23 ms·

> The United States has 5% of the world’s population but 25% of the world’s prisoners. This sums it up for me.

zo1 11y ago
I find it disturbing how those two tiny stats "sum" it all up for you, yet you make no mention of the third and elusive stat that makes the biggest difference of all: "The percentage of criminals in the United States" Like I said, drawing and inference from the two stats you posted is disturbing because both of those stats say nothing of the actual amount of valid criminals/lawbreakers.
- ghostberry 11y ago
  Out of interest, why do you think there are so many valid criminals and lawbreakers in the US?
  - yummyfajitas 11y ago
    Among other things, our murder rate is higher than that of most other western nations. Assuming murder rate is a good proxy for other "valid" crimes (it's hard to hide a body), we would expect to have 5x the incarceration rate of the UK or France. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...
    - jacquesm 11y ago
      The murder rate is that high because of easy access to weapons that make murdering people relatively easy. Shooting someone is a lot easier than knifing someone, point-and-click.
      - mellavora 11y ago
        Ummm, no. IF this was true, we would see a correlation between gun ownership (or access) and murder rates. If anything, the correlation is slightly negative, both in the US and globally. Where you DO see the correlation is inequality. In US states, using data from wikipedia, I find a 70% correlation between gini coefficients and homicide rates. The same is true globally.
        thucydides 11y ago
        There is a correlation between gun access and homicide rates. "Across developed countries, where guns are more available, there are more homicides. These results often hold even when the United States is excluded." http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/guns-and-death/ http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/guns-and...
        at-fates-hands 11y ago
        >> There is a correlation between gun access and homicide rates. There is a correlation, albeit a negative one: http://www.theacru.org/harvard_study_gun_control_is_counterproductive/ http://www.theacru.org/harvard_study_gun_control_is_counterp... The study, which just appeared in Volume 30, Number 2 of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy (pp. 649-694), set out to answer the question in its title: “Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide? A Review of International and Some Domestic Evidence.” The findings of two criminologists – Prof. Don Kates and Prof. Gary Mauser – in their exhaustive study of American and European gun laws and violence rates, are telling: Nations with stringent anti-gun laws generally have substantially higher murder rates than those that do not. The study found that the nine European nations with the lowest rates of gun ownership (5,000 or fewer guns per 100,000 population) have a combined murder rate three times higher than that of the nine nations with the highest rates of gun ownership (at least 15,000 guns per 100,000 population). For example, Norway has the highest rate of gun ownership in Western Europe, yet possesses the lowest murder rate. In contrast, Holland’s murder rate is nearly the worst, despite having the lowest gun ownership rate in Western Europe. Sweden and Denmark are two more examples of nations with high murder rates but few guns.
        11y ago
      - maze-le 11y ago
        Switzerland for example has liberal gun-ownership laws too, but the murder-rate is by far lower than in the US. This is soley one of many factors...
        twowordbird 11y ago
        Switzerland often gets bandied about in these discussions, because people see gun ownership rates and ignore the subtleties. All adult males are required to own and keep a rifle at home (with some minor exceptions). There is no "gun culture" here, people in general are very unenthusiastic and see it as a burden. In the last 20 years they have stopped giving ammunition to keep with your military rifle, exactly because they started having problems with shootings. Switzerland is the worst possible "example" of gun ownership reducing violent crime.
      - yummyfajitas 11y ago
        That's far from clear - even the rate of non-shooting murders is vastly higher than most of the western world (only ~1/2 our murders are done with firearms). Along the same lines of reasoning as yours, approximately 1/2 our murders are committed by black Americans, and the proportion of people who are black are well correlated with murders. So one could equally well say that the murder rate is high because of the presence of black people. Would you endorse this conclusion? If not, why not? (Let me emphasize I'm not endorsing the conclusion I derive here - I simply plan to repeat whatever argument jaquesm has against the above conclusion back at him w.r.t. guns.)
- Rovanion 11y ago
  Every prisoner in the US is a convicted criminal under US law. The amount of criminals outside of US prisons could then be speculated to be much higher than in other countries because the US criminalizes more things than other countries. Determining the number of criminals outside of prison then becomes a hard task since you can't use the state supplied numbers if you want to do a fair comparison between countries. It could also be that an equal amount of things are criminalized in other countries, but not punishable by prison sentence. Note however that this is wild speculation, just things you have to take into account.
  - shakethemonkey 11y ago
    Not every prisoner. There are also prisoners awaiting trial, and prisoners held for contempt of court. In the United States, there are 487,000 incarcerated awaiting trial [1]. [1] http://www.americasquarterly.org/aborn-prisons http://www.americasquarterly.org/aborn-prisons
- vog 11y ago
  > "The percentage of criminals in the United States" Not sure how this is really an additional fact. If you defined criminals in the sense of "criminals as defined in the US", you have almost by definition a direct correlation to the number of prisoners. BTW, here in Germany we also have politicians who think that Europe's criminals concentrate in Germany. Probably every country has some people believing that all criminals come to them. The difference between countries is how much influence those voices have.
  - zo1 11y ago
    The point I'm making is that it's implicit that they are "not" criminals by virtue of there being such a huge discrepancy. This needs to be addressed in a clear, and concise manner instead of making sweeping generalizations about the discrepancy.
    - tim333 11y ago
      Who is 'criminal' is fairly arbitrary in many cases. Say you sell some hash to a friend. Legal in some states, can lead to 30 years in some others, generally not a huge crime in the sense of harming others.
      - a8da6b0c91d 11y ago
        Find me one specific example of a person in state or federal prison for small time marijuana dealing or possession. No other crimes involved. Doesn't happen. Often, the DA will structure a plea bargain on drug or weapons posession (over a long list of more serious charges) because those are very easy to prove. This idea that the prisons are full of good guys caught up in the system is detached from reality. Most guys doing hard time are guilty of about twenty other things that they haven't been prosecuted for.
        brianlweiner 11y ago
        Three strike laws in certain states can result in long prison sentences despite relatively minor crimes being committed - including simple possession - http://www.lao.ca.gov/2005/3_strikes/3_strikes_102005.htm#crim http://www.lao.ca.gov/2005/3_strikes/3_strikes_102005.htm#cr... justice system Furthermore black offenders receive sentences that are longer than white offenders - http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324432004578304463789858002 http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014241278873244320045783044... And white people are significantly less likely to be arrested for drug possession, despite usage rates being fairly similar - https://www.aclu.org/news/new-aclu-report-finds-overwhelming-racial-bias-marijuana-arrests https://www.aclu.org/news/new-aclu-report-finds-overwhelming... A prisoner deserves to be sentenced for the crime they were convicted of, not for any possible crimes that we think they may have committed. To behave otherwise is completely antithetical to a society that supposedly values justice So no, prisons aren't "full of good guys", but they're full of people serving sentences that are longer than any rational policy would dictate who have been prosecuted in a system that has been shown time and again to have deep issues with bias and inequality. Not to mention the violence and overcrowding endemic in the prison system. It should be a source of national shame that it has continued this long without real reform.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- intopieces 11y ago
  The point here is that the justice system is not just, that there are too many criminals not because we're a nation of people who like to do bad things, but because the system profits from making criminals out of people. If you believe that the system for imprisoning people is just, then I'd really like to hear your thoughts on this question: Why are Americans so criminal? More than Iran, China, Russia, Syria, Saudi Arabia.... Why is it that Americans can't follow the rules? What is wrong with them? Of course that assertion is absurd because, at its foundation, that logic gets very racist very fast.
zouhair 11y ago
The fact that it is mostly a for profit business helps a lot.
- arethuza 11y ago
  Only 8.4% of US prisoners are in privately owned prisons: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_prison#Development_3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_prison#Development_3 I suspect wider cultural reasons rather than just simple corruption - though that no doubt plays a part.
  - WDCDev 11y ago
    It's not just private prisons, it's the correctional officer unions too. They benefit greatly from large prison populations.
    - arethuza 11y ago
      I found this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Correctional_Peace_Officers_Association http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Correctional_Peace_O... So they lobby to increase prison terms and to "enforce current drug laws". I suppose they should have the right to do that, but it still seems a bit odd to me!
      - zyx321 11y ago
        >enforce current drug laws That reads to me like it could mean "outlaw medical marijuana."
      - Lawtonfogle 11y ago
        Yes, they do have a right to do that. NAMBLA also has that same right. I also have the right to call them both a cancer to society.
      - maxerickson 11y ago
        There are about 1/2 million correctional officers in the US: http://www.bls.gov/ooh/protective-service/correctional-officers.htm http://www.bls.gov/ooh/protective-service/correctional-offic... So they might be able to have quite some impact by lobbying and voting as a block, but they are not a big enough body to swing votes against a meaningful majority. (your link states that union has ~31,000 members, California had about 17.5 million registered voters in the Nov 2014 election)
collyw 11y ago
"Land of the free"
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
pessimizer 11y ago
African-American males are 0.25% of the world's population, but 10% of the world's prisoners.
- Bostonian 11y ago
  Black men also commit violent crimes at much higher rates than the rest of the population. Most people are in jail for a good reason. I suggest reading a recent essay "The Smart Way to Keep People Out of Prison" by Megan McArdle.
  - viiralvx 11y ago
    Yet, how many of those black men were arrested under "fitting the suspect description" and then forced into pleading guilty out of fear for a longer sentence? Also, did you read the article or just come directly to the comments?
  - ChrisArgyle 11y ago
    It seems as if you're saying violent crime is a function of race (crazy talk) instead of class status (arguable). Is it possible that, due to race-income inequalities in America, that black males are also more likely to have low/no income at the same "much higher rate"?
    - Lawtonfogle 11y ago
      The icky point is when you start looking at crime as a function of not just SES but also culture. A lot of people have a hard time nuancing culture from race even though a well traveled person would easily see the difference.
    - Bostonian 11y ago
      Empirically, crime rates do depend on race, not just class. It's not crazy to recognize reality.
      - DanBC 11y ago
anon3_ 11y ago
In my opinion, it's about drugs and cultural undertones that drugs are permissive, that you can be the "druggie guy", and to some, it's hip and cool. I blame the intelligentsia. Try the scenario when you're in a low income family with an addict. This very easily leads to a vicious cycle - eventual arrest and incarceration. That's one less person coming home with a paycheck. That's a family growing up a generation with a criminal. And our culture doesn't shame (rightfully) the selfishness of doing drugs - it's ramifications on families. Instead, we blame cops, we blame the government, the privileged roll eyes and think being soft, sympathetic and compassionate will help. Whatever the solution we want to take to crime - and however hip Ivy League law students make going soft on this and that - our culture needs to recognize criminal acts are inherently selfish, not cool.
- droopyEyelids 11y ago
  If the system was concerned about helping the families of addicts, or even lessening the suffering in society, it would be impossible to make an argument that jailing a non violent drug offender (destroying their family, preventing them from getting a job in the future, inflicting them with mental trauma, probably infecting them with hep-c) is beneficial. That kind of trauma would drive most people further into despair and drug use.
- panzagl 11y ago
  I do wonder how and why we're supposed to get people into treatment if drugs aren't illegal- "Hi citizen I noticed you're enjoying a legal activity with deleterious long term effects. Please take this pamphlet with a list of treatment centers and voluntarily enroll." It's worked so well with tobacco and alcohol.
  - maxerickson 11y ago
    It has worked out with tobacco, quite well. http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/tables/trends/cig_smoking/ http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/tables/trends/cig...
  - wil421 11y ago
MrZongle2 11y ago
> The United States has 5% of the world’s population but 25% of the world’s prisoners. This sums it up for me. Here in the United States, we do have issues with the justice and penal systems. But these number alone do not paint the full picture. In other countries, if you're convicted of a crime you may have a body part cut off. You may be executed. Or you may simply "disappear". In any of these cases, you're not considered a prisoner.
- the_imp 11y ago
  > In other countries, if you're convicted of a crime you may have a body part cut off. You may be executed. Or you may simply "disappear". In any of these cases, you're not considered a prisoner. But are those really the countries you would like the USA to be compared with?
  - MrZongle2 11y ago
    Right or wrong, when it comes to incarceration and execution rates, we are compared with these other countries.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > In other countries, if you're convicted of a crime you may have a body part cut off. You may be executed. You can be executed in the US, too. In fact, the US executes more people per year than anyone but China and a handful of countries in the Middle East. So adding the possibility of execution into the comparison doesn't actually make the US look better.
  - MrZongle2 11y ago
    "So adding the possibility of execution into the comparison doesn't actually make the US look better." Apples and oranges. Consider this report: http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/10/world/amnesty-international-death-penalty/ http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/10/world/amnesty-international-de... In 2012, the US executed 43 people. The number of executions in China? Believed to be in the thousands. How did the condemned in the United States die? Here's the breakdown: http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/methods-execution http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/methods-execution . Note that all of these individuals were afforded appeals and legal representation. Some of the other countries? Maybe no trial at all. Maybe a completely rigged trial. Appeals? Doubtful but short. Time between being charged with the crime and execution? Perhaps days, as opposed to years in the United States. The method of execution? Anything goes; in North Korea the Kim regime has become especially creative here, dropping mortars and using AA guns to kill prisoners. Is the U.S. justice system faulty? Yes. Can one make a compelling argument against the death penalty? Probably. Can an honest argument be made that the United States and China (let alone some of the other countries on the list) are even in the same league? Doubtful.

zo1 11y ago

I find it disturbing how those two tiny stats "sum" it all up for you, yet you make no mention of the third and elusive stat that makes the biggest difference of all: "The percentage of criminals in the United States" Like I said, drawing and inference from the two stats you posted is disturbing because both of those stats say nothing of the actual amount of valid criminals/lawbreakers.

ghostberry 11y ago
Out of interest, why do you think there are so many valid criminals and lawbreakers in the US?
- yummyfajitas 11y ago
  Among other things, our murder rate is higher than that of most other western nations. Assuming murder rate is a good proxy for other "valid" crimes (it's hard to hide a body), we would expect to have 5x the incarceration rate of the UK or France. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...
  - jacquesm 11y ago
    The murder rate is that high because of easy access to weapons that make murdering people relatively easy. Shooting someone is a lot easier than knifing someone, point-and-click.
    - mellavora 11y ago
      Ummm, no. IF this was true, we would see a correlation between gun ownership (or access) and murder rates. If anything, the correlation is slightly negative, both in the US and globally. Where you DO see the correlation is inequality. In US states, using data from wikipedia, I find a 70% correlation between gini coefficients and homicide rates. The same is true globally.
      - thucydides 11y ago
        There is a correlation between gun access and homicide rates. "Across developed countries, where guns are more available, there are more homicides. These results often hold even when the United States is excluded." http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/guns-and-death/ http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/guns-and...
        at-fates-hands 11y ago
        >> There is a correlation between gun access and homicide rates. There is a correlation, albeit a negative one: http://www.theacru.org/harvard_study_gun_control_is_counterproductive/ http://www.theacru.org/harvard_study_gun_control_is_counterp... The study, which just appeared in Volume 30, Number 2 of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy (pp. 649-694), set out to answer the question in its title: “Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide? A Review of International and Some Domestic Evidence.” The findings of two criminologists – Prof. Don Kates and Prof. Gary Mauser – in their exhaustive study of American and European gun laws and violence rates, are telling: Nations with stringent anti-gun laws generally have substantially higher murder rates than those that do not. The study found that the nine European nations with the lowest rates of gun ownership (5,000 or fewer guns per 100,000 population) have a combined murder rate three times higher than that of the nine nations with the highest rates of gun ownership (at least 15,000 guns per 100,000 population). For example, Norway has the highest rate of gun ownership in Western Europe, yet possesses the lowest murder rate. In contrast, Holland’s murder rate is nearly the worst, despite having the lowest gun ownership rate in Western Europe. Sweden and Denmark are two more examples of nations with high murder rates but few guns.
      - 11y ago
    - maze-le 11y ago
      Switzerland for example has liberal gun-ownership laws too, but the murder-rate is by far lower than in the US. This is soley one of many factors...
      - twowordbird 11y ago
        Switzerland often gets bandied about in these discussions, because people see gun ownership rates and ignore the subtleties. All adult males are required to own and keep a rifle at home (with some minor exceptions). There is no "gun culture" here, people in general are very unenthusiastic and see it as a burden. In the last 20 years they have stopped giving ammunition to keep with your military rifle, exactly because they started having problems with shootings. Switzerland is the worst possible "example" of gun ownership reducing violent crime.
    - yummyfajitas 11y ago
      That's far from clear - even the rate of non-shooting murders is vastly higher than most of the western world (only ~1/2 our murders are done with firearms). Along the same lines of reasoning as yours, approximately 1/2 our murders are committed by black Americans, and the proportion of people who are black are well correlated with murders. So one could equally well say that the murder rate is high because of the presence of black people. Would you endorse this conclusion? If not, why not? (Let me emphasize I'm not endorsing the conclusion I derive here - I simply plan to repeat whatever argument jaquesm has against the above conclusion back at him w.r.t. guns.)
Rovanion 11y ago
Every prisoner in the US is a convicted criminal under US law. The amount of criminals outside of US prisons could then be speculated to be much higher than in other countries because the US criminalizes more things than other countries. Determining the number of criminals outside of prison then becomes a hard task since you can't use the state supplied numbers if you want to do a fair comparison between countries. It could also be that an equal amount of things are criminalized in other countries, but not punishable by prison sentence. Note however that this is wild speculation, just things you have to take into account.
- shakethemonkey 11y ago
  Not every prisoner. There are also prisoners awaiting trial, and prisoners held for contempt of court. In the United States, there are 487,000 incarcerated awaiting trial [1]. [1] http://www.americasquarterly.org/aborn-prisons http://www.americasquarterly.org/aborn-prisons
vog 11y ago
> "The percentage of criminals in the United States" Not sure how this is really an additional fact. If you defined criminals in the sense of "criminals as defined in the US", you have almost by definition a direct correlation to the number of prisoners. BTW, here in Germany we also have politicians who think that Europe's criminals concentrate in Germany. Probably every country has some people believing that all criminals come to them. The difference between countries is how much influence those voices have.
- zo1 11y ago
  The point I'm making is that it's implicit that they are "not" criminals by virtue of there being such a huge discrepancy. This needs to be addressed in a clear, and concise manner instead of making sweeping generalizations about the discrepancy.
  - tim333 11y ago
    Who is 'criminal' is fairly arbitrary in many cases. Say you sell some hash to a friend. Legal in some states, can lead to 30 years in some others, generally not a huge crime in the sense of harming others.
    - a8da6b0c91d 11y ago
      Find me one specific example of a person in state or federal prison for small time marijuana dealing or possession. No other crimes involved. Doesn't happen. Often, the DA will structure a plea bargain on drug or weapons posession (over a long list of more serious charges) because those are very easy to prove. This idea that the prisons are full of good guys caught up in the system is detached from reality. Most guys doing hard time are guilty of about twenty other things that they haven't been prosecuted for.
      - brianlweiner 11y ago
        Three strike laws in certain states can result in long prison sentences despite relatively minor crimes being committed - including simple possession - http://www.lao.ca.gov/2005/3_strikes/3_strikes_102005.htm#crim http://www.lao.ca.gov/2005/3_strikes/3_strikes_102005.htm#cr... justice system Furthermore black offenders receive sentences that are longer than white offenders - http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324432004578304463789858002 http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014241278873244320045783044... And white people are significantly less likely to be arrested for drug possession, despite usage rates being fairly similar - https://www.aclu.org/news/new-aclu-report-finds-overwhelming-racial-bias-marijuana-arrests https://www.aclu.org/news/new-aclu-report-finds-overwhelming... A prisoner deserves to be sentenced for the crime they were convicted of, not for any possible crimes that we think they may have committed. To behave otherwise is completely antithetical to a society that supposedly values justice So no, prisons aren't "full of good guys", but they're full of people serving sentences that are longer than any rational policy would dictate who have been prosecuted in a system that has been shown time and again to have deep issues with bias and inequality. Not to mention the violence and overcrowding endemic in the prison system. It should be a source of national shame that it has continued this long without real reform.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
intopieces 11y ago
The point here is that the justice system is not just, that there are too many criminals not because we're a nation of people who like to do bad things, but because the system profits from making criminals out of people. If you believe that the system for imprisoning people is just, then I'd really like to hear your thoughts on this question: Why are Americans so criminal? More than Iran, China, Russia, Syria, Saudi Arabia.... Why is it that Americans can't follow the rules? What is wrong with them? Of course that assertion is absurd because, at its foundation, that logic gets very racist very fast.

zouhair 11y ago

The fact that it is mostly a for profit business helps a lot.

arethuza 11y ago
Only 8.4% of US prisoners are in privately owned prisons: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_prison#Development_3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_prison#Development_3 I suspect wider cultural reasons rather than just simple corruption - though that no doubt plays a part.
- WDCDev 11y ago
  It's not just private prisons, it's the correctional officer unions too. They benefit greatly from large prison populations.
  - arethuza 11y ago
    I found this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Correctional_Peace_Officers_Association http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Correctional_Peace_O... So they lobby to increase prison terms and to "enforce current drug laws". I suppose they should have the right to do that, but it still seems a bit odd to me!
    - zyx321 11y ago
      >enforce current drug laws That reads to me like it could mean "outlaw medical marijuana."
    - Lawtonfogle 11y ago
      Yes, they do have a right to do that. NAMBLA also has that same right. I also have the right to call them both a cancer to society.
    - maxerickson 11y ago
      There are about 1/2 million correctional officers in the US: http://www.bls.gov/ooh/protective-service/correctional-officers.htm http://www.bls.gov/ooh/protective-service/correctional-offic... So they might be able to have quite some impact by lobbying and voting as a block, but they are not a big enough body to swing votes against a meaningful majority. (your link states that union has ~31,000 members, California had about 17.5 million registered voters in the Nov 2014 election)

collyw 11y ago

"Land of the free"

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

pessimizer 11y ago

African-American males are 0.25% of the world's population, but 10% of the world's prisoners.

Bostonian 11y ago
Black men also commit violent crimes at much higher rates than the rest of the population. Most people are in jail for a good reason. I suggest reading a recent essay "The Smart Way to Keep People Out of Prison" by Megan McArdle.
- viiralvx 11y ago
  Yet, how many of those black men were arrested under "fitting the suspect description" and then forced into pleading guilty out of fear for a longer sentence? Also, did you read the article or just come directly to the comments?
- ChrisArgyle 11y ago
  It seems as if you're saying violent crime is a function of race (crazy talk) instead of class status (arguable). Is it possible that, due to race-income inequalities in America, that black males are also more likely to have low/no income at the same "much higher rate"?
  - Lawtonfogle 11y ago
    The icky point is when you start looking at crime as a function of not just SES but also culture. A lot of people have a hard time nuancing culture from race even though a well traveled person would easily see the difference.
  - Bostonian 11y ago
    Empirically, crime rates do depend on race, not just class. It's not crazy to recognize reality.
    - DanBC 11y ago

anon3_ 11y ago

In my opinion, it's about drugs and cultural undertones that drugs are permissive, that you can be the "druggie guy", and to some, it's hip and cool. I blame the intelligentsia. Try the scenario when you're in a low income family with an addict. This very easily leads to a vicious cycle - eventual arrest and incarceration. That's one less person coming home with a paycheck. That's a family growing up a generation with a criminal. And our culture doesn't shame (rightfully) the selfishness of doing drugs - it's ramifications on families. Instead, we blame cops, we blame the government, the privileged roll eyes and think being soft, sympathetic and compassionate will help. Whatever the solution we want to take to crime - and however hip Ivy League law students make going soft on this and that - our culture needs to recognize criminal acts are inherently selfish, not cool.

droopyEyelids 11y ago
If the system was concerned about helping the families of addicts, or even lessening the suffering in society, it would be impossible to make an argument that jailing a non violent drug offender (destroying their family, preventing them from getting a job in the future, inflicting them with mental trauma, probably infecting them with hep-c) is beneficial. That kind of trauma would drive most people further into despair and drug use.
panzagl 11y ago
I do wonder how and why we're supposed to get people into treatment if drugs aren't illegal- "Hi citizen I noticed you're enjoying a legal activity with deleterious long term effects. Please take this pamphlet with a list of treatment centers and voluntarily enroll." It's worked so well with tobacco and alcohol.
- maxerickson 11y ago
  It has worked out with tobacco, quite well. http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/tables/trends/cig_smoking/ http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/tables/trends/cig...
- wil421 11y ago

MrZongle2 11y ago

> The United States has 5% of the world’s population but 25% of the world’s prisoners. This sums it up for me. Here in the United States, we do have issues with the justice and penal systems. But these number alone do not paint the full picture. In other countries, if you're convicted of a crime you may have a body part cut off. You may be executed. Or you may simply "disappear". In any of these cases, you're not considered a prisoner.

the_imp 11y ago
> In other countries, if you're convicted of a crime you may have a body part cut off. You may be executed. Or you may simply "disappear". In any of these cases, you're not considered a prisoner. But are those really the countries you would like the USA to be compared with?
- MrZongle2 11y ago
  Right or wrong, when it comes to incarceration and execution rates, we are compared with these other countries.
dragonwriter 11y ago
> In other countries, if you're convicted of a crime you may have a body part cut off. You may be executed. You can be executed in the US, too. In fact, the US executes more people per year than anyone but China and a handful of countries in the Middle East. So adding the possibility of execution into the comparison doesn't actually make the US look better.
- MrZongle2 11y ago
  "So adding the possibility of execution into the comparison doesn't actually make the US look better." Apples and oranges. Consider this report: http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/10/world/amnesty-international-death-penalty/ http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/10/world/amnesty-international-de... In 2012, the US executed 43 people. The number of executions in China? Believed to be in the thousands. How did the condemned in the United States die? Here's the breakdown: http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/methods-execution http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/methods-execution . Note that all of these individuals were afforded appeals and legal representation. Some of the other countries? Maybe no trial at all. Maybe a completely rigged trial. Appeals? Doubtful but short. Time between being charged with the crime and execution? Perhaps days, as opposed to years in the United States. The method of execution? Anything goes; in North Korea the Kim regime has become especially creative here, dropping mortars and using AA guns to kill prisoners. Is the U.S. justice system faulty? Yes. Can one make a compelling argument against the death penalty? Probably. Can an honest argument be made that the United States and China (let alone some of the other countries on the list) are even in the same league? Doubtful.