongly opposed to paying for healthcare and education for non-prisoners [:runaway: socialism].

But if Wall Street is profiting from it while taxpayers shell out the moolah, then its not gonna change any more than the bailouts your grandchildren will be paying for.
 
S.A.M. said:
I doubt if that will make any difference. I was wondering why any US taxpayer would want to pay for the care and feeding of prisoners since they are strongly opposed to paying for healthcare and education for non-prisoners [:runaway: socialism].

But if Wall Street is profiting from it while taxpayers shell out the moolah, then its not gonna change any more than the bailouts your grandchildren will be paying for.
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maybe you should ask yourself why so many indians are running away from india to come to u.s.
 
Growth industry

S.A.M. said:

This is interesting:

A captive labour force
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Back around 2001, people tried to make an issue of prisons locally. Not for prison conditions or human rights, but because (gasp!) the prisoners were interfering with entrepreneurs. Like they had this one guy who started his business and was failing because prison labor was undercutting him. "If I'd known what I was getting into," he told a local news station, "I wouldn't have done it."

Well, dude, how about some market research? Oh, shit, I'm just going to go start a business without having any clue who I'm competing against? Whatever happened to capitalism? You know, the "law of the jungle"? The "law of nature"? That philosophy that says people are only getting along when they're fighting one another for money and resources?

I mean, shit ... if I found out I would be going up against prison labor, I'd stay the hell out of the sector.

Of course, even then people were eighty or ninety years late to the issue. Then again, this time it wasn't just women and the disabled who were suffering:

Another word on the condemnation of convicts to tasks at which they cannot hope to make a living after release. Indiana, for example, is a State that has made a great splurge over being in the front rank of modern penological improvements. Yet, according to the report rendered in 1908 by the training school of its "reformatory," 135 were engaged in the manufacture of chains, 207 in that of shirts, and 255 in the foundry--a total of 597 in three occupations. But at this so-called reformatory 59 occupations were represented by the inmates, 39 of which were connected with country pursuits. Indiana, like other States, professes to be training the inmates of her reformatory to occupations by which they will be able to make their living when released. She actually sets them to work making chains, shirts, and brooms, the latter for the benefit of the Louisville Fancy Grocery Co. Broom-making is a trade largely monopolized by the blind, shirt-making is done by women, and there is only one free chain-factory in the State, and at that a released convict can not hope to get employment. The whole thing is a cruel farce.

(Goldman)​

Keep an eye on the privatization of prisons, too. It's a private-industrial growth sector that has, in the past, included multinational players like Sodexho-Mariott (who eventually got out of the American prison game, but continue such operations in Britain and Australia.

Here's a good one:

Welcome to Corrections Corporation of America, the nation’s industry leader of privately-managed corrections solutions for federal, state and local government.

Established in 1983, CCA founded the private corrections industry. We manage, design, build and own more than 64 correctional facilities and detention centers from coast to coast, in small cities, metropolitan areas and destinations in between. With nearly 17,000 corrections professionals, CCA provides high-quality rehabilitation, security, vocational, educational, health care and administrative services to the more than 75,000 residents in our care.

A seamless and successful example of the public-private partnership in action, CCA achieves proven, accountable corrections solutions responsive to the needs of today’s national, regional and local correctional climate.

(Corrections Corporation of America)​

(Is anyone going to complain about the "politically correct", or as such, "bureaucratically suitable" (BS) language in that statement? "75,000 residents in our care"?)

But what happens if CCA and others with private money invested in prisons see a decline in the convict population?

Twenty-five to life for a roach? Hey, it's good for the economy.
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Notes:

Goldman, Emma. "Prisons: A Social Crime and Failure". Anarchism and Other Essays. New York & London: Mother Earth, 1911. http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_archives/goldman/aando/prisons.html

Corporate Watch UK. "Sodexho". CorporateWatch.com. February, 2004. Accessed March 3, 2009. http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/?lid=347

Corrections Corporation of America. "Excellence in Corrections". CorrectionsCorp.com. Accessed March 3, 2009. http://www.correctionscorp.com/
 
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