3 ms·

Where is the 17% number coming from? A quick search turns up the official stats from the Federal Bureau of Prisons showing 48% of Federal incarcerations are du

Where is the 17% number coming from? A quick search turns up the official stats from the Federal Bureau of Prisons showing 48% of Federal incarcerations are due to drugs[1]. And using slightly older data, but still more recent than the author's 2010 numbers, it looks like over 20% of incarcerations at a combined State and Federal level are for drugs[2]. Also, the paper focuses on policies and enforcement, but seems to mostly ignore the social effects of broken drug policies in creating criminals. How many people are robbing or burgling (accounting for over 20% of incarcerations again) in order to support drug habits? How much gang-related violent crime leading to incarceration is funded by drugs? You can't just cherry pick the easy numbers and say "look, drug policies aren't that bad for incarceration!" [1] http://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_offenses.jsp http://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_offens... [2] http://felonvoting.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=004339 http://felonvoting.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=0...

yummyfajitas 11y ago
If you read the words surrounding the number, you might observe that "drug offenders comprise only 17% of state prison populations ". Thus, observing that 48% of incarcerations at the federal level are due to drugs is, well, a different matter entirely. Also, an important distinction between incarcerations and prisoners is explained on the fourth page of the article. Tl;dr; consider a 2 man prison, with 1 murderer in jail for 20 years and a rotating cast of heroin users serving 1 year sentences. Drug users represent 95% of incarcerations and 50% of prisoners.
- mdorazio 11y ago
  Agreed, but data point two in my first statement is for prisoners as well, not incarcerations. Ignoring Federal prisoners entirely is disingenuous since the total percentage across all prisons for drug offenders is above 20%. That's a lot more than 17%, and it's rising.
vezzy-fnord 11y ago
Federal incarcerations are slanted largely because of their limited criminal jurisdiction. 90% of prisoners are ultimately state prisoners. This from the paper's argument.
- mdorazio 11y ago
  It's more like 13% of prisoners are in Federal jail as of 2012. That's a big chunk to ignore given how many Federal prisoners are in prison due to drugs.

yummyfajitas 11y ago

If you read the words surrounding the number, you might observe that "drug offenders comprise only 17% of state prison populations ". Thus, observing that 48% of incarcerations at the federal level are due to drugs is, well, a different matter entirely. Also, an important distinction between incarcerations and prisoners is explained on the fourth page of the article. Tl;dr; consider a 2 man prison, with 1 murderer in jail for 20 years and a rotating cast of heroin users serving 1 year sentences. Drug users represent 95% of incarcerations and 50% of prisoners.

mdorazio 11y ago
Agreed, but data point two in my first statement is for prisoners as well, not incarcerations. Ignoring Federal prisoners entirely is disingenuous since the total percentage across all prisons for drug offenders is above 20%. That's a lot more than 17%, and it's rising.

vezzy-fnord 11y ago

Federal incarcerations are slanted largely because of their limited criminal jurisdiction. 90% of prisoners are ultimately state prisoners. This from the paper's argument.

mdorazio 11y ago
It's more like 13% of prisoners are in Federal jail as of 2012. That's a big chunk to ignore given how many Federal prisoners are in prison due to drugs.