Posted on 02/09/2012 4:24:43 PM PST by JerseyHighlander
From 1980 to 2007, the number of prisoners held in the United States quadrupled to 2.3 million, with an additional 5 million on probation or parole. What Ayn Rand once called the “freest, noblest country in the history of the world” is now the most incarcerated, and the second-most incarcerated country in history, just barely edged out by Stalin’s Soviet Union. We’re used to hearing about the widening chasm between the haves and have-nots; we’re less accustomed to contemplating a more fundamental gap: the abyss that separates the fortunate majority, who control their own bodies, from the luckless minority, whose bodies are controlled, and defiled, by the state.
(Excerpt) Read more at nplusonemag.com ...
How can one trust any statistics promulgated by any governmental agency, whether Federal, State or Local?
Stalin was filling prisons with political opponents... We're filling ours with low life criminals. That's a BIG difference. Crime goes DOWN when criminals are off the streets. If Stalin had let his political prisoners out it wouldn't have affected crime.
It's creepy to pretend these two circumstances are similar.
The “luckless” minority....Like they had nothing to do with it? Similar to the lottery, but they didn’t win? Like they were hit by lightning, poor souls...???
According to one source the number of known illegals incarcerated is 471,000. That may explain part of the increase
The crime rate continues to drop because thugs keep dropping out of the crimeforce. Criminal participation is at an all time low!
I don’t trust any statistics or polls. But it is well documented that most prisoners come from dysfunctional families—as many as 90% of those in prison come from fatherless homes.
Tells you why the Cultural Marxists who developed PC (feminists, homosexuals, ACLU) are out to destroy the natural family. Creates emotional cripples, dysfunctional kids, who will be sucking off the teat of government even as adults.
The result of more loss of freedom. The more things you make illegal, the more people become criminals. I bet no one can make it through a day without unknowingly breaking SOME law.
50 years, a low productive person could still make his way in the US, even if he was just a janitor or manual laborer. Today, the same low productive person is locked out of many jobs, because the requirements for that job are higher, though the actual prerequisite skills are still pretty low.
Not excusing the criminal set, but many low skilled people are locked out of being able to improve their situation.
This article is written by a socialist and is filled with such historical revisions as to make Alinsky proud. The only ray of truth is the admission that it was progressives who created the nightmare.
I suggest they get some skills. Not hard at all.
Besides, it’s still very easy for a young, non-skilled person to get an entry level job. There are a lot of young kids working at our local Publix and Kroger. In a normal economy of course.
You start there, work up to cashier or some department, become an assistant manager and maybe someday a manager. It just takes time.
Since 2009, and the minimum wage going to 7.25, they're gone, and no one working in that store is under 25.
We have more people in prison than China. You comfortable with that? Yet, everyone wants to lock up more.
A story about prison rape? Sorry, no sympathy. EVERYONE knows that if you do the crime, you will probably do some time and that rape is definitely a extra bit of punishment.
So what’s the answer? Stay out of the pokey, so to speak.
That’s the way it should work. But in many places, because the government has made it so expensive to have employees that businesses want you to hit the ground running. Businesses don’t want to train any more for anything.
Yes, the gevernment is the problem here too.
Hate to inject a dose of reality into your little world, but the relative peace we live in is due to the incarceration of the psychopaths who commit the crimes.
Am I comfortable with it? I thank heaven for penitenciaries!
It happens. I’ve never understood the minimum wage even back in the day I got it at $3.15 an hour.
Yeah Jonty, those days are disappearing. It’s so frustrating when simple logic can change all this in a few years.
But NONE of our worthless politicians will do anything about it. It’s like we have to start over from the local community and just start telling the governments “above” us to go to hell. We won’t pay minimum wage in this city, etc.
Let’s go to court if that will work. How is a minimum wage constitutional?
Minimum wages, unemployment payouts, health and safety, and every other government program is causing people to be too expensive to hire.
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