08.14.07
The US: We’re #1! (in imprisoning citizens)
Yes, the US leads the world in the percentage of its citizens that it locks up in prisons! Maybe in comparison to other nations we’re not doing so great in healthcare, and our educational system isn’t doing such a hot job, but by golly in at least one area we lead the world:
According to a 2005 report of the International Centre for Prison Studies in London, the United States—with five percent of the world’s population—houses 25 percent of the world’s inmates. Our incarceration rate (714 per 100,000 residents) is almost 40 percent greater than those of our nearest competitors (the Bahamas, Belarus, and Russia). Other industrial democracies, even those with significant crime problems of their own, are much less punitive: our incarceration rate is 6.2 times that of Canada, 7.8 times that of France, and 12.3 times that of Japan. We have a corrections sector that employs more Americans than the combined work forces of General Motors, Ford, and Wal-Mart, the three largest corporate employers in the country, and we are spending some $200 billion annually on law enforcement and corrections at all levels of government, a fourfold increase (in constant dollars) over the past quarter century.
Never before has a supposedly free country denied basic liberty to so many of its citizens. In December 2006, some 2.25 million persons were being held in the nearly 5,000 prisons and jails that are scattered across America’s urban and rural landscapes. One third of inmates in state prisons are violent criminals, convicted of homicide, rape, or robbery. But the other two thirds consist mainly of property and drug offenders. Inmates are disproportionately drawn from the most disadvantaged parts of society. On average, state inmates have fewer than 11 years of schooling. They are also vastly disproportionately black and brown.
jweaver said,
15 August 2007 at 6:01 am
This is rubbish thought passed as an article. We put and keep criminals in prison and the crime rates go down. It goes down because the criminals are in PRISON. Other countries have high crime rates, yet most go UNREPORTED because the citizenship knows that there is little point in going through the system when the system is just a slap on the wrist. Look at the CT. Family destroyed over liberal prison laws. Both of those men were supposed to be in prison, but released EARLY the managed to kill a family. That Family would be alive and happy if the CRIMINALS served their original sentences.
Which crimes do you believe should be ignored? Rape, Murder, robbery? Kidnapping, Drug dealing, child molestation? Lets be like the UK, a murderer gets maybe 6 years for taking a life, that seems fair to some.
LeisureGuy said,
15 August 2007 at 7:35 am
I’m not sure I see your point, Jeff. Are you questioning the statistics? All the article says is that the US imprisons its citizens at the highest rate in the world, 40% higher, in fact, than Belarus and Russia, for example.
I don’t know where you get the idea that I thought that crimes should be ignored. Could you please point out where I suggested that? You seem to be responding to things I’ve not said.
1. Do you disagree that the US imprisons people at the highest rate of all countries? Yes or no?
2. Does that seem to you to indicate any sort of problem at all?
You say that other countries have high crime rates, with most crimes being unreported. Do you have any evidence whatsoever for that statement, or is it something you just made up? Indeed, if crimes are not reported, how are crime rates determined?
I do not know what you’re referring to when you say, “Look at the CT.” Perhaps you could provide a link to the incident. I do agree that early release of prisoners is sometimes a problem. They are released early, you know, because we imprison so many that we don’t have room to house them.
If the laws are so liberal, why are so many people imprisoned? I don’t get your argument here.
jweaver said,
15 August 2007 at 8:29 am
Gladly, here’s the link.
This family was murdered by LIFETIME FELONS. As for crimes that go unreported, although there is not a reporting Official, it is something that the Brits refer to all the time. As for whether you want certain crimes to go unpunished, the point of linking to this article in a positive way means you some how endorse the idea that we imprison too many people. So I ask, which people do you want to free? And why does it matter what the rest of the planet does, if they want to live in crime infested cities let them.
As for liberal laws, look at the spike in crime - it coincides with the liberal movement of enabling criminals. In our own popular culture shows such as ALL IN THE FAMILY and movies like Death Wish and Dirty Harry were on off shoot of the misery caused by the liberal judicial changes that we went through as a nation. In the 90’s three and two strike laws swept the land as did longer sentencing and what happened? Crime Fell.
And if you do not endorse the idea that we are too strict with the criminal class, what is the point of your post?
Jack said,
15 August 2007 at 9:38 am
For what it’s worth, the murder rate in the Netherlands, where there are strict gun control laws and no death penalty, and prison sentences are light compared to the U.S., is one-eighth that of the U.S. In fact, crime rates generally are lower in the Netherlands than in the States. Crimes are reported, not ignored. All in all, the Netherlands is a safer country than the U.S. Concerning American prisons, from what I’ve seen and read, they are horrific places, where there is little or no effort to rehabilitate convicts, and where gangs hold sway and harden up inmates, making them incorrigible. As for blaming liberal laws for high crime rates in the U.S., I suggest that American popular culture, saturated as it is with depiction of crime, guns, and violence, has a lot to do with high rates of crime, as do poverty and low levels of education. The American justice system doesn’t impress me. Someone who has enough money to hire high-powered lawyers can beat a serious rap (e.g. O.J. Simpson, an exception in a racist society where blacks have a difficult time of it when accused of a crime), or high-powered connections (Scooter Libby). This sort of thing certainly does not inspire confidence in the American justice system. Which convicts to release? How about those who have committed victimless crimes, like smoking marijuana? Further, why not decriminalize soft drugs, just as drinking alcoholic beverages was decriminalized in 1933? Crime rates certainly declined after that.