Zakaria: Incarceration nation

cnn.com/TIME Magazine ^ | March 22nd, 2012 | By Fareed Zakaria

[Razzz42]

“Mass incarceration on a scale almost unexampled in human history is a fundamental fact of our country today,” writes the New Yorker’s Adam Gopnik. “Over all, there are now more people under ‘correctional supervision’ in America - more than 6 million - than were in the Gulag Archipelago under Stalin at its height.” Is this hyperbole? Here are the facts. The U.S. has 760 prisoners per 100,000 citizens. That’s not just many more than in most other developed countries but seven to 10 times as many. Japan has 63 per 100,000, Germany has 90, France has 96, South Korea has 97, and ­Britain - with a rate among the ­highest - has 153... ...This wide gap between the U.S. and the rest of the world is relatively recent... ...More than half of America’s federal inmates today are in prison on drug convictions. In 2009 alone, 1.66 million Americans were arrested on drug charges, more than were arrested on assault or larceny charges. And 4 of 5 of those arrests were simply for possession... ...Conservatives and liberals love to sound tough on crime, and both sides agreed in the 1990s to a wide range of new federal infractions, many of them carrying mandatory sentences for time in state or federal prison. And as always in American politics, there is the money trail. Many state prisons are now run by private companies that have powerful lobbyists in state capitals... ...In 2011, California spent $9.6 billion on prisons vs. $5.7 billion on the UC system and state colleges. Since 1980, California has built one college campus and 21 prisons. A college student costs the state $8,667 per year; a prisoner costs it $45,006 a year.

[Eagles6]

Which studies would that be?

[wjcsux]

If you don’t break the law, your chances of being incarcerated are reduced considerably.

[JerseyHighlander]

Innocence Project (Cardozo School of Law in New York)

Professor John Donohue of Yale University’s School of Law study on Ct. Death penalty cases.

A Broken System:
Error Rates in Capital Cases, 1973-1995
James S. Liebman
http://www2.law.columbia.edu/instructionalservices/liebman/

For decades, for every 8 death row inmates executed, 1 innocent man on death row was executed, and one innocent man on death row was exonerated before death.

That is not justice, and as states are cutting back on budgets for public defenders in this recession, miscarriage of justice is getting worse in some states again.

Pres. G.W.Bush for all his faults, did sign a bill during his five year “what’s a veto pen look like?” phase, that requires all death row inmates to have DNA evidence tested against DNA samples.

[wrencher]

Human life is cheap in many places, people locked up here would be executed elsewhere or just die in the street. USA prisoners would get fat on their free TV if it wasn’t for their exercise rooms.

Maybe if crime was riskier with more punishment the USA would not have so many prisoners. You could reduce the deficit by putting some on Pay-per-View. A new reality show on the mass hypnosis device.

[FreeFromWhat]

"If you don’t break the law, your chances of being incarcerated are reduced considerably."

I'm really not trying to be a jerk here but the only possible answer to your statement would be a very ironic "sieg heil".

There is no moral imperative to obey stupid laws. There is a moral imperative do disobey evil laws.

[wrencher]

Your math confuses me too. Do you mean 25% of the 26 year olds are locked up? What about the 25 or 27 year olds?

[FreeFromWhat]

If you are a male, 26 years of age, you have a one in four chance of incarceration on any given day.

While your overall point is a valid one, this statement is simply not true.

[W. W. SMITH]

Questions:

What percentage of the prison population is
White
Hispanic
Black
Life without parole
non violent
Drug possession

Now take all non violent put an ankle bracelet on them charge them a fee and send them home where they can go to and from work to home and that’s it. Let a computer monitor their where abouts every five minutes.

next all non citizens deliver them to law enforcement in their native country. Let their own country pay for their incarceration.

Now for those with life without parole we find a piece of land five miles on a side no people on that land and put up a triple fence, middle fence electrified, with cameras, motion sensors, vibration sensors. Enough guards to keep the fence under observation with no guards inside the fence. Hand the felon a pack with garden seeds and hand tools for working the soil and put them through the fence where they can take care of them selves. No fly zone above the place with automatic shoot down.

Then dismantle the war on poverty. That is the biggest single factor among minorities breaking up families and putting young men in prison.

The above should save this nation at least half the current cost of our prison system and leave the prison population at or below 10% of what it was.

[Eagles6]

“For decades, for every 8 death row inmates executed, 1 innocent man on death row was executed,”
Let’s narrow it down to post Furman. Do you have named and cases?

[JerseyHighlander]

Google it. every known case is documented on dozens of prominent websites devoted to the matter.

I’m not going to have a pedantic debate on FR about it, you can read up on your own time and come to your own consideration on the current system.

[Eagles6]

I already have. We need more prisons , longer sentences and speedier executions.

[JerseyHighlander]

Number of prisoners increased 20% between 2000 and 2010, yet the crime rate didn’t drop.

If between 2010 and 2020 the population again increases by 20%, and another 1.4M additional prisoners are incarcerated, would you believe we’ll make a satisfactory dent in your crime rate?

[onedoug]

soetoro should be in one of them.

[Eagles6]

Nope. We need more prisons, streamlined death penalty system, seal the borders, no early release, deport all illegals when their sentence is finished and make it a capital crime to red get reenter the US. Deport all illegals. Then maybe we’ll get a handle on it.

[Drew68]

I’m not talking about individuals who have harmed others, but the ones we incarcerate for relatively minor crimes as to whether that’s the best way to deal with them.

There was an article a few months back talking about the myriad "paperwork" crimes that could land you in prison. I don't recall all the cases profiled but the article did mention a flower dealer serving a short 4-5 month sentence for not having the proper forms on orchids he was selling. He didn't even know he had broken the law.

Now a 4-5 month sentence may not sound like a lot of time but I think for most of us, four months behind bars would cost us our jobs, deplete our savings and lose our homes. We now live in a country with more laws on the books than we can even comprehend and almost all of them carry a potential prison sentence for violating, something the "law and order" types around here might want to consider.

[Jonty30]

Most of us are one paycheque from impoverishment, so a 4-5 month jail sentence would definitely destroy our lives.

When I had built up about 500 dollars worth of traffic fines, I went to make arrangements to pay the fines and they wanted me to pay the whole thing at once. Being a lower income, at the time, I couldn’t pay it. I was willing to make monthly payments until I got it squared, but they wanted me to pay the whole thing at once or go to jail, a one month stay at a holding cell. Fortunately I managed to get it squared.

I don’t think many people here realize just how easy it is for those on the margins of society to find themselves on the outside of society for doing the exact same things, that you and I could do and merely be inconvenienced by paying a fine or getting house arrest.