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Many people reading this will fail to realize that "correctional supervision" includes about 4M who are on probation or parole. Horrible article.
by cgrubb 15y ago
Many people reading this will fail to realize that "correctional supervision" includes about 4M who are on probation or parole. Horrible article.
- calibraxis 15y agoUS prisons/jails: 2,266,800 adults in 2010 Stalin gulags: 1,727,970 people in 1953 (I am no expert on the Gulag system. Whatever the case is, it's uncontroversial that the US is the world's leading jailer of its own populace.) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_Sta..., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulag#Brief_history http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulag#Brief_history)
- yummyfajitas 15y ago1.7m in Gulag / 108m in Russia = 1.6% incarceration rate Pop # taken from here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Russia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Russia 2.3m in prison / 312m in USA = 0.74% incarceration rate in the US
- ssp 15y agoThe Soviet Union had a population of 189 million people in 1953 according to Wolfram Alpha.
- yummyfajitas 15y agoFor an incarceration rate of 0.9%. This also assumes the Soviet Union sent everyone to the Gulag, and had no local jails, etc. I don't know if this is actually true, can anyone comment?
- arethuza 15y agoI believe that during the height of the Gulag, local jails were mainly used as interrogation and storage facilities for people who would eventually end up in the camps. Certainly the camps held both those convicted of political and criminal offences. I can recommend both Anne Applebaum's excellent "Gulag - A History" and, of course, Solzhenitsyn's incredible "Gulag Archipelago": http://www.anneapplebaum.com/gulag-a-history/ http://www.anneapplebaum.com/gulag-a-history/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gulag_Archipelago http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gulag_Archipelago
- bobwaycott 15y agoThen those people must not read the text closely. The author pointed out quite clearly that correctional supervision did not mean incarceration. Horrible readers.
- m0th87 15y agoThe entire article is rendered horrible for overlooking one gruesome statistic among many?
- JumpCrisscross 15y agoThe caption at the top of the article compares this 6M figure to the number in Stalin's gulag system - that's shocking. You didn't get to go home on probation after being sentenced to the gulag. It doesn't render the article useless, but it does mean that it no longer commands authority.
- baltcode 15y agoStalin would probably say something similar about the Nazi camps. You weren't given a meal a day and a shirt on your back while you lived your days in Siberia under the German system. Plus, most of the people in the Gulags had subversive political ideas that got them there rather than simply their grandparent's last name.
- sliverstorm 15y agoYour parent is objecting to what would appear to be intentional manipulation & misrepresentation of numbers, not accidental overlooking. Most people reading the article will assume the 6M people are in a prison. Odds are this misconception is intended by the author.
- bobwaycott 15y agoBe careful with "most people" comments. I read the article and did not at any point assume the figure meant # of persons in a prison. Correctional supervision stood out as not meaning incarceration.
- m0th87 15y agoApologies, I misinterpreted - so the 4M are a subset of the 6M supposedly in prison. This is a fair criticism.
- cullenking 15y agoYeah, but you are still unemployable for at least 10 years if you are in a state with a system to expunge felonies. There is another prison outside of the actual institutions waiting for every released inmate.
- laurentoget 15y agoprobation and parole are better than being locked up but having 4 million people deprived of most of their rights, unable to get most jobs. and at the mercy of the benevolence of an overworked an under-trained PO is not exactly a good news for a country which thinks of itself as a beacon of freedom.