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I don't know how this guy calculated his numbers. He wasn't very clear in saying he was excluding children and the elderly. Did he mean little kids who hadn't reach their teen years and people seventy-five and above, or did he mean people under eighteen and fifty-five and over? I don't know exactly what he meant. It could be that the 1 in 80 figure is accurate though. I'm not sure how you came up with the 1 out of 127 estimate, but you did say you were looking at the 486 per 100,000 overall incarceration rate. The author did say that we have one out of 80 "behind bars," which could mean prisons and jails as well. The government link I gave you said 726 per 100,000 were in either prisons or jails. The author only mentioned prison in other parts of his article, but I suspect he is using the word "prison" in the same sense most lay people would, using it to mean both prison and jail. I've seen the international incarceration statistics. They do not make distinctions between prisons and jails. They include all those behind bars. In many countries, there is no difference at all between prisons and jails.

Maybe the one out of 80 claim is correct, maybe not. The claim that caught my eye most was his claim that 95 to 97 percent of federal cases were resolved by coerced plea. That's just nonsense. 95 to 97 percent probably are resolved by plea, but are they all "coerced?" Shoot no. In my experience most people are guilty and they will admit it. They want to plead.

Sometimes for the reasons I discussed above people who swear they are innocent and in some cases probably are do plead. And there are other things I didn't mention that add to the coercive nature of the system, especially for those who already have criminal records. Those with criminal records really cannot testify on their own behalf unless they aren't worried about their past coming in. If they testify, past convictions come in to impeach them. More and more judges seem to let things in even if they don't testify to show things like motive, intent, knowledge, plan, or lack of mistake. These people know that if jurors see what they did before they are liable to convict these people just because we have a tendency to think that if people broke the law in the past, they probably did it this time too, and the worse the previous crime or crimes the more likely jurors are to convict and punish severely this time. And if people are on a suspended sentence or probation for a previous offense, forget it. Prosecutors will file a petition to revoke (PTR) their probation or suspended sentence, and all they have to do to succeed on that is prove that in any minor way a person violated any of the many terms and conditions of his suspended sentence or probation. Then they'll make us an offer on the new charge and agree to either drop the PTR or just run the sentences concurrent. The PTR has to be handled within sixty days of his arrest, so it will come up long before the trial date on his new case. If the guy doesn't plead on his new case then, the judge will probably send him to prison on his PTR and then he'll also have to risk trial on his new offense. Most will plead rather than go that route even if the new case is bogus.

One more coercive tactic that prosecutors use that I absolutely hate is something they do when one co-defendant wants to exonerate another. I just had this happen the other day. Two guys were caught with several pounds of marijuana, eighty pounds or so I think. These cases all tend to run together in my mind and it's hard to remember all the particulars. Anyway, the pot was in a suitcase in the trunk. One of the two the day of the stop said it was all his and the other guy didn't know it was there, but they charged both guys anyway. The guy who confessed then went on to do some work for the DEA, setting up guys in his home state. In exchange for that, county prosecutors gave him a great deal on the pot case in my state even though he had an extensive record. Now, when it came time to plead or go to trial, as they often do, the prosecutors said that if the guy getting the good deal were to try to exonerate my client, all bets were off. They would withdraw their sweet offer, and nail the guy like he deserved to be nailed. Naturally, he wasn't willing to exonerate my client anymore. And of course as is their standard practice, prosecutors would not let him plead until my client pled or went to trial. My client felt like he had to plead because this other guy was out to save himself and would probably change his previous story when he git on the stand at trial. We got the best deal we could get and he pled.

This is a coercive tactic that happens all the time and one that really ticks me off. It's the kind of thing that does result in innocent people pleading guilty to crimes they did not commit.

your first sentence finally comes around to my original point: there's lies, damn lies, and statistics (Mark Twain).

As to how I reached my #'s, please check back to my post #129:
thanks for the links!

table #2 of link 1 (on page 3) shows 1,494,216 in jail as of 06/30/2004.

when we subtract "non-citizens" (91,789 - page 5 of link #1), we see there are 1,402,427 citizens incarcerated (1)

from Census Factfinder -2004 data 212,767,197 (18& over) - 34,205,301 (65 & over) = 178,561,896 (2)

(2) divided by (1) => 1 out of 127 +/-, not 1 out of 80. interesting note on your 1st link, page 4: "The incarceration rate of State and Federal prisoners sentenced to more than 1 year was 486 per 100,000 U.S. residents on June 30, 2004, up from 482 per 100,000 on December 31, 2003." 100,000/486 => 1 in 206 +/-

at least I showed how I reached my conclusions.

your 726 per 100,000 is 1 out of 137 (= 100,000 / 726) - still a far cry from 1 in 80.