A new record, financially unsustainable by many states:

washingtonpost.com - nation, world, technology and Washington area news and headlines

"With more than 2.3 million people behind bars at the start of 2008, the United States leads the world in both the number and the percentage of residents it incarcerates, leaving even far more populous China a distant second, noted the report by the nonpartisan Pew Center on the States."

More prisoners than dirt-poor Communist China. That's not a flattering statistic.

The article states incarceration has increased at a far faster rate than crime itself. I know that in my county and state going to jail is a last resort for the judicial system due to jail overcrowding and lack of funding to increase capacity. All but violent crimes, repeat offenders or outstanding warrants are processed by bookings, citations and released for a court date, no jail.

What's the real problem? I read that one-third of all prisoners are incarcerated for illegal drug offenses, some so benign as simple weed possession. There's an easy solution by legalizing drugs, eliminating the prison expense and the massive enforcement expense, but I didn't intend for the thread to become another legalize drugs topic.

The crime disparity between minorities and Caucasians is overpowering and a testimony to our lack of social equality and class distinction. It seems obvious that warehousing minorities in depressed inner-cities isn't the solution, and IMO the strong class distinction that's prevalent in our society (not just racial but economic class distinction for minorities and the poor in general) is a major contributor to our problem.

Any solutions? Drug legalization would ease the financial and logistical aspects, but what about the prevailing class distinction? That's a deep-seated problem and unsolvable by the popular rhetoric of anyone can get a better job if they want one.

You mentioned the warehousing of individuals in cities. That is a problem, but some cities are starting to spread public housing around. Instead of building a community of public housing they build/ buy individual places in better neighborhoods and give the recipients strict rules that they must keep the house clean and they cannot disturb others. Being around the nicer places provides an incentive to act more upstanding.

Of course that doesn't solve the fundamental problem of handouts perpetuate poverty and defeatist attitudes, but it's a decent start.

A very large chunk of those incarcerated are there for non-violent drug crimes. Stop legislating morality and we will reduce our prison population by at least a third or more.

On a side note I would imagine China has less because you are less likely to go to jail than be executed. China leads the world in known executions per year.

I'm in full agreement with that opinion but it's not going to happen with federal control over 'dangerous' drug definitions and the interstate trade act bludgeon. The DEA and DEA oriented funding to muni LE has become one of our larger bureaucracies and seemingly untouchable. The US is full of would-be moralists, many of whom follow belief system definitions of any drug legislatively deemed illegal being a sin, which no representative in our self-serving political system will confront.

I wonder how many of China's executions are directly attributable to political control rather than crime.

really? in the land of plenty, where the state encourages parents to under discplined children , self esteem schooling, values/morals= passe', the gov. is your daddy, gimme gimme gimme, A.D.D. society, what do you expect?

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No individual can plan his own existence in their view.

So the state planners must arrogate to themselves the right to manipulate any sector of the economic system if the good of “society” or the “general welfare” is paramount.

Ipso- if the rights of the individual get in the way, the rights of the individual must be sublimated.

The Road to Serfdom
FA Hayek (interpretation)


Mortgage Backed Security survivor

Comparing US to China in this situation is ludicrous.
China only releases what it wants the media to hear.
An ENORMOUS population in China lives in 3rd world poverty where the government, including law enforcement, is completely absent.

I think drug legalisation (within reason) is part of the answer. I've never understood why drugs are "solved" with drug sentences, yet the most dangerous drugs on the planet - alcohol and tobacco - are legal? More people die or are injured each year from those two drugs (from either disease, car crashes, alcohol-fueled assaults, etc), not too mention the financial cost of treating patients with resulting illness/injuries.

I have long said that most illicit drugs will remain illegal until such time as the govt finds a way to tax them and make revenue off them. However, I think that the chances of them being legalised is extremely remote given that the amount of revenue that would be lost via virtue of legal costs, prison costs, law enforcement costs, etc. If you're involved in business in those areas then it is worth your while to have a lawless society, as you'll make more money. I suspect it's for these reasons that govts around the world aren't really that keen to do a whole lot about it.

I'm with you on this one.

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"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Yet at the same time you support gun control.....Hmmm....

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In case you were wondering, yes, there really ARE more idiots these days....technology has made natural selection obsolete.

Full article: News Articles - The Pew Center on the States

http://www.pewcenteronthestates.org/....aspx?id=35904

The size of the prison population in the US is just amazing. Why is that number so much higher than in any other Western nation or even in repressive regimes like in in China?

Please point to a single post where I have supported gun control . I have never advocated gun control. In fact, if you'd read the posts I make on the issue you'd see that I actually say that gun control isn't the solution as there is far more at work within the psyche of many Americans regards the almost ritual mass slayings that occur every few weeks that gun control alone won't solve.

Dude's got it exactly right. The two are mutually exclusive issues.

Prison should be reserved for the serious. Completely agree.

Oh, and just to confuse Eric even more, I am pro death penalty.

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"My opinions may have changed, but not the fact that I am right." - Ashleigh Brilliant(?)
(Voting for None Of The Above, so far...)

uhm, because the others are better behaved? And the laws are different.

__________________
No individual can plan his own existence in their view.

So the state planners must arrogate to themselves the right to manipulate any sector of the economic system if the good of “society” or the “general welfare” is paramount.

Ipso- if the rights of the individual get in the way, the rights of the individual must be sublimated.

The Road to Serfdom
FA Hayek (interpretation)


Mortgage Backed Security survivor

i.e.:

You ger tricky...we cut off prickee.

You do harm.....we cut off arm.

You make dead..we cut off head.

I agree with you. To quantify - the Justice Department number-crunchers found that people sentenced for drug crimes accounted for 21% of state prisoners and 55% of all federal prisoners.

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I think at this point there needs to be a focus on an immediate increase in spending and I think this is a time when deficit fear has to take a second seat . . . I believe later on there should be tax increases. Speaking personally, I think there are a lot of very rich people out there whom we can tax at a point down the road and recover some of the money."
-- Barney Frank, October 20, 2008