Turkish gov’t detains 154,695, jails 50,136 since July 15 (2016)

As part of a witch-hunt targeting people linked to the faith-based Gülen movement, 154,694 individuals have been detained and 50,136 have been jailed since a failed coup attempt on July 15 in Turkey, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported on Sunday.

According to the report, based on Justice Ministry sources, 2,431 judges and prosecutors, 104 Supreme Court of Appeals members, 41 Council of State members, two Constitutional Court members, three Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors members, 6,982 military personnel including 167 generals, 8,816 police officers, 23 governors, 72 deputy governors, 112 district governors and 31,550 civilians and state workers are among the 50,136 jailed people.

A total of 45,708 detainees have been released on judicial probation, 12,753 have been released by police and prosecutors and 7,430 have been released due to a lack of evidence, among them 1,312 military members, 1,247 police officers, nine deputy governors, three governors, three district governors, 195 judges and prosecutors, two Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK) members, one Council of State member and eight Supreme Court of Appeals members.

Justice Ministry Deputy Undersecretary Basri Bağcı recently informed Parliament that Turkish prisons are currently 9 percent over capacity, saying that some inmates have to sleep in shifts.

“There are currently 221,607 inmates in prisons. Prison capacity is 203,000, making them 9 percent over capacity,” said Bağcı during a presentation to the parliamentary Human Rights Investigation Commission.

Turkey experienced a military coup attempt on July 15 that killed over 240 people and wounded more than a thousand others. Immediately after the putsch, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government along with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan pinned the blame on the movement.

Fethullah Gülen, who inspired the movement, strongly denied having any role in the failed coup and called for an international investigation into it, but President Erdoğan — calling the coup attempt “a gift from God” — and the government initiated a widespread purge aimed at cleansing sympathizers of the movement from within state institutions, dehumanizing its popular figures and putting them in custody.

Contrary to accusations made by President Erdoğan and the Turkish government, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the UK Parliament concluded in March that Gülen and the movement he inspired as a whole were not behind the failed coup in Turkey.

The UK Parliament statement came a week after Germany rejected Erdoğan and the Turkish government’s accusations against the Gülen movement about July 15.

The head of Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service (BND), Bruno Kahl, said Turkey could not convince them that US-based Turkish-Islamic scholar Gülen was behind the failed coup in July.

Similarly, Devin Nunes, chairman of United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said he has not seen any evidence showing Gülen’s involvement in the putsch in Turkey.

In addition, a report prepared by the EU Intelligence Analysis Centre (IntCen) revealed that the coup attempt was staged by a range of Erdoğan’s opponents due to fears of an impending purge.

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Just $667.00 to 67.00%

No straw man proposals for you to attack here; you need to look evaluate individual crimes and cases. Just pointing out a reported fact. There are of course myriad causes for the US’s anomalous position with respect to its incarceration rate compared to other nations’ reported rates and the most comparable English speaking countries.

1. The date is wrong. Possible when you could have under reporting in other countries like China Russia. But one can never prove or disprove this.
2. A very high capital punishment rate that reduces incarceration. The rate of capital punishment is typically very low when compared to incarceration rate. The best examples of a high capital punishment rate to incarceration rate would be Mao, Stalin and Hitler regimes with Hitler’s being the best for records. Today, we could have this in places like Sudan, Somalia, NK.
3. We have such a high rate of illegal alien migration that overflow prisons and makes up for the low native rate. This certainly is an important factor and would seem to reduce the US rate, but is it enough to substantially reduce it from its top position? The native Black incarceration rate in the US is much higher than the native White rate and US Black rate is much higher than rates for countries such as Nigeria.
4. Laws and law enforcement in the US is associated with longer sentencing for comparable crimes in other similar countries. This has been the most likely reason cited. Now, if the majority of citizens are satisfied with the fact that the US has tougher sentencing for comparable violations, that’s a decision based on hundreds of thousands of laws and regulations collectively made by the States and the nation. It’s just that people need to know the situation identify outliers and either accept them or change them. Maybe having long sentencing or stiff penalties for EPA and IRS violations, drug crimes is a good thing. Each violation or crime needs to be evaluated separately and especially when there is a disparity with world averages. When such a disparity exists, it might be good or bad; it all depends on the actual law/punishment. My point is that this needs to be up for review and discussion.
5. People in the US are inherently more predisposed to crime because of cultural factors. Difficult to prove. For example, homogenous societies such as Japan have low crime rates especially for things such as theft and cultural factors are often cited. Even if true, what can you do about it.

There are no broad solutions to this problem as you have alluded to with an across the board “moratorium on imprisonment”. However, we must realize that when people have their liberty taken away by the State, there needs to be a very thorough review of the necessity and appropriateness of penalty or incarceration. Our current position as #1 imprisoner suggests that a review is sorely needed.

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