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 america - home of the un-free
The U.S. prison system has enormous economic costs associated with prison construction and operation, productivity losses, and wage effects. In 2006, states spent an estimated $2 billion on prison construction, three times the amount they were spending fifteen years earlier. The combined expenditures of local governments, state governments, and the federal government for law enforcement and corrections total over $200 billion annually. In addition to these costs, the incarceration rate has significant costs associated with the productivity of both prisoners and ex-offenders. The economic output of prisoners is mostly lost to society while they are imprisoned. Negative productivity effects continue after release. This wage penalty grows with time, as previous imprisonment can reduce the wage growth of young men by some 30 percent.
The prison system has a disproportionate impact on minority communities. African Americans, who are 12.4 percent of the population, are more than half of all prison inmates, compared to one-third twenty years ago. Although African-Americans constitute 14 percent of regular drug users, they are 37 percent of those arrested for drug offenses, and 56 percent of persons in state prisons for drug crimes.
Much of the growth in the prison population is due to changing policy, not increased crime. Many criminal justice experts have found that the increase in the incarceration rate is the product of changes in penal policy and practice, not changes in crime rates. Changes in sentencing, both in terms of time served and the range of offenses meriting incarceration, underlie the growth in the prison population.
Changes in drug policy have had the single greatest impact on criminal justice policy. The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 created mandatory minimum sentences for possession of specific amounts of cocaine. The Act instituted a 100-to-1 differential in the treatment of powder and crack cocaine, treating possession of 5 grams of crack cocaine the same as possession of 500 grams of powder cocaine. The United States Sentencing Commission found that African-Americans are more likely to be convicted of crack cocaine offenses, while whites are more likely to be convicted of powder cocaine offenses Mandatory minimum sentences for low-level crack-cocaine offenders are comparable (and harsher in certain cases) to sentences for major drug dealers.
The composition of prison admissions has increasingly shifted toward less serious offenses, characterized by parole violations and drug offenses. According to one study, in 2005, four out of five drug arrests were for possession while one out of five were for drug sales. The crime history for three-quarters of drug offenders in state prisons involved non-violent or drug offenses.
Prisons are housing many of the nation’s mentally ill. The number of mentally ill in prison is nearly five times the number in inpatient mental hospitals. Large numbers of mentally ill inmates, as well as inmates with HIV, tuberculosis, and hepatitis also raise serious questions regarding the costs and distribution of health care resources.
America faces an epic problem of re-entry. The number of ex-offenders reentering their communities from state and federal prisons increased fourfold in the past two decades. On average, however, two out of every three released prisoners will be rearrested and one in two will return to prison within three years of release.
thoughts?
this is from a 2007 senate study conducted by senator jim webb
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oh...sorry
webb.senate.gov
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U.S. prison system a costly and harmful failure: report
Mon Nov 19, 2007 6:06pm EST
By Randall Mikkelsen
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of people in U.S. prisons has risen eight-fold since 1970, with little impact on crime but at great cost to taxpayers and society, researchers said in a report calling for a major justice-system overhaul.
The report on Monday cites examples ranging from former vice-presidential aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby to a Florida woman's two-year sentence for throwing a cup of coffee to make its case for reducing the U.S. prison population of 2.2 million -- nearly one-fourth of the world's total.
It recommends shorter sentences and parole terms, alternative punishments, more help for released inmates and decriminalizing recreational drugs. It said the steps would cut the prison population in half, save $20 billion a year and ease social inequality without endangering the public.
But the recommendations run counter to decades of broad U.S. public and political support for getting tough on criminals through longer, harsher prison terms and to the Bush administration's anti-drug and strict-sentencing policies.
"President (George W.) Bush was right," in commuting Libby's perjury sentence this year as excessive, the report said. But he should also have commuted the sentences of hundreds of thousands of other Americans, it said.
"Our contemporary laws and justice system practices exacerbate the crime problem, unnecessarily damage the lives of millions of people (and) waste tens of billions of dollars each year," it said.
The report was produced by the JFA Institute, a Washington criminal-justice research group, and its authors included eight criminologists from major U.S. public universities. It was funded by the Rosenbaum Foundation and by financier and political activist George Soros' Open Society Institute.
The Justice Department dismissed the recommendations and cited findings that about 25 percent of the violent-crime drop in the 1990s can be attributed to increases in imprisonment.
"The United States is experiencing a 30-year low in crime, in large part due to the tough enforcement actions we've taken in the last decade," department spokesman Peter Carr said.
SHIFTING ATTITUDES
But there are signs of shifting attitudes on sentencing policies. Some financially strapped states are shortening sentences and Congress is moving to pass increased help for released prisoners, said Executive Director Marc Mauer of the Sentencing Project, which has advocated alternatives to long sentences.
"Compared to where we were in the mid-(19)90s, it's been a very significant change," Mauer said.
More than 1.5 million people are now in U.S. state and federal prisons, up from 196,429 in 1970, the report said. Another 750,000 people are in local jails. The U.S. incarceration rate is the world's highest, followed by Russia, according to 2006 figures compiled by Kings College in London.
Although the U.S. crime rate began declining in the 1990s it is still about the same as in 1973, the JFA report said. But the prison population has soared because sentences have gotten longer and people who violate parole or probation, even with minor lapses, are more likely to be imprisoned.
"The system is almost feeding on itself now. It takes years and years and years to get out of this system and we do not see any positive impact on the crime rates," JFA President James Austin, a co-author of the report, told a news conference.
The report said the prison population is projected to grow by another 192,000 in five years, at a cost of $27.5 billion to build and operate additional prisons.
At current rates, one-third of all black males, one-sixth of Latino males, and one in 17 white males will go to prison during their lives. Women represent the fastest-growing segment of the prison population, the report said.
"The massive incarceration of young males from mostly poor- and working-class neighborhoods, and the taking of women from their families and jobs, has crippled their potential for forming healthy families and achieving economic gains," it said.
(Editing by David Alexander and Cynthia Osterman)
www.reuters.com
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Whoever
is making these people commit crimes is the real culprit. These people have surely been tricked into wrong doing.
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I think
that this all is a symptom of quite larger, interrelated problems. There is no one single reason for any of it and there will be no single solution to any of it. These statistics, while compelling, may or may not be correct and may or may not tell even part of the story. There can and will be lots of explanations and correlations. I think this will be a good topic for debate and discussion. Some of the following should get it really started.
One of the reasons for more incarcerations per 100,000 might be the fact that the general population is tired of repeat offenders and (at least in California) have adopted and passed the "Three Strikes" law that says you repeat and get convicted of a third serious offense, you go to jail for life... or at least a very long time. That may or may not turn out to be a good idea but it could explain why there are more people still in jail. At least for the first couple years after passage, it seems that crime went down significantly as a lot of two time offenders left the state. I don't know the current stats.
It seems to imply that minorities, especially Blacks, are unfairly "targeted". This may or may not be true but possible reasons for this statistic could be that there has been a huge breakdown of the Black family over the last 50 years with many fatherless Black households, as well as development and propagation of the attitude that White America "owes" Black America. We have spent trillions of dollars over the last 50 years trying to improve the Black situation with liberal program after liberal program... why has it not done a better job and why is there still the attitude that the White community owes the Black community?
Lastly, for this post, is the fact that many repeat offenders may be repeat offenders because there are less and less jobs to go to, resulting in less and less hope. Our government has NOT encouraged employers to keep jobs in America but has actually encouraged employers (through taxes and other incentives) to either export jobs to foreign countries or to import low wage workers into this country. What chance of getting a good job does an ex-con have in this situation?
There is, of course, a lot more to it than that.
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Vice laws. That's the problem. Putting people in prison for unhealthy habits.
Repeal all drug laws, gambling laws, prostitution laws, and antiquated sex laws (sodomy, etc). Offer rehabilitative programs to those who have been incarcerated for these pseudo-crimes - and I don't mean rehabilitating them from their activity, I mean rehabilitate them from their time spent being lumped in with real criminals.
The solution to our economic crisis is just about that simple.
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snowdog
Nice to see you back. Good comment :)
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snowdog
... I agree 100% but the self righteous, "my-way-is-right" folks will cry out that morals and decency are eroding, and some sort of regulation is required. I believe it's precisely because of these types of laws that we have the predictaments we do have, world wide. Most folks have trouble acquiescing to views that are not their own. I say, live and let live!
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Snowdog
but surely the world would collapse around us and all would sink into hell?
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"but surely the world would collapse around us and all would sink into hell? "
What, if we let people bang hookers and smoke crack? People who want to do things like this do it anyway.
Snowdog is right, repealing drug laws would have a massive effect on the economoy, especially if the state taxes drugs. But no, we can't have that, can we? I mean, if everyone got stoned, then the world would grind to a halt, wouldn't it? Everyone would be too busy hugging trees and no-one would do any work. Just like because alcohol is legal, everyone in the country is turning up at worked pissed, forgetting what happened yesterday and being sick, before picking a fight with a stranger. Just like everyone in the world is chain smoking themselves to death.
Sure, initially there would be a few people who would go wild. Natural selection. After a year or so, society would have got used to the fact drugs are now legal, but now we'd have more tax money coming in, and maybe less fighting on the street on a friday night. And less poeple in jail. Everyone's a winner. Apart from Herbert who did a bit too much coke. Like I said, natural selection.
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mrvroom
<but surely the world would collapse around us and all would sink into hell?>
i assume you are being facetious. but....
how is this different than what is happening today?
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Tugger
I think zorro understood the comment better.
Though I am not sure I understand his?
Zorro, do you think we are sinking into hell?
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well
over a billion people worldwide are malnourished. one out of 6. that seems pretty bad to me.
overfishing of the oceans, global climate change, nuclear prolifiration, increasing contamination and depletion of fresh water, poisoning, salination, and erosion of soil, desertification...
nope. all is fine. : )
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Zorro...
How do you even get up out of bed each day???
Is it your "sunny" outlook on life?
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zorro
and what does repealing or otherwise of vice laws have to do with all that?
5.75 billion people getting fed...sounds good to me. Do you recall a time when more humans were being so well looked after? Do you think your life would be better 300 years ago or a thousand? Do you think you would have lived longer, healthier and seen and done more in the world? Would you have travelled so much 500 years ago? Is our world more violent? Is your world?
We are going to make mistakes, some costly, but no-one knows the overall outcome, not you nor any other so called prophet through the ages?
More people are being educated than ever before and if it continues then all sorts of things are possible. We are not sinking into any sort of hell, I think we are embarked on an amazing journey and I dont dare put limits on the heights we could achieve let alone write us off as doomed. Give us a chance mate!
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wow a thread where everyone pretty much agrees!!! Quick lets inform the pollies and
change global policy...
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softie
<How do you even get up out of bed each day???
Is it your "sunny" outlook on life?>
yes. i am a very positive person. positive does not equal the ability to ignore reality.
how do you get out of bed in the morning? by ignoring reality?
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vroom
um.... sure. all is great!
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zorro
um....sure. all is bad!
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There is a lot to be said for having the ability to stay positive while acknowledging how hostile we are to each other, how hostile this world is, and how hostile the very universe is to our very existance. That's zen in a basket, right there.
Neitzche spoke of the inability of ordinary people to stare into "the abyss".
Softie, I don't wanna rain on your optimistic parade, but check this out - en.wikipedia.org
"Depressive realism is the proposition that people with depression have a more accurate view of reality, specifically that they are less affected by the positive illusions of illusory superiority, the illusion of control and optimism bias."
Don't go getting depressed on me now...
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snowy
maybe so. but that does not mean one need be depressive to see reality. people like softie seem to have a great deal of difficulty understanding how i can see impending disaster and be upbeat and happy. to me, there is no other way to be than upbeat and happy. every day is a gift, a priceless gift. nothing lasts forever. i live my life to the best of my ability, call it the way i see it, and it has been a great ride. still is. just because i see famine, pestilence and anarchy in the future does not mean i have to be all lugubrious.
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Snowdog, Zorro...
A recent study just released by the "Psycho_Analysts of America" determined that 2 out of 3 Americans are crazy... and since I recently passed my "psycho-exam"... well, that leaves only one possible conclusion....
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Snowdog
If one looks around at the world and doesn't find himself at minimum mildly depressed, he's
just not paying any attention . . . or maybe is in possession of an extra chromosome (those
Down's kids are so effing happy!! Just a joy to be around.)
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Those ...
who choose to be happy despite the "cliff" enjoy their journey.
Those who choose to by cynical because of the "cliff" sweat perpetually.
It's the same "cliff" out there, folks ...
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fiddle while rome burns? . . . I don't know, I think it's generally accepted Nero was insane
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jd
bad metaphor. nero was emperor. i am not. i do work to make things better, but will not go about my day weeping and gnashing my teeth!
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jeff
hey man he "choose" to be "happy" amongst the destruction . . . I think it was a pretty good
analogy
look, I don't want to come off as telling anyone how they "should" feel about everything. we
are going to all react in our own ways. and to me, it ONLY MAKES SENSE to feel a little crappy
about the way the world is. and I fail to see how your way is better than my way. what am I
missing?
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jd
nothing. there is no better or worse. for myself, i am a better person when i am in good spirits and happy. it may be different for you. we all choose how to live and how to react to the world around us. i would not deign to tell you what mood to be in.
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Like I said, the essence of zen is the ability to look upon reality, in all of its harshness and hostility, and be at peace with it.
Softie - I would say that there are two types of people that can look at the harsh reality and still smile - those who are insane and those who have learned to achieve peace. The difference is that insane people cannot hold rational values - that's why they're insane - and the other types do hold rational values.
Think of it this way - there are lot's of people with terminal diseases. Some choose to evade the reality of what is going on. Some rage against the reality and try to fight it. And some find the stregnth to come to grips with it and spend their final days as happy and fufilling as possible, all the while conscious of their fate.
I think Jeffs point is that he is the third type, and I have to classify myself in that group as well. Except instead of a terminal disease, it is a condition of humanity we are facing.
I'm not convinced that the environment is doomed and that humanity is going to hell in a moral handbasket, but I am pretty convinced that peak oil is going to rain on our parade and that life as we've grown to know it will not be as it is for much longer. Enjoy it while you can.
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snowdog...
... very astute remark.
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