The Economist - Rough Justice in America. Too many laws, too many prisoners

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

http://www.economist.com/node/16636027

Rough justice in America
Too many laws, too many prisoners
Never in the civilised world have so many been locked up for so little
Jul 22nd 2010 | Spring, Texas

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Justice is harsher in America than in any other rich country. Between 2.3m and 2.4m Americans are behind bars, roughly one in every 100 adults. If those on parole or probation are included, one adult in 31 is under “correctional” supervision. As a proportion of its total population, America incarcerates five times more people than Britain, nine times more than Germany and 12 times more than Japan. Overcrowding is the norm. Federal prisons house 60% more inmates than they were designed for. State lock-ups are only slightly less stuffed.

The system has three big flaws, say criminologists. First, it puts too many people away for too long. Second, it criminalises acts that need not be criminalised. Third, it is unpredictable. Many laws, especially federal ones, are so vaguely written that people cannot easily tell whether they have broken them.


In 1970 the proportion of Americans behind bars was below one in 400, compared with today’s one in 100. Since then, the voters, alarmed at a surge in violent crime, have demanded fiercer sentences. Politicians have obliged. New laws have removed from judges much of their discretion to set a sentence that takes full account of the circumstances of the offence. Since no politician wants to be tarred as soft on crime, such laws, mandating minimum sentences, are seldom softened. On the contrary, they tend to get harder.

How far we have fallen. Give us your tired, your hungry, your poor so we can imprison them

We also like to take folks' stuff without due process or a trial
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=8843102&mesg_id=8843102

Who and/or what is going to make this country reverse direction towards becoming a sane and humane country? If I could give any advice to young people, it would be - become multi-lingual and get out while you can.

[WCGreen]

1. It's all, or mostly, drug realted, I suppose...

[90-percent]

2. great American System

The wonderful prison industrial complex. Gotta keep the bogus drug wars and drug prohibitions going so that corporations can get slave labor from the prisons. Plus the foreign drug cartels are just Al Capone's with 21st century technology. This is what happens when American Institutions are run by stupid and greedy sociopaths.

-90% Jimmy

[killbotfactory]

3. Prisoners don't count as unemployed

We can drop the unemployment rate by jailin' folks left and right. Which is what happened during the nineties, at least in minority communities.

Thanks again, War on Drugs!

And it only costs taxpayers about 30k per prisoner! What a deal! 30k per to keep a human in a cage, or a fraction of that to provide welfare to an individual. Hmm. Yeah, fuck that, in the cage you go. You've been branded, polite society wants nothing to do with you.

[lib2DaBone]

4. Our Court Systems are Collection Agencies...

We have Debtors Prisons.

They are making it a crime to be poor, homeless and unemployed. More new laws on the books every day.

Court Room justice.. the best that money can buy.