USA is first in number of prisoners

What is I were to do the research and find out the following:

95% of convicted Black men from the age of 18 to 25 go to jail.

1% of convicted White men from the age of 18 to 25 go to jail.

That's my point.

Are you saying you did that research?

You seem to be suggesting one of three alternatives:

1) Tighten up the justice system so that more white criminals are convicted and sent to jail

2) Let some of the convicted black criminals out of jail

3) Stop incarcerating innocent black males simply to benefit the white owners of private prisons

#'s 2 and 3 are fairly ridiculous, but I suspect that you favor one or both of them.

As for your question about Pres. Bush, it's simply partisan nonsense.

There is something to your claim that freedom for criminals is available for a price, but nowhere near the extent to which you likely believe.

The number of criminals that have avoided conviction because of explicit bribery is, I would bet, very very small and likely not worth consideration in the context of this discussion.

However, the financial ability to hire the very best lawyers for one's defense is relevant, as many people (black and white) do not have this ability.

I'm not sure how this can be resolved however.

As there is a limited number of lawyers of the necessary "skills" to get a guilty person off, or defend an innocent person towards whom the facts all point, they, clearly, cannot be available for all charged criminals irrespective of race or economic status.

This would be the case as well if The State imposed totally socialized legal representation. Johnny Cochran was not able to defend all of the young black males convicted of crimes, even if he hadn't cared about making a lot of money (which clearly he did).

Criminals randomly benefiting from the skills of expert attorneys is not much of a solution. Imposing such a system might please your sense of justice, but it would hardly solve any problem.

In reality we do have socialized legal representation. If a charged criminal cannot afford a lawyer, The State will appoint him or her one. That these Public Defenders may be second-rate lawyers or not very motivated to help their clients is simply the reality of socialized services. Some will provide their clients with excellent representation, but once again it is the luck of the draw for the poor criminal.

Aside from paranoid theories about shoving innocent black males into prison to contain their brilliant individuality, there really is no comprehensively sinister explanation for the rate of black criminal convictions.

There is indeed a sociological problem within the black community at large, but the roots of this problem are far more complex than deliberate racist plots.

Yes racism is at the heart of the matter in that without it, most of the problems that uniquely face the black community would not exist, but some of these problems are also the result of efforts to counter-balance the effects of racism.

Putting more whites in jail or releasing jailed blacks will do nothing to solve these problems, and assuring that all young black males receive the very best legal representation is impossible.

The solution is rebuild a community, and to the largest extent this falls to the members of that community.

Land of the free and home of the incarcerated negro.

(Blatham started it)

Finn dAbuzz

Thank you for a completely well thought-out response.

I wonder what the statistics were before privitization of prisons.

Do we have any demographics people here?

Thanks!

The point that I took away from this article is that a behavior that has historically been viewed as an innocent exploration and almost a rite of passage for some - has been criminalized for others.


And I thought the editorial was distinctly non-partisan in that the author held Bill Clinton and Al Gore and Barack Obama as responsible for their criminal behavior (because yes, it was illegal when they indulged) as she did George Bush.

It's disingenuous to say that any off these politicians were not guilty just because they weren't charged or convicted- but I guess that's how the legal game is played in this country.

I agree with you Finn- but if you are incarcerating a whole demographical subsection (young, healthy males) of a specific racial community - who do you expect to be around to help rebuild that community?
The single moms and grandmothers?
I think it's also important to look at the reasons people use drugs recreationally or otherwise in the first place. Does anyone find it surprising that people who have less access to education and jobs might also find the lure of drugs more enticing? I'm not making excuses or defending the behavior- I just think there might be other reasons- apart from a genetic or racial predisposition to criminal activity.

I didn't mean to imply that anyone in this discussion had implied there was a racial or genetic predisposition to criminal behavior - I was just referring to theories I'd heard thrown around in the past- in other places.

And I'll admit honestly that I don't really have the personality or time to collect statistics off of google and I don't have the memory to remember in specifics the numbers of everything I read - but I do know that I have read that, (and in my work and life have witnessed what I believe to be an absolute fact), young black men are charged, convicted, and sentenced more harshly than young white men. That's probably also true of gender (in that males are more harshly dealt with by the legal system that females- at least that would be my guess).

People use drugs to alter their consciousness - yes. As an escape. And the point I was making is that those who are leading what seems to be a dead-end existence that's been limited by environmental factors (poverty and its documented effects on a person) might find it more attractive to escape than others who have not been so limited.

Because there are documentable differences. And I have spoken with people who have dealt drugs for a living (or were involved in the process in other more peripheral ways) and with people who use drugs - and the common theme is that they felt there was no other way for them to make a living. (This of course is bullshit - and I told them I thought it was too-I'm not defending what they did or why they said they did it-I'm just telling you what their perception is). And in the prison I worked in, nearly every black man I spoke to was incarcerated on some drug charge- while most of the white men seemed to be involved in some kind of robbery or burglary or fraud....

And when I worked in adoption, I noted that the black children removed from homes by DHS were most often removed because their parents were involved in drug abuse, while most of the white children were removed because someone in their family had sexually abused them. Does this mean that all blacks use drugs and all whites sexually abuse? No, not at all - but it is a pattern that becomes obvious enough to note,at least anecdotally.

"When incarceration rates by State (excluding Federal inmates) are estimated separately by gender, race, and Hispanic origin, male rates are found to be 10 times higher than female rates; black rates 5-1/2 times higher than white rates; and Hispanic rates nearly 2 times higher than white rates (table 14)."

Of the 250,900 state prison inmates serving time for drug offenses in 2004, 133,100 (53.05%) were black, 50,100 (19.97%) were Hispanic, and 64,800 (25.83%) were white.

Source: Harrison, Paige M. & Allen J. Beck, PhD, US Dept. of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Prisoners in 2005 (Washington, DC: US Dept. of Justice, Nov. 2006) (NCJ215092), Table 12, p. 9.

o Historically, the majority of crack cocaine offenders are black; powder cocaine offenders are now predominantly Hispanic. In 2006, African-Americans accounted for 82 percent of crack cocaine-related arrests, while white and Hispanic offenders accounted for 72 percent of powder cocaine-related arrests.

o In 2006, crack cocaine sentences were 43.5 percent longer than powder cocaine sentences; the average length of imprisonment for powder cocaine offenders was 84.7 months, while crack cocaine-related imprisonments averaged 121.5 months.

o There is a 5-year minimum prison penalty for a first-time trafficking offense involving 5 grams or more of crack cocaine or 500 grams or more of powder cocaine and a 10-year mandatory minimum penalty for a first-time trafficking offense involving 50 grams or more of crack cocaine or 5,000 grams or more of powder cocaine.

http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/national/2007/10/01/crack-vs-powder-cocaine-a-gulf-in-penalties.html

Drug Offense does not equal Drug Use.

Many miscreants reside within American jails because they, shamelessly, are trying to make money off of drugs.

They belong in jail, unless they can prove they sell the stuff because they want to advance alternative states -- that's about .00001% 0f the jailed miscreants.

African-Americans who rely on drugs for their personal needs are in a moral cateogry so far removed from that which holds African-Americans who exploit these needs for financial gain.

December 10, 2007

Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Sentencing Fairness for Crack Cocaine
The Supreme Court ruled 7 to 2 today that a federal district judge's below-guideline sentencing decision based on the unfairness of the 100 to 1quantity disparity between powder and crack cocaine was permissible. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote the decision in the case, Kimbrough v. U.S. (06-6330).

"At a time of heightened public awareness regarding excessive penalties and disparate treatment within the justice system, today's ruling affirming judges' sentencing discretion is critical," said Marc Mauer, Executive Director of The Sentencing Project. "Harsh mandatory sentences, particularly those for offenses involving crack cocaine, have created unjust racial disparity and excessive punishment for low-level offenses."

Review today's decision in Kimbrough at: http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/06-6330.pdf

Here's all the demographic stats per state per race that we need:

http://sentencingproject.org/Admin/Documents/publications/rd_stateratesofincbyraceandethnicity.pdf