Posted on 10/30/2020 10:03:37 AM PDT by ammodotcom
There’s no two ways about it: The United States of America and its 50 state governments love putting people in prison.
The U.S. has both the highest number of prisoners and the highest per capita incarceration rate in the modern world at 655 adults per 100,000. (It’s worth noting that China’s incarceration statistics are dubious, and they execute far more people than the United States. Indeed, the so-called People’s Republic executes more people annually than the rest of the world combined.) Still, that’s more than 2.2 million Americans in state and federal prisons as well as county jails.
On top of those currently serving time, 4.7 million Americans were on parole in 2016, or about one in 56. These numbers do not include people on probation, which raises the number to one in 35. Nor does it include all of the Americans who have been arrested at one time or another, which is over 70 million – more than the population of France.
For firearm owners in particular, the growth in this “prison-industrial complex” is troubling because felons are forbidden from owning firearms and ammunition under the 1968 Gun Control Act. As the number of laws has grown and the cultural shift for police has gone from a focus on keeping the peace to enforcing the law, more and more Americans are being stripped of their 2nd Amendment rights (not to mention other civil rights like voting – as of 2017, 6.1 million Americans cannot vote because of their criminal records). All told, eight percent of all Americans cannot own firearms because of a felony conviction.
(Excerpt) Read more at ammo.com ...
Nor does it include all of the Americans who have been arrested at one time or another, which is over 70 million
That seems dubious.
Do the various welfare bureaucracies desire more or less people to be on welfare?
Does the prison industry want more or less people in prison?
Is a high recidivism rate or a low recidivism rate better for our incarceration systems, as far as expansion and growth, job opportunities, budgets and profits?
Freegards
“We use incarceration as punishment for a great many of non-violent offenses and at great cost.”
I agree. There’s a lot of low level crime/violations that we should just slap a fine and community service time and we’d save a whole lot of money.
I have worked with leos
One jail LEO tells me that when they have open beds, the local beat guys are given a list of people on probation, usually between 17 and 25 and they knock on their doors on Weekend nights to see if they are violating their parole, like having a beer, or a cigarette, at home.
They are locked up to fill cells.
Well said
... and if you don't have enough people doing time, continue making idiotic laws that expressly violate your Constitutional charter until you DO have enough people in jail...
Read 3 Felonies a Day.
Why is Martha Stewart a Felon? She went to prison.
Exactly... Not that logic is a lot of peoples strong suit these days.
The premise of the article is correct. We use incarceration as punishment for a great many of non-violent offenses and at great cost.
We have far too many unnecessary and stupid laws. It's almost impossible for the average American to go about his or her day without breaking a multitude of them. Combine that with the advent of computers where a conviction for spitting bubble gum on the sidewalk 25 years ago can cost you a job and we make a good portion of our population unemployable because they ran afoul of some BS law when they were younger.
It's not a popular opinion on a website of conservatives where "lock em all up" is a popular stance, but I'll argue that as a nation that claims to be at the forefront of freedom in the world we lock up entirely too many people for stupid crap. Once you incarcerate someone you basically ensure they become a hardened criminal even if they weren't going in.
I wish the country would take the same stance with criminal law that President Trump took with federal regulations when he went into office. Before you put a new law on the books you have to remove several others. We're over-regulated, over-policed, and over-lawed. We need to scrap about 90% of the criminal code, just because something is dumb it doesn't mean it should be illegal.
The easiest predictor of criminal activity is whether someone has already been through the “Justice system.” Our recidivism rate is staggering, as is the number of violent criminals allowed to roam our streets. The sad fact is that a frightening percentage of our people are violent sociopaths. We don’t have nearly enough people in prison.
Dumbest thing I’ve ever read.
Exactly what “stupid crap” do we “lock people up” for? Please be precise, and use real numbers.
It certainly doesn’t exceed the stupidity of your drivel.
Several examples have been given here already by others, If you can figure it out from there.
Maybe you'd be better suited in Iran, they're more to your idealogy.
ANYBODY be charged with a crime.
You are sadly mistaken if you think only guilty people are convicted or cop plea deals.
Justice is compromised severely.
The people on this website should ALL know better.
Lol, examples. Tyranny of the (made up) anecdote, a leftist trope.
If you instantly say "Commerce clause", you've failed the test.
Well, you asked why she went to prison. The answer is insider trading. Which happens to be a crime.
What’s your position on Gen Flynn?
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