3 ms·

This may shock you, but a lot of people aren't in jail for violent crimes - much less homicide. Drug offenses account for nearly half, according to <a href="htt

by jzb 5y ago

This may shock you, but a lot of people aren't in jail for violent crimes - much less homicide. Drug offenses account for nearly half, according to <a href="https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_offenses.jsp>this</a> https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_offen.... By all means, let's keep putting convicted murderers in prison. Arsonists, kidnappers, and a bunch of others. But we can probably forego a lot of drug offenses entirely.

rsj_hn 5y ago
This is really, really misleading because you are looking only at Federal prisoners which is only ~10% of inmates (most being in state prisons). In the US, each state has its own penal code and things like murder or rape are generally not investigated or prosecuted by the Feds, so these prisoners do not end up in Federal prison. But drug trafficking that crosses state lines is, which is why drug traffickers (the vast majority of federal drug inmates are traffickers, not users) account for ~47% of Federal inmates. However just because they were convicted of drug trafficking doesn't mean they are non-violent offenders or did not commit any other crime. Moreover be aware that when you say "non-violent" crime, this includes things like breaking and entering, fraud, grand theft auto, bribery, witness tampering, etc. Very few people truly support not incarcerating a person because they only stole someone's life savings but didn't assault them. So what is the real data? It's tough to say because again each state has their own penal code and own statistics, but let's look at Texas: https://www.tdcj.texas.gov/documents/Statistical_Report_FY2019.pdf https://www.tdcj.texas.gov/documents/Statistical_Report_FY20... About 25% of those entering the correctional system Texas ("intakes") were convicted of a drug offense (see page 2 of the report), but because these offenders serve shorter sentences or are diverted out of prison, on average only 15% of the prison population at any point in time is there because of a drug offense (see page 10). Now I have no idea whether Texas is representative, perhaps other states are harsher on drug offenses, but I think it's safe to say that 15% is a reasonable upper bound.

by jzb 5y ago

rsj_hn 5y ago

This is really, really misleading because you are looking only at Federal prisoners which is only ~10% of inmates (most being in state prisons). In the US, each state has its own penal code and things like murder or rape are generally not investigated or prosecuted by the Feds, so these prisoners do not end up in Federal prison. But drug trafficking that crosses state lines is, which is why drug traffickers (the vast majority of federal drug inmates are traffickers, not users) account for ~47% of Federal inmates. However just because they were convicted of drug trafficking doesn't mean they are non-violent offenders or did not commit any other crime. Moreover be aware that when you say "non-violent" crime, this includes things like breaking and entering, fraud, grand theft auto, bribery, witness tampering, etc. Very few people truly support not incarcerating a person because they only stole someone's life savings but didn't assault them. So what is the real data? It's tough to say because again each state has their own penal code and own statistics, but let's look at Texas: https://www.tdcj.texas.gov/documents/Statistical_Report_FY2019.pdf https://www.tdcj.texas.gov/documents/Statistical_Report_FY20... About 25% of those entering the correctional system Texas ("intakes") were convicted of a drug offense (see page 2 of the report), but because these offenders serve shorter sentences or are diverted out of prison, on average only 15% of the prison population at any point in time is there because of a drug offense (see page 10). Now I have no idea whether Texas is representative, perhaps other states are harsher on drug offenses, but I think it's safe to say that 15% is a reasonable upper bound.