USA is first in number of prisoners

We may be proud of that. Even China where population is running into billion is behind. Each 37th American had been imprisoned during his life. And more than 70 percent of imprisoned are colored persons. And those figures are growing. And you know why? Soon those pastyfaced haughty WASPs in White House will turn into prison the whole country. They're so glad that number of violations of law decreased last time. But at the same time they're inventing more and more far-fetched excuses for keeping an Afro-American behind bars. And that's because they want to reduce all to the same level. All Americans must read the same books, sing the same songs and think alike each other. And Latinos and Black brothers are prominent very often. We don't suit their totalitarian police state where everyone spies about everyone. So for avoidance of "intellectual ferment" they jail colored men for every insignificant fault. The most ridiculous is that we're paying for our own discrimination! I've been thinking already if I should stop paying taxes? Oh, know… I'm afraid that now they'd arrest me for thinking either

McGentrix wrote:

Perhaps if they didn't commit crimes, they wouldn't be in prison?

Why is it someone else's fault that they commit crimes and are now in prison?

One reasom certainly might be that you get quite easily in jail - for offense, which are either not punished in other countries (e.g. "underage drinking") or where you aren't send to prison but get probation (e.g. in Germany most prison sentences up to two years prison are stayed of execution and you get probation instead of going in jail).

Which works in my opinion - and from my experiences as a probation officer as well as a social worker in prison - not too bad.

Has anyone considered that we just have better cops over here?
Or, perhaps better prosecutors? Crappy defense attorneys?
Or, maybe our judges are just tougher?

Some Cook County jail inmates are taking turns using the same bed in 8-hour shifts as the county struggles with a worsening crowding problem, jail officials said.

...

So far this year, about 456 inmates slept on mattresses on the floor each day, according to John Howard Association data. That's up 71 percent from last year.

But even that is better than many previous years, Mateck said. In 2002, the average number of inmates sleeping on the floor was 1419 and in 1992, it was 2443, according to John Howard Association data.

Time to end the War on Drugs
(by Fromma Harrop)

And so Barack Obama tells highschool kids in New Hampshire that he "made some bad decisions" at their age. He "experimented" with pot and cocaine. This is old news-but even if it were new news, it would be ho-hum in today's politics.

After all, drug use has proven no bar to high office-at least for those who evaded arrest. Vice President Al Gore, ex-House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas have all admitted to smoking pot. President Bush refuses to deny that he snorted cocaine. And hardly anyone believes that Bill Clinton "didn't inhale."

I would second the ho-hum, except for this: more than half a million Americans now rot in jail for nonviolent drug offenses, some not as bad as Obama's.

Out of humility and humanity, you'd think that the Illinois senator would use this teaching moment to say: "What we politicians call our 'youthful discretions' should not become life-destroying crimes for others. Let's stop arresting drug users."

"You can get over an addiction, but you can never get over a conviction," Jack A. Cole, who spent 14 years as an undercover narcotics officer for the NJ state police says. The lunatic war on drugs has produced some extraordinary statistics. Since it started in 1970, American law enforcement has arrested 38 million people for nonviolent drug offenses. The number of people jailed for violent crimes has risen 300 percent, but the prison population of nonviolent drug offenders has soared 2,558 percent. The reason is "get tough" mandatory minimum sentences for drug related crimes. "We're putting violent criminals back on the street to make room in our cells for nonviolent drug offenders," Cole notes.

And despite his own past, Bush has shown no mercy, not even for highschool kids caught smoking pot behind the bleachers. One of the silliest spectacles of his administration was federal agents raiding the backyards of cancer patients growing medicinal marijuanan, as permitted by California law.

Here's a guaranteed way for one of the leading presidential contenders to rise above the pack: promise a pullback from the war on drugs. Because of his own drug use and vow to apply fresh thinking to old problems, Obama would be the perfect candidate for such a move. He could transform his story to a demand for decency: if having tried/used cocaine doesn't disqualify him (or George Bush) for the presidency, that fact shouldn't be allowed to wreck the dreams of other Americans either.

Why isn't Bush in jail for his crime?

okay well you've got me there.

But the truth is, many wealthy white men are charged with crimes and do not go to jail.

I know there are some statistics on this, too, but don't know where. It's been a while.

Maybe someone can back me up on that.

Many white men are convicted but don't do time.