What do you make of these USA Prison Stats (MSNBC)

[No DUplicitous DUpe]

U.S. report: 2.2 million now in prisons, jails
AP

Snip:
The states with the highest rates were Louisiana and Georgia, with more than 1 percent of their populations in prison or jail. Rounding out the top five were Texas, Mississippi and Oklahoma.

The states with the lowest rates were Maine, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Vermont and New Hampshire.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12901873/?GT1=8199

[rooney]

1. I think it is just horrible. I believe that so many people

are jailed wrongly and many of the really bad ones remain out or on probation or parole. The big private prisons that we are running now are sure making lots of money for some large corporations.

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

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[NMMNG]

2. Too many people are in jail

Too many behaviors are classified as crimes, particularly non-violent drug offenses.

Mandatory Sentencing and 'Three Strike' policies are putting people in jail for excessive sentences.

People of color are imprisoned at a disproportionate rate.




The system is broken and in urgent need of repair, but our current administration's idea of repair is to build more jails and impose stricter penalties.

[mrcheerful]

5. Also poor whie people end up in prisons because of bad legal defense

most are pushed into plea bargins and never see their day in court. Its really bad in states with elected judges, where judges have to get convictions to be re-elected.

[Random_Australian]

3. That is very wrong. That is far, far too high. I don't care so much how

it is spread out over the states, but 2.2 mil is too many by ten times a long shot.

[MazeRat7]

4. Crime Pays.....

Its pays the local/county/state municipalities, attorneys, counselors, doctors, hospitals, sub-contractors of institutions, etc, etc...

Putting people in jail pays well as long as your not the one with that joint or some other non-violent offense.

MZr7

[Jed Dilligan]

14. Exactly

And don't forget the "faith-based" programs involved in coercive "treatment"

[bluestateguy]

6. Non-violent drug offenders

People who just could not get a good lawyer to either get probation, rehab or make the charges go away. This accounts for much of our prison population.

[12string]

8. prison population

This clearly shows that we need fewer laws.The government,"of the people"needs to re-evaluate its direction.It has always appeared to me that we squander resources on dealing with crimes that have an overblown value as a threat to society,i.e. the war on drugs,while turning a blind eye to other more serious offenses.This is a juggernaut that composes a major influence on our economy.There is mass amount of brother-in law jobs in this growing sector.

[depakid]

9. Here's a clue

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See: Social Capital: Measurement and Consequences, by Robert Putnam.

http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/25/6/1825848.pdf

[Divernan]

10. US has highest incarceration rate in world: 686 prisoners per 100,000

I'm having trouble making the link work, but here are the stats. the US is the only industrialized country to make the top ten list, and it ranks # One. Way to go W! ! ! ! Big bucks for all your buddies with investments in privatized prison companies. I'm sure the US is paying at a far higher rate per year than these other 3rd world countries. Last estimate I saw was over $30,000 per year per inmate. Why send poor kids to college AND give them health care when you can make a fat profit from sending them to jail?

www.mapsofworld.com/world-top-ten/countries-by-highest-prison-polulation-rates.html


Home > World Top Ten > World Top 10 Countries by Prison Population Rates


World Map showing top 10 Countries by Prison Population Rates






Disclaimer : All efforts have been made to make this image accurate. However Compare Infobase Pvt. Ltd.,its directors and employees do not own any responsibility for the correctness or authenticity of the same.




World Top 10 - Countries by Prison Population Rates
Country Prisoners Per 100,000
USA 686
Russia 638
Belarus 554
Kazakhstan 522
Turkmenistan 489
Belize 459
Surinam 437
Dominica 420
Bahamas 416

[Asgaya Dihi]

13. Link didn't work

I was going to check the date on that but the link didn't work. I suspect it's a bit old though, Russia has instituted a lot of drug law reforms in recent years and reduced the size of their prisons by quite a bit.

Here's the most recent international comparisons that I have high confidence in. First the top nations in order, then a comparison of selected nations more similar to the US. All rates are inmates per 100,000 population.

Sourced at http://www.prisonstudies.org/ Select world prison brief then highest to lowest rates for list.

United States of America 724
Russian Federation 594
St. Kitts and Nevis 536
Bermuda (UK) 532
Virgin Islands (USA) 521
Turkmenistan c.489
Cuba c.487
Palau 478
Belize 470
Virgin Islands (United Kingdom) 464

Among selected nations more similar to the US the rates per 100,000 are as follows.

United States of America 724
United Kingdom: England & Wales 144
Spain 143
Canada 107
Germany 97
Italy 97
France 88
United Kingdom: Northern Ireland 81
Denmark 77
Japan 62

Land of the free they say? Not recently, we're without a doubt and with no fancy math involved the single most imprisoned nation in the world and have been for years. It's still growing.

[acmejack]

11. They are a damning indictment of this Country

Something is terribly wrong with a society that finds it necessary or appropriate to imprison so many of it's citizens.

[APPLE314]

12. It explains the low unemployment rate.

They are fully employed taking away work from illegal immigrants by cleaning highways, ditches, and other work that Americans won't do.

[Cleita]

15. Now that we have privatized many of our prisons I think it's

good business. Just lock up some poor gob who was probably caught with drugs. He most likely doesn't have money for an attorney and lengthy trial so put him in prison. It's good for business.

IMHO prison sentences should be very few and only the most dangerous criminals should be put in them. I think the majority of crimals could be handled outside of prison with fines, restitution, community service, house arrest and parole type sentences.

[Asgaya Dihi]

16. Right

For whatever reason we've decided that anyone who doesn't do it our way needs to be punished, even if the punishment is worse than the crime itself. We do have other options if they'd get out of our way and let us research them. We have managed to sneak in a solid study or few and initial results are great. If this is an initial result, what's the potential as compared to the justice system if they'd just get out of our way and let us research the process? This BTW isn't an isolated case, we did the same here in the US early last century and other studies of the sort are mentioned. Who needs prisons for this stuff?

http://www.dpft.org/heroin.htm