USA - america- land of the convicts

[drug-bot]

Over 7.2 million adults on probation or parole or incarcerated in jail or prison in 2006. That's about 3.2% of the U.S. adult population, or 1 in every 31 adults.[1][2]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America..._note-Drugs-12

[D]
Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics Correctional Surveys In 2007, over 7.3 million people were under some form of correctional supervision.
^ from DOJ website, cant link to due to forum rules regading linking to govement sites.

swim cant believe the amount of people in the prison system and hows theres no shame amoung americans who in hordes continue to vote for 'get tough on crime' politition. Its shocking as hell to realieze the the usa only has 5% of the worlds population while at the same time having 25% of the worlds inmate population. The explosion of inmate happened in the early 1980's, the same timeas president reagons get tough on drug campaigns as well as his infamous declaring a full war on drugs, swim doesnt think these 2 things hapening at the same times just a coincidence. whats swiys opinion? whats the prision situation in europe?

Reputation Comments on this post:

	Great statistical analysis here.
	awsome find
	Very nice statistical find indeed.
	This is very intertesting and eye-opening, it really shows how much work needs to be done in some countries.
	Very interesting statistics, almost shocking

[Alfa]

Please upload the pics to the server.

[drug-bot]

Originally Posted by Alfa

Please upload the pics to the server.

how??

[Amazing Andy]

Great post. This is the most important issue in the U.S. imo and it cant be restated enough. Politicians get elected if they are tough on crime, and only now are people starting to realize that prisons and the correctional system CREATES career criminals instead of discouraging crime. Not to mention, each person sent to prison leaves prison with more criminal connections, more institutionalized, no job, no money, and in every way worse off than before they went to prison but with a felony conviction that makes getting hired above minimum wage virtually impossible.

[DopinDan]

According to the history channel show Gangland, on the Latin Kings, for every King that goes in, 7 come out. That's how heavy they recruit.

It's like a job fair for gangs. And these gangs are like religions/cults, extremely counterproductive and dangerous, and it's all created by the flawed policy of those in power.

And when the G20 can no longer hide it's bankruptcy from the world, it's likely the gangs that know how to survive on the streets that will rule the cities, not the big shots in corporate boardrooms.

[nate81]

being a convict myself I can state from experience that it has a massive impact on a persons life. Not only socially but economically as well. I was fortunate to get a good job but only because I'm good at a specialized job and some friends were generous to me. Before the generous job offer, it was very hard to get work; forget the fact that my conviction had nothing to do with employment. It forces a person to either live one peanut wages or break the law again.

Probably the most annoying part is the look on a persons face when you tell them you're on probation. You can see in their eyes in that moment how differently they perceive you.

[yulamada]

The United States of America is the "Land of the free", right? Bwahahahahahaha, sure it is.

It is interesting how many untraveled Americans accept the propaganda, carte blanche, that the USA is this world's shining example of personal freedom, liberty, and safe harbor from oppression. My badger was never a flag wielding, fist pumping, in your face US patriot, but travelling around the world has REALLY opened his eyes. He was amazed that citizens, of so many other countries, enjoyed more freedom & liberty than he did back home. So much so he had a bit of reverse culture shock upon returning to the US from his first excursion across the pond. He recalls thinking how blind he had been, having swallowed the "US is Best" propaganda hook, line, and sinker. Ever escalating greed, arrogance, failed incarceration policies, the drug war, and the administrations that refuse to consider change, are pushing ALL US citizens further from true freedom. Problem is many people just dont realize it's happening to them.

Originally Posted by nate81

...the look on a persons face when you tell them you're on probation. You can see in their eyes in that moment how differently they perceive you.

Sounds like the look SWIM gets when telling certain people that he was a heroin addict. He wants to tell them bugger off and go judge themselves, but the 'look' sucks nonetheless.

[cra$h]

a friend of mine went to prison for petty drug charges, and came back knowing how to steal anything from anyone. Prison does horrible things to decent people.

[DopinDan]

The more SWIM thinks about it, the more he really believes the global drug war is a major human rights violation, and its really getting out of control.

Non violent drug users get sent to overcrowded prisons around the world, many with horrible conditions, getting pimped out, seriously injured, killed, suicide, even starved in 3rd world prisons like in Peru.

What can be said about a culture where everything is a "war on this", or a "war on that"?

[El Calico Loco]

I declare War on Declaring War on Things. I predict that this brave new WoDWoT will be as effective as the WoD and the WoT have been.


ECL
(Within a decade, hippies will be declaring war on peace.)

[drug-bot]

Read what swim just found, he thinks it goes better with this existing thread rather than a new thread because its completely on the same topic and it can easily be compared with other facts in this thread. This articals incredibly discouraging and just pisses him off, immensely so.-

Sentencing: US Jail, Prison Population Hits Another Record High, Well Over Half a Million Drug Offenders Behind Bars

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from Drug War Chronicle, Issue #580, 4/10/09
In its latest survey of US jails and prisons, the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) reported at the end of March that the number of people behind bars in the US had set yet another all-time record. According to the BJS, there were nearly 2.4 million people imprisoned in the US on June 30 of last year, or one out of every 131 US residents.


prison dorm
More than 1.4 million people were locked up in state prisons and another 200,000 in the federal prison system. Additionally, almost 800,000 found themselves in jail at the end of last June.
This BJS report does not break down the numbers by offense categories. In state prison systems, drug offenders typically account for between 20% and 25% of all prisoners, and they account for well over half of all federal prisoners. Assuming the lowball figure of 20% and applying it to jail populations as well, the number of drug war POWs was somewhere in the neighborhood of 550,000.
While the prison population continued to increase, the rate of increase is slowing. During the first six months of 2008, it increased by 0.8%, compared to an increase of 1.6% during the same period the previous year. The rate of growth in jail populations was 0.7%, the lowest rate of increase since Ronald Reagan assumed the presidency in 1981.
Some 16 states, led by the sentencing reform states of California and Kentucky, actually saw decreases in prison populations. In 18 of the states reporting prison population growth, the average rate of growth (1.6%) was nearly half as low as the rate the previous year (3.1%) But in the 16 remaining states it was full-steam ahead, led by Minnesota (up 5.2%), Maine (up 4.6%), and Rhode Island and South Carolina (up 4.3%).
And even though the federal prison population passed the 200,000 mark, that may be running out of steam too. The growth rate of 0.8% was the lowest for any six-period since BJS began collecting the data in 1993, the year Bill Clinton assumed the presidency.
Still, since 2000, when US imprisonment levels were already at historic highs, the US prison and jail population has increased by a whopping 19%, or more than 373,000 prisoners. That is the equivalent of an entire medium-sized city, such as Wichita (pop. 360,000), Honolulu (pop. 375,000), or Raleigh (pop. 376,000) vanishing behind bars in less than a decade.
Of the 800,000 people in jails last June 30, 52% were housed in the nation's 180 largest jails, all with average daily populations exceeding 1,000 inmates. Nearly two-thirds (63%) were jailed awaiting court action or had not been convicted. More than a million people were jailed every month in the year ending last June 30, for a total of 13.6 million.
African-Americans continue to figure prominently and disproportionately in the inmate population. Black male prisoners accounted for 37% of the male prison population, and while that figure was down from 41% the previous year, it still shows black males being incarcerated at a rate 6.6 times that of white males.

http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/..._all_time_high

[jon-q]

Many people view the UK to be quite relaxed when it comes to drug regulations, ha-ha, truth be told the Uk has some of the harshest and most punitive drug enforcement regulations in Europe, the UK also comes top of the class when it comes to locking peeps up, we have the highest per capita prison population in Europe and consistently amongst the highest level of drug use and drug deaths in Europe.
In 2006 there were almost 80,000 prisoners locked up in the UK, slightly fewer than 11,000 of these lags were behind bars for committing drug specific crimes.
These numbers don’t take into account any offenders that are out on licence/tags and so on, it’s claimed by many organisations that approximately half of the UK’s prison population are there for crimes directly linked to drug offences or secondary drug related offences (Burglaries, Theft, e.t.c).

The final nail in the UK’s ineffective drugs policy comes when you consider this.
Heroin and/or crack users commit substantial amounts of crime to fund their drug use (costing £16bn a year)
Drug use is responsible for the great majority of some types of crime, such as shoplifting and burglary inc-(85% of shoplifting, 70-80% of burglaries, 54% of robberies).

Mmm lets think about this CRIME-DRUGS-PRISON OVERCROWDING-COSTING THE COUNTRY£££'S. How can we fix this problem?
I know lets build ten new prisons, upgrade cannabis to class B and close a few more Drug treatment centres down?? Genius or what???

Q

Figures obtained from }Transform Drug Policy Foundation.
Q

[El Calico Loco]

England and America, neh? Is there any known link between speaking English as a first language and an obsessive-compulsive desire to control others' personal behavior? Or a hatred of pleasure? Or more general anal retention?


ECL
(Didn't seem to affect Cally any...)