Posted on 03/29/2009 11:25:48 AM PDT by MetaThought
America's criminal justice system has deteriorated to the point that it is a national disgrace. Its irregularities and inequities cut against the notion that we are a society founded on fundamental fairness. Our failure to address this problem has caused the nation's prisons to burst their seams with massive overcrowding, even as our neighborhoods have become more dangerous. We are wasting billions of dollars and diminishing millions of lives.
We need to fix the system. Doing so will require a major nationwide recalculation of who goes to prison and for how long and of how we address the long-term consequences of incarceration. Twenty-five years ago, I went to Japan on assignment for PARADE to write a story on that country's prison system. In 1984, Japan had a population half the size of ours and was incarcerating 40,000 sentenced offenders, compared with 580,000 in the United States. As shocking as that disparity was, the difference between the countries now is even more astounding--and profoundly disturbing. Since then, Japan's prison population has not quite doubled to 71,000, while ours has quadrupled to 2.3 million.
(Excerpt) Read more at parade.com ...
Well, the only thing is, home-made meth is still not the majority of the supply. In fact, the last article I remember mentioning it, stated that the vast majority of methamphetamine wasn’t even made in the US.
Also, I don’t think anyone would dispute that if someone steals to buy alcohol, coffee, cigarettes, crack, teddy bears, that they should be charged with theft. But the USE of coffee, crack, meth or sex toys should not be a crime.
The Drug War goes hand in hand with the War on Guns, in that it furthers the destruction of civil liberties, treats every citizen as adversary, creates a military mindset among agents of the State, stimulates hysteria in the populace and overreaction in policy and it cements the belief that the government needs to save people from themselves in all aspects of personal conduct.
And all while enriching the absolute worst elements in society and instead of young toughs kind of hanging out and getting drunk, they are now drug barons who control and kill others over turf. The Drug War is a colossal failure not only because of the failure to diminish supply or demand of illegal drugs (which calls into question why some are illegal like marijuana and others legal like cigarettes and alcohol which kill far more people from use alone) but because of its destructive effect on American views toward liberty, personal responsibility and accountability and the acceptable range of policy choices that face us on any given subject.
More than that is broke. Take a look at who is in our prisons. It’s all about Drugs and people with Hispanic sir names.
So there's no profit in selling it illegally?
OK, I buy the premise that our penal system is screwed up, but this article doesn’t advance a single idea on how to correct the problems.
A littany of issues, no solutions. Great job, Webb.
The problem is, prison contains 3 kinds of people.
The first kind, violent sociopaths who enjoy inflicting suffering run the place. This has an extremely bad consequence on the second kind - shallow followers who are in some sense accidental or temporary offenders. They come out much worse than they went in. This is stupid and reckless social policy, and we need to stop it as soon as possible.
The third kind of prisoners are the unlucky folks who would normally get a slap on the wrist or a minor sentence, but who, through the incompetence or corruption of the lawyers who infect the process wind up in jail anyway. These guys also suffer at the hands of groups 1 and 2, and either come out unchanged or worse.
Allowing the minority of violent felons who enjoy inflicting pain to run our prisons is massively bad - a) because it's morally wrong, and b) because it allows them to "reproduce" by converting others to their perverse value system.
The issue isn't whether there are too many prisoners, or not enough. The issue is that the awful way prisons are run is harming society, and it's getting rapidly worse.
My solution (briefly) is to separate group 1 prisoners from the rest. I personally think they should be killed, but isolation on an island for life with death for escape attempts would be OK with me, as long as it didn't cost more money.
That I don't know, but I can't imagine anyone, even a meth-head, would be in business without a profit.
I am talking about the meth heads who make their own.
I agree. Find me someone in prison who did not know that the acts that got them convicted were illegal.
No matter how much the political and media elite wish to obfuscate the issue, the fundamental problem is that 'small time' drug users and pushers are still threats to the rest of society.
Or do you think that most of those arrested for drug possession are simply occasional, recreational drug users? No, they participate on a daily basis in the drug trade, the volence that accompanis it and the crimes needed to pay for it.
To fail to arrest them for drug possession means waiting until you have sufficient evidence of a crime against a person before they are incarcerated. And you can bet it won't be a member of the political or media elite who get victimized.
Webbs sophistry is simply a call for a return to lax sentencing and out of conrol criminal violence just like what we saw the last time Democrats were in charge in the 1970's. It failed then, it will fail now.
And how come $68 billion for incraceration is so expensive when the Democrats want a Federal budget of $3.6 trillion? What is the cost of leaving them on the outside? I've read a criminal out loose costs about $450K per year in direct and indirect damage (like a business having to install concertina wire to protect their property).
Some will say we need to treat the 'mental illness' or addiction causing the criminal behavior. Where's your proof that such treatment works? There isn't any.
Webb is asking me to risk my life and property so he can feel 'noble.' He can stuff it.
Japan doesn’t have the number and kind of illegal immigrants that the US has.
Because we're going to need extra space in them very soon?
I’m sure that’s what he’s doing this for.
Not to mention the number of Democrats...
Do you honestly think that is a realistic solution, and would actually happen?
Of course not. Should have put in a sacracasm tag, but felt it was obvious.
Once again we fall into fixing inanimate objects or institutions rather than the people responible.
Guns are bad. SUV's are Bad. Prisons are bad. 5-Gallon buckets that drown babies are bad.
People are all noble victims.
The Democrats are evidently looking to expand the pool of door-to-door community organizers.
There is a poll with this article. The questions are somewhat silly, but once you jump through those hoops, you get a chance to leave a comment about what you think should be done to fix our prison problem. From the comments I read, the most popular ‘solutions’ are to legalize drugs and to make prison life way tougher.
When it comes to this subject, all that can be fixed is the institution, since these people can only be dealt with after they become criminals. How would you go about making people not become criminals? Some people just are.
As I recall, fear worked really well in my generation. "Prison is a bad place and bad things happen there...you do NOT want to go" impressed us enough so that no peer of mine ever did time. Even the kind-of-bad kids did not.
I don’t think it is working that well nowadays, maybe that is the reason for some to think there are changes necessary.
No peer of mine ever went to jail or became a criminal either, but I’m only one person, with a limited number od acquaintances. Where I grew up, was just not the kind of place that normally breeds criminals.
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