America has less than 5% of the worlds population but 25% of the worlds prisoners

[Flagg]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/us/23prison.html

Okay now I heard that America has quite a zero tollerance attitude to dealing with criminals, but isn't this a little over zealous? I'd be interested to know what some of the Americans on this board think of those stats.

[MR_T]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/us/23prison.html

Okay now I heard that America has quite a zero tollerance attitude to dealing with criminals, but isn't this a little over zealous? I'd be interested to know what some of the Americans on this board think of those stats.

watched it on an old show 'oz', something like 90% of those inmates are there for drug related offenses or violations

[Flagg]

Serious drug offences like trafficking, or we talking about banging up a lot of kids for selling pot to their buddies?

[Ernst]

We have "mandatory minimums", whereby an offense carries a set "no less than x number of months/years behind bars". Back in the 80's when Edited. was getting hot on the streets, the government freaked and made a law to make the mandatory minimum on that like 5 years for 5+ grams. This is a big part of why our prisons are filled with drug offenders. There are other laws like that, too. I believe there's one where if you have **** and a gun together it's like 10 or 15 years.
Laws can vary widely from state to state, as well. The Edited. that you don't get in trouble for in California can send you to jail for a time elsewhere in the US.
As for those stats, it's messed up, sure, but there are much larger problems looming behind this disparity. I could write a lot of long papers on this-- and have (but here I'll keep it short).

I hope I'm not violating any rules discussing "recreational" drugs here given the context.

[scibble]

skewed statistics contrived to sell airtime/newsprint

[Fat Guy]

Some of our drug laws are ridiculous… And you got to remember law enforcement is a self perpetuating industry. During the early 90’s privately owned prison corporations were the fasted growing industry on Wall Street.

[Fat Guy]

skewed statistics contrived to sell airtime/newsprint

[MR_T]

Serious drug offences like trafficking, or we talking about banging up a lot of kids for selling pot to their buddies?

looked it up, drugs account for a large portion of the original prison sentence.. the big problem is that the prisoner is very likely to return to prison after completing his/her first sentence due to a drug violation. I have a friend that went to prison for a couple of months that told me it is easer to get heroin in the slammer than on the street

["Maximus"]

looked it up, drugs account for a large portion of the original prison sentence.. the big problem is that the prisoner is very likely to return to prison after completing his/her first sentence due to a drug violation. I have a friend that went to prison for a couple of months that told me it is easer to get heroin in the slammer than on the street

Very true mate.... had a friend battling drug related problems and he had better access to drugs there than outside. That's just sick man, but what can be done about it when corruption starts from the people within the system that's supposed to help these people in the first place... heart breaking!!!

[quadsofsteel]

yea i know a guy that went into lock up clean and came out a junkie.

beyond the obvious crimes that people get locked up for, let look at other statistics. America has the highest obesity rates in the world. The highest crime rate and highest obesity rate plus, im not completely sure about this, Amrica holds the highest amount of citizens in debt. Lets draw a simple connect between the three and what do you get? A country filled with people with a lack of impulse control and people that get what they want, when they want it(hence all the criminals)... all for personal pleasure and momentary satisfaction.

[wilson9d]

Yes it is sad my final cumulative project for my MBA is going to be a revamp of the prison system.

[SMCengineer]

Some of our drug laws are ridiculous… And you got to remember law enforcement is a self perpetuating industry. During the early 90’s privately owned prison corporations were the fasted growing industry on Wall Street.

There's nothing private about a business that doesn't have to rely on the natural law of supply and demand to garner profits. For all intents and purposes, call them prisons with privatized profits and an artificial or socialized supply. To be more precise, so called "private" prisons have been able to rake in very healthy profits by an artificially inflated demand (ie stricter drug laws, prostitution laws, and gambling laws). Kind of like the Frannie and Freddie mac of the prison world. And still, we argue for the government to do more for us. Sad.

[MuscleScience]

One major reason is our "War on Drugs" were around 440,000 people are in jail for non-violent drug offenses.

[MuscleScience]

skewed statistics contrived to sell airtime/newsprint

Are you kidding me, these are from government stats. These numbers are a major black eye for the US.

[Voice of Reason]

Prisons are big business. $$$

[Lemonada8]

family values went downhill....

[FallenWyvern]

Makes me wonder how much crappier America would be if the stats were reversed.

[Flagg]

looked it up, drugs account for a large portion of the original prison sentence.. the big problem is that the prisoner is very likely to return to prison after completing his/her first sentence due to a drug violation. I have a friend that went to prison for a couple of months that told me it is easer to get heroin in the slammer than on the street

And what is the American government doing about narcotic trafficking/use in the prisons? It seems like once you go to prison once, it's hard to not re-return, like a vicious circle. So much for rehabilitation..