Also an addict is an addict and unless they want help it does not matter what kind of support or counseling or whatever nothing is going to make them get better.

At least there is one place in this country with universal healthcare.

While that wasn’t exactly my point, it could be. We’re spending all this money to lock up all these people (the overwhelming majority of whom are nonviolent), and it’s not doing a damn thing, especially if you consider that by the time these people get out of jail, they have become (more often than not, if you look at the recidivism rates) lifelong criminals.

I guess, if I had to go one step beyond “making the observation,” I’d suggest that these numbers make a case for the U.S. to spend more money on drug treatment than on druggie incarceration. Not only will it be cheaper (from a 2005 A.P. article: “[California] saves more than twice the amount of money that it spends on nonviolent drug offenders who are sentenced to treatment rather than prison”), but it has a better chance of rehabilitating the citizens of our society than does prison.

Think of all the possibilities that are wasting away in some jail cell. Who knows what musician, painter, doctor, engineer, businesswoman, or plain ol’ decent mother is trapped in those four walls, all their potential dripping away, day by day, until finally, there’s nothing left by a con?

There’s gotta be a better way, is I guess what I’m saying.

One is that I could say that if we had extreme capitol punishment like these countries maybe the crime would be lower. You mention people being put to death, but not all the people in our jails are there for murder. Look at their punishment for theft, assault, and drugs. I am willing to bet it is more severe then ours. You mention the wire, when you get to season 5 there is a part where the Russian guy from season 2 talks from jail. What he says and I paraphrase here is that “he has been to prison in Russia, and this is nothing”. Now I understand that it is a fake show but it makes sense. You look at the amount of people from other countries that end up in the US jail system and I am willing to bet that it’s a piece of cake comparatively.
Two is on the money aspect of things, are we spending too much money to house and feed people who for the most part knowingly broke the law, maybe the laws are not the best but they are still the law. The increase in numbers could be used as a way to say that the jail system and judicial system is not enough of a deterrent to keep people from doing bad things.

Based on public reports available, Amnesty International estimated that at least 1,010 people were executed in China during the year [of 2006], although these figures are only the tip of the iceberg. Credible sources suggest that between 7,500 to 8,000 people were executed in 2006. The official statistics remain a state secret, making monitoring and analysis problematic.

Iran executed 177 people, Pakistan 82 and Iraq and Sudan each at least 65. There were 53 executions in 12 states in the USA…91 per cent of all known executions in 2006 took place in China, Iran, Pakistan, Iraq, Sudan and the USA.

1,010 is obviously a LONG way away from 53, but still, look at the company we keep.

Now, Justin, you say Russia is notorious for its lawlessness, and that people don’t get locked up there. An argument could probably be made that in the U.S., the “real” criminals don’t get locked up, just the drug users. You’ve seen The Wire. If you follow the drugs, you get drug dealers and drug users. But if you follow the money, there’s no telling where you’ll end up.

Russia is notorious for its lawlessness, which means it does not lock people up which would help their ratio.

I am not sure it’s responsible to compare statistics for the US and these countries, if anything people could use these stats and say that the punishment in this country is too lenient. “If only the US cut off people’s hands or stoned people to death that would make people think twice about committing a crime.” I do not agree with that, just pointing out the flaws in the comparison.

Vermont tops the list of states that spend more money on prisons than on higher education, according to a report released Thursday.

The state spends $1.37 on corrections for every $1 spent on public universities and community colleges.

The cost of holding one female inmate at the Dale Correctional facility in Waterbury is almost more than tuition for six resident students at the University of Vermont.

I read an article on Monday or Tuesday that started these thought. I can’t remember if it was an article in this week’s TIME or in this month’s ORION (both are in the Callahan/Sarli bathroom), but I started wondering what the difference was between the number of American farmers and the number of American prisoners. Other than remembering I had it, though, I didn’t do much with the thought.

Then, yesterday, the NY Times had the “1 in 100 U.S. Adults Behind Bars” as its lead story for the day, and I thought to myself, well, that’s a sign that I should do some research…and so I did.

As far as those prisoners who are in jail for “silly” reasons, I haven’t done all the research, but a quick survey of Google’s results page suggests that as much 80% of the Americans who are in jail are there for nonviolent crimes, most of which is probably possession.

Here are some more fun facts for you (taken from a 1998 report put out by The Justice Policy Institute). As of a decade ago:

• Our prison population was larger than the states of Alaska, North Dakota, and Wyoming combined.
• Between 1978 and 1998, Texas and California experienced an eightfold increase in its prison population
• America had over 1 million nonviolent prisoners, most of whom were sent to jail solely due to mandatory sentencing legislation.
• The EU, which at that point had a population of 370 million, had an entire prison population that one 1/3 of our nonviolent population.
• India, which in 1998 had a population that was roughly four times the size of the U.S., had an entire prison population that was 1/5 the size of our nonviolent population.
• 64% of male inmates were nonviolent offenders, and a staggering 83.1% of female inmates were arrested on nonviolent charges.
• As of 1998, there were 193 white inmates for every 100,000 white Americans; 688 Hispanic inmates/100,000 Hispanic Americans; and 1,571 African-American innames/100,000 African-Americans, which means blacks are imprisoned at 8x the rate of whites, mostly due to drug incarcerations.
• In 1998, American taxpayers spent $24 billion to incarcerate over 1 million nonviolent offenders, many of whom had either never been locked up before or who had committed no prior acts of violence.
• That cost exceeded the cost of America’s welfare program by almost 50%. We spent 6x more to incarcerate 1.2 million nonviolent offenders in 1998 than the federal government spent on child care for 1.25 million children.
• Around the country, from 1987 to 1995, state expenditures for prisons increased by 30% while expenditures for universities decreased by 19%.

Here’s one more interesting thing from that report:

Many argue that this growth in imprisonment is a small price to pay for public safety. They say that criminal behavior, no matter how small, must meet with a swift and severe response, lest it grow out of hand. Conservatives…across the country point to drops in crime over the past 5 or so years as proof that getting tough on the violent and the nonviolent alike has reaped substantial dividends.

There is no doubt that the imprisonment of nearly 2 million people has prevented somecrimes from being committed. But as Michael Tonry, a professor of law and public policy at the University of Minnesota pointed out…,you could choose another two million Americans at random and lock them up, and that would also reduce the number of crimes.

…[I]n the ten year period from 1980-1991, a period during which the nation’s prison population increased the most, 11 of the 17 states that increased their prison population the least experienced decreases in crime. On the other hand, just 7 of the 13 states that increased their prison populations the most experienced decreases in crime: a virtual wash.

So, $24 billion spent; a million basically harmless people locked up; and it had no real effect.

Nice.

Sideshow bob “I’ll be back. You can’t keep the Democrats out of the White House forever, and when they get in, I’m back on the streets, with all my criminal buddies.”