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USA is first in number of prisoners

 
 
Finn dAbuzz
 
  1  
Reply Wed 28 Nov, 2007 11:00 pm
Re: USA is first in number of prisoners
Black brother wrote:
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 Wink


One in every 38 Americans has been imprisoned?

I don't think so, unless you consider being sent to your room imprisonment.

Where did you come up with this statistic?

I don't know that I've ever before seen someone describing criminal behavior as a manifestation of individualism.
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Ticomaya
 
  1  
Reply Wed 28 Nov, 2007 11:09 pm
Walter Hinteler wrote:
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.


Side note, Walter: is it true you have beer vending machines in Germany?
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Ticomaya
 
  1  
Reply Wed 28 Nov, 2007 11:25 pm
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?

-----

You know, when you hear about a dog biting a child in the news, it seems to me that the dog is usually a pit bull or a rottweiler. Now, does that mean statistically more pit bulls and rottweilers bite children than do other dogs? Maybe, maybe not ... but I happen to think that's the case. I don't think the media has it in for those particular breeds.
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Walter Hinteler
 
  1  
Reply Thu 29 Nov, 2007 12:11 am
Ticomaya wrote:
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?


'Better' is something relative.

But certainly your cops arrest faster (e.g. you can't and don't get handcuffed so quickly in many other countries).
Same with prosecutors (especially when conmsidering the different legal systems: in many countries they are independent civil servants, in some the investigations is done by judges ....).
Defense attorney? Well, you know, Tico, whatt is taught at law schools ...

Judges generally can only be as taugh as the law allows - within a certain "window" that is.

I'm still confirmed that the USA has tougher laws, aiming at bringing accused faster in prisons.
And that's why prison is thaught to be right place for someone having done something illegal.

I do think that such is fine. But I do hold other approaches to be ... better working, in other countries and under other legal systems, different 'cultures' that is.
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Ticomaya
 
  1  
Reply Thu 29 Nov, 2007 12:18 am
Beer vending machines?
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Walter Hinteler
 
  1  
Reply Thu 29 Nov, 2007 12:29 am
Yes, you got such, similar to cigarette vending maschines. (You have to put an ID-card in it to prove that you're 16 [beer] or 18 [cigarettes]. But that's just since one, two years - before, any child could use them.)


Edited: beer vending maschines came out of use .... "voluntarily", by the industry.
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Walter Hinteler
 
  1  
Reply Thu 29 Nov, 2007 12:31 am
Side note: those beer vending maschines were the last ressort when I was in the navy, and shops closed early and you didn't find petrol stations open 24/24 so often as today ...
(You can buy any kind of alcohol, though more expensive, at petrol stations if your 16 [beer] or 18.)
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Ticomaya
 
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Reply Thu 29 Nov, 2007 12:32 am
16 to drink, 18 to smoke? Nice.
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Walter Hinteler
 
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Reply Thu 29 Nov, 2007 12:40 am
Thry just changed the laws re smoking - up from 16. (In public. that is.)

Drinking is only for beer and lowest percentage drinks, excluding 'mix drinks' (like vodka with something, which were very popular among youths).
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Walter Hinteler
 
  1  
Reply Sun 2 Dec, 2007 04:53 am
An .... interesting approach Cook inmates bunking in shifts:


Quote:
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.
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Francis
 
  1  
Reply Sun 2 Dec, 2007 05:15 am
California, a wealthy state, in order to avoid overcrowded prisons, is sending prisoners to other states' prisons and, obviously, paying good money for that...
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aidan
 
  1  
Reply Sun 2 Dec, 2007 05:26 am
I read an interesting editorial in our local paper ( I can't find it- so I'll try to remember the points as best I can) but it spoke about this very issue in the context of the war on drugs.

The author talked about how Barack Obama, Al Gore, Bill Clinton, and even George Bush (among various others) have all admitted to drug use in their past- but what struck the author of this editorial is that none of those men were charged or prosecuted or imprisoned for a crime, while as we speak there are hundreds of thousands of (mostly) young men in prison for engaging in exactly the same activities and behavior in this country- but most of them are black.

She spoke about the discrepancy in the way in which these charges are pressed, tried and sentenced, depending on who you are and how you are perceived within the legal community, and society at large.

The author really made a good (and I think, valid) point about how blithely we as a nation are willing to excuse these men, and other young men like them, (people we perceive as coming from good homes or enrolled in good schools) for their youthful experimentation, while we as a country are imprisoning people from less privileged backgrounds for exactly the same behavior.
She also spoke of the abject hypocricy of these politicians who are not addressing this issue by making it a platform of their campaign. They got off scot free, and are so blase about their own illegal drug use that they'll openly talk about it as they run for the highest office in the country- while people who did exactly the same thing they did are sitting in prison.
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aidan
 
  1  
Reply Sun 2 Dec, 2007 05:53 am
I found the article, it's not online - but I think it's worth reading:

Quote:
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.
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gungasnake
 
  1  
Reply Sun 2 Dec, 2007 06:00 am
The main thing you need to do is get rid of the "War on Drugs(TM)".

One way you could sell the idea would be to get rid of the war on drugs and declare a "War on Fraud" on the same day; they could keep their prison industrial complex, every druggie thrown out of prison would be one more prison cell available for a demoKKKrat, and the racial disparity would be eliminated.
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dupre
 
  1  
Reply Thu 6 Dec, 2007 07:33 am
great article!

Who do these people think they are?

It's so unfair!!

What can be done?

I really DO think this imprisonment of our black male youths is a scam to make money for white private prison owners.

God, can't anybody do anything?

It's the biggest disgrace of our nation.

It should be the easiest to fix.

Can't anyone think of anything that can be done????

This is the challenge of our generation!

Or, it SHOULD BE!!!

It's right in front of our eyes!!!
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au1929
 
  1  
Reply Thu 6 Dec, 2007 12:06 pm
What is the solution to the disparity in numbers between whites and blacks that are incarcerated. Should we encourage more white people to commit crimes? Nonsence, try facing the facts that those in jail are there because they commited a crime. If you can't do the time, don't commit the crime. And above all do something constructive and stop playing the race card.
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dupre
 
  1  
Reply Thu 6 Dec, 2007 12:14 pm
The question is,

Why isn't Bush in jail for his crime?

What about all the other white males that DO the crime and walk?

Freedom for criminals is available for a price.

And a lot of minorities don't have the money.
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Ticomaya
 
  1  
Reply Thu 6 Dec, 2007 01:30 pm
dupre wrote:
Why isn't Bush in jail for his crime?


Because he's been neither charged nor convicted of any crime?
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dupre
 
  1  
Reply Thu 6 Dec, 2007 01:42 pm
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.
0 Replies
 
McGentrix
 
  1  
Reply Thu 6 Dec, 2007 01:48 pm
dupre wrote:
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.


Many black wealthy black, asian and hispanic men are also charged with crimes and do not go to jail. Many black, asian and hispanic men are also convicted but don't do time.

So what is your point exactly?
0 Replies
 
 

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