5 ms·

America is pretty good -- don't anecdotes from the internet says deter you. We're a collection of states that each are allowed to do things more or less their

by mjolk 13y ago

America is pretty good -- don't anecdotes from the internet says deter you. We're a collection of states that each are allowed to do things more or less their own way. Texas is one of the states with serious issues surrounding illegal immigration, income, and education, but has about the same economic power as Canada.

mcv 13y ago
> America is pretty good -- don't anecdotes from the internet says deter you. It's not merely anecdotes; there's plenty of hard data. The US locks up more people in absolute numbers than any country in the world, including China, which has 4 times the population and a totalitarian government. Per capita, the only countries with more inmates are a handful of tiny Carribean islands, I believe. Law enforcement is structurally not being held accountable. Stories about police officers killing or tazering unarmed and even disabled people abound, usually followed up by a story that nobody got charged with any wrongdoing (except maybe the victim). In talks online, I notice that a lot of Americans are afraid of the police. Tons of websites warn not to say anything to the police. The message that the police cannot be trusted is everywhere. This is not the image of healthy, democratic, rule of law. It's a police state.
- scarmig 13y ago
  Fun fact: the USSR under Stalin and the gulag incarcerated fewer people than does the contemporary United States. http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2109777,00.html http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2109777...
  - tinbad 13y ago
    This is simply not true! Could you please provide a quote from where you got this in the article, because there seems to be no mention of it. My grandparents were lucky enough to survive the Stalinist regime but many of our family didn't. There's no reliable numbers of how many where imprisoned by Stalin and, even worse, how many died in prison camps. For the latter, even the most conservative estimates are in the millions.
    - scarmig 13y ago
      "Robertson drew attention to one of the great scandals of American life. "Mass incarceration on a scale almost unexampled in human history is a fundamental fact of our country today," writes the New Yorker's Adam Gopnik. "Over all, there are now more people under 'correctional supervision' in America--more than 6 million--than were in the Gulag Archipelago under Stalin at its height." Is this hyperbole? Here are the facts. The U.S. has 760 prisoners per 100,000 citizens. That's not just many more than in most other developed countries but seven to 10 times as many. Japan has 63 per 100,000, Germany has 90, France has 96, South Korea has 97, and Britain--with a rate among the highest--has 153. Even developing countries that are well known for their crime problems have a third of U.S. numbers. Mexico has 208 prisoners per 100,000 citizens, and Brazil has 242. As Robertson pointed out on his TV show, The 700 Club, "We here in America make up 5% of the world's population but we make up 25% of the [world's] jailed prisoners."" Obviously rates are more relevant than absolute numbers for policy analysis, here. But yeah, our prison population is absolutely enormous.
  - Dirlewanger 13y ago
    Did they also kill fewer people? Please shut the fuck up and stop cherry-picking comments to support your bullshit. >Over all, there are now more people under 'correctional supervision' in America--more than 6 million--than were in the Gulag Archipelago under Stalin at its height Oh wow, really? Maybe the USSR never surpassed it because people kept fucking dying in the Gulag.
    - scarmig 13y ago
      No. Lots of people died in the Gulag, but not enough to switch these numbers. Most Soviet deaths occurred as a result of (deliberately engineered) famine.
  - MrZongle2 13y ago
    And how did that work out for all the un-incarcerated people in Ukraine? Would you care to do a "contrast and compare" between Soviet gulag conditions and those in a typical contemporary U.S. prison? I thought not.
    - scarmig 13y ago
      I guess we're grasping for distractions now, so what about hte half a million people the United States killed in Iraq, eh???? What about the millions of people who'll die as a result of US engineered climate change? Of course, none of these diversions have anything to do with, you know, the topic at hand.
    - mcv 13y ago
      Nobody is suggesting that Stalin was not one of the worst totalitarian tyrants ever. He is personally responsible for more deaths than anyone else, and possibly even Hitler. And yet, somehow, the US manages to lock more people in prison than this totalitarian scumbag. That should be food for thought for anyone with half a brain.
  - DanBC 13y ago
    He did kill about 20 million so it's not sch a fair comparison.
baldeagle 13y ago
It's closer to Spain; Canada is somewhere in between CA and TX. http://stmedia.startribune.com/images/300*177/adambelz_1391795927_blank-us-map-hi.jpg http://stmedia.startribune.com/images/300*177/adambelz_13917...
baldeagle 13y ago
It's closer to Spain; Canada is somewhere in between CA and TX. http://stmedia.startribune.com/images/300*177/adambelz_1391795927_blank-us-map-hi.jpg http://stmedia.startribune.com/images/300*177/adambelz_13917...

by mjolk 13y ago

mcv 13y ago

> America is pretty good -- don't anecdotes from the internet says deter you. It's not merely anecdotes; there's plenty of hard data. The US locks up more people in absolute numbers than any country in the world, including China, which has 4 times the population and a totalitarian government. Per capita, the only countries with more inmates are a handful of tiny Carribean islands, I believe. Law enforcement is structurally not being held accountable. Stories about police officers killing or tazering unarmed and even disabled people abound, usually followed up by a story that nobody got charged with any wrongdoing (except maybe the victim). In talks online, I notice that a lot of Americans are afraid of the police. Tons of websites warn not to say anything to the police. The message that the police cannot be trusted is everywhere. This is not the image of healthy, democratic, rule of law. It's a police state.

scarmig 13y ago
Fun fact: the USSR under Stalin and the gulag incarcerated fewer people than does the contemporary United States. http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2109777,00.html http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2109777...
- tinbad 13y ago
  This is simply not true! Could you please provide a quote from where you got this in the article, because there seems to be no mention of it. My grandparents were lucky enough to survive the Stalinist regime but many of our family didn't. There's no reliable numbers of how many where imprisoned by Stalin and, even worse, how many died in prison camps. For the latter, even the most conservative estimates are in the millions.
  - scarmig 13y ago
    "Robertson drew attention to one of the great scandals of American life. "Mass incarceration on a scale almost unexampled in human history is a fundamental fact of our country today," writes the New Yorker's Adam Gopnik. "Over all, there are now more people under 'correctional supervision' in America--more than 6 million--than were in the Gulag Archipelago under Stalin at its height." Is this hyperbole? Here are the facts. The U.S. has 760 prisoners per 100,000 citizens. That's not just many more than in most other developed countries but seven to 10 times as many. Japan has 63 per 100,000, Germany has 90, France has 96, South Korea has 97, and Britain--with a rate among the highest--has 153. Even developing countries that are well known for their crime problems have a third of U.S. numbers. Mexico has 208 prisoners per 100,000 citizens, and Brazil has 242. As Robertson pointed out on his TV show, The 700 Club, "We here in America make up 5% of the world's population but we make up 25% of the [world's] jailed prisoners."" Obviously rates are more relevant than absolute numbers for policy analysis, here. But yeah, our prison population is absolutely enormous.
- Dirlewanger 13y ago
  Did they also kill fewer people? Please shut the fuck up and stop cherry-picking comments to support your bullshit. >Over all, there are now more people under 'correctional supervision' in America--more than 6 million--than were in the Gulag Archipelago under Stalin at its height Oh wow, really? Maybe the USSR never surpassed it because people kept fucking dying in the Gulag.
  - scarmig 13y ago
    No. Lots of people died in the Gulag, but not enough to switch these numbers. Most Soviet deaths occurred as a result of (deliberately engineered) famine.
- MrZongle2 13y ago
  And how did that work out for all the un-incarcerated people in Ukraine? Would you care to do a "contrast and compare" between Soviet gulag conditions and those in a typical contemporary U.S. prison? I thought not.
  - scarmig 13y ago
    I guess we're grasping for distractions now, so what about hte half a million people the United States killed in Iraq, eh???? What about the millions of people who'll die as a result of US engineered climate change? Of course, none of these diversions have anything to do with, you know, the topic at hand.
  - mcv 13y ago
    Nobody is suggesting that Stalin was not one of the worst totalitarian tyrants ever. He is personally responsible for more deaths than anyone else, and possibly even Hitler. And yet, somehow, the US manages to lock more people in prison than this totalitarian scumbag. That should be food for thought for anyone with half a brain.
- DanBC 13y ago
  He did kill about 20 million so it's not sch a fair comparison.

baldeagle 13y ago

It's closer to Spain; Canada is somewhere in between CA and TX. http://stmedia.startribune.com/images/300*177/adambelz_1391795927_blank-us-map-hi.jpg http://stmedia.startribune.com/images/300*177/adambelz_13917...

baldeagle 13y ago