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Waxings >> Law, Justice, Legal & Related >> 1 in 100 adults now in prison
(Message started by: mitakeet on Feb 29th, 2008, 12:56pm)

Title: 1 in 100 adults now in prison
Post by mitakeet on Feb 29th, 2008, 12:56pm
Just one place the article is featured: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation/bal-te.prisons29feb29,0,2057053.story.


Quote:
Using state-by-state data, the report says 2,319,258 Americans were in jail or prison at the start of 2008 - one in 99.1 adults. Whether per capita or in raw numbers, it's more than any other nation.


We have the dubious distinction of having more people in prison, with a population of 300 million, than either India or China, each with a population at least 3 times as high.  Since essentially each one of these people in jail (if 1:100 is currently in jail, how many have ever been in jail?  1:10?) will now find it very difficult if not impossible to fit back into society (see "The American InJustice System": http://www.sol-biotech.com/cgi-bin/waxology/YaBB.cgi?board=genwax_board;action=display;num=1201890205) what does that make us?  A society made up of two broad classes, those that have been incarcerated and thus are unable to hold most jobs and those increasingly few that have managed to evade (for better or worse) being captured by the system and thus are eligible for most jobs.  I have already created a post with my proposed solution (Mitakeet's InJustice System: http://www.sol-biotech.com/cgi-bin/waxology/YaBB.cgi?board=genwax_board;action=display;num=1202908223), but this article is further fuel toward the necessity of doing something before our society collapses under its own weight of incompetence.  Note also that the article states that incarcerating these people costs the US over $55 billion a year (the Federal system costs about $5 billion of that total), nearly twice what is given to the National Institutes of Health which has a demonstrate able and on-going benefit to society.  One might argue that there is less crime with so many in jail, but I would have to question the true cost to society when as many as 70% of these people are in for drug violations.  Surely the crimes these people commit cost society way less than 70% of $55 billion!

Title: Re: 1 in 100 adults now in prison
Post by torporchair on Mar 7th, 2008, 7:40am
I saw an article in the New York Times with the same headline. What amazes me is that we have more people in jail than does China- and the U.S. is considered a more 'free' country than China. It probably is, for those of us not in jail.



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