Posted on 04/25/2005 8:49:41 AM PDT by BigSkyFreeper
WASHINGTON - Growing at a rate of about 900 inmates each week between mid-2003 and mid-2004, the nation's prisons and jails held 2.1 million people, or one in every 138 U.S. residents, the government reported Sunday.
By last June 30, there were 48,000 more inmates, or 2.3 percent, more than the year before, according to the latest figures from the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
The total inmate population has hovered around 2 million for the past few years, reaching 2.1 million on June 30, 2002, and just below that mark a year later.
While the crime rate has fallen over the past decade, the number of people in prison and jail is outpacing the number of inmates released, said the report's co-author, Paige Harrison. For example, the number of admissions to federal prisons in 2004 exceeded releases by more than 8,000, the study found.
Harrison said the increase can be attributed largely to get-tough policies enacted in the 1980s and 1990s. Among them are mandatory drug sentences, "three-strikes-and-you're-out" laws for repeat offenders, and "truth-in-sentencing" laws that restrict early releases.
Added Malcolm Young, executive director of the Sentencing Project, which promotes alternatives to prison: "We're working under the burden of laws and practices that have developed over 30 years that have focused on punishment and prison as our primary response to crime."
He said many of those incarcerated are not serious or violent offenders, but are low-level drug offenders..
According to the Justice Policy Institute, which advocates a more lenient system of punishment, the United States has a higher rate of incarceration than any other country, followed by Britain, China, France, Japan and Nigeria.
There were 726 inmates for every 100,000 U.S. residents by June 30, 2004, compared with 716 a year earlier, according to the report by the Justice Department agency. In 2004, one in every 138 U.S. residents was in prison or jail; the previous year it was one in every 140.
In 2004, 61 percent of prison and jail inmates were of racial or ethnic minorities, the government said. An estimated 12.6 percent of all black men in their late 20s were in jails or prisons, as were 3.6 percent of Hispanic men and 1.7 percent of white men in that age group, the report said.
Other findings include:
• State prisons held about 2,500 youths under 18 in 2004. That compares with a peak, in 1995, of about 5,300. Local jails held about 7,000 youths, down from 7,800 in 1995.
• In the year ending last June 30, 13 states reported an increase of at least 5 percent in the federal system, led by Minnesota, at about 13 percent; Montana at 10.5 percent; Arkansas at 9 percent.
Among the 12 states that reported a decline in the inmate population were Alabama, 7 percent; Connecticut, 2.5 percent; and Ohio, 2 percent.
All the while, President Bush didn't have to add 10,000 cops to the streets of America, like that repugnant Clinton supposedly claimed he had done while the crime rate had gone up.
Somewhere out in the Nevada desert is a prison camp waiting to be built. One that will house hundreds of thousands. With a perimeter patrolled by predator drones programmed to shoot on sight. We can put our illegals in there, too.
Well, gee, what a surprise. Putting more criminals put into jail just might reduce the crime rate since they're no longer free to commit more crimes.
Secure the ports and borders and deport the illegals including the incarcerated illegals. Problem solved.
next case...
Exactly. Prison population up, crime down. No correlation there. Nothing to see here, move along.
Personally, I think they should not incarcerate the low level drug users, only the drug dealers, rapists, child molesters, murderers, and other violent offenders. Letting out the low level drug users would free up so much space for those who need to be removed from society. More space would also allow the system to keep the violent ones in there longer. Sentence the drug users to rehab, not jail.
I saw on CNN this reporterette saying the following "Even though the crime rate has been dropping, the prisons are fuller than ever"
She actually said that. Someone needs to look into an old thing called "cause and effect"
Morons.
So we're putting folks in jail for possession of pot? Well, at a maintanance cost of $40,000 (according to my warden uncle) a year per prisoner, it's good to know the taxpayer's money is being spent on jailing potheads than on more serious problems. (sarcasm off)
I'm all for locking up violent offenders, but there's alot of people in those prisons who we would be wiser to release and let them get back to working and paying their own bills.
The obvious question is:
Where does this fresh supply come from ??
Why not make it simple … lets put everyone in jail. That way we have a good controlled system.
You are a criminal.
I am a criminal.
Of course you will say, that your crime is not worth jail time … well I think it is.
All you people that fly by me on the highway when I'm doing the speed limit. … you are criminals.
All you people that have zoning ordinance violations (and believe me that’s more of you than you think) are criminals.
All you people that don't report that little side job income .. you are criminals.
If you can find me 1 person who has not violated some part of the criminal code in the last week I' will kiss your … well … you get the drift.
So … I think everyone .. Including you and I should go turn ourselves in.
As long as the system that is in place makes criminals out of every citizen, it has no credibility.
And to top it off … non-citizens are exempt.
The medeivel English had the answer: Prison was only for those awaiting trial.
After trial, you might receive a public whipping(lashes), lose a hand or eyes, or have your head lopped off.
I'm curious, would you ask your uncle, are the drug offenders in prison there for small quantities of pot, or are they more likely to be crackheads that will steal, maim, or kill for more of their addiction? I'm with you on keeping jail cells free of relatively harmless potheads, and filling them instead with child molesters, but is that what's really happening?
I think we're all breaking some kind of law right now there are so many of them.
The problem with "low level" drug users is that many support their habit with low level crime. That said, I would legalize recreatinal drugs, and eleminate the criminal element.
are the drug offenders in prison there for small quantities of pot, or are they more likely to be crackheads that will steal, maim, or kill for more of their addiction?
Does it really matter what their addiction is? If they steal, maim, or kill, they should be locked up. But if you lock people up because you think their addiction may lead them to commit a violent crime, you may as well start charging every drunk with DWI, even if they never drive drunk.
Yes, I saw a (typically) great piece on the History Channel about the Roman justice system
- The accused were held in a "jail" only until they were sentenced, this jail was called "The Carcer"
- In sentencing, "the crueler and more unusual the punishment, the better"...there was no concept of rehabilitation
Our justice system has become "pussy-fied" since then by western notions...I'm not saying we should have an identical system to the Romans, but I bet that system had one hell of a deterrent effect (esp if you were a slave, they got annihilated if they f*cked up)
- Also, I agree with a previous post that The Drug War should be replaced with a Legalization/Regulation/Taxation strategy, where:
1. The black-market profit motive to illegal drug production/distribution is mostly eliminated..along with the crime/corruption it generates and the "forbidden fruit" aura that attracts the yound
2. Drugs are legalized and their potency regulated, and they're well-taxed
3. Most of taxes generated are earmarked to manage those without the personal responsibility to use the drugs responsibly
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