I assumed you were talking about the country with both the highest number of prisoners and the highest surfboard travel bags rate of incarceration-- the U.S What has especially troubled me about the US is privatization of prisons, which has naturally led to lobbying against changes in laws that would reduce incarceration rates. So we have people who are profiting from imprisonment spending a great deal of money to make sure we continue to imprison more people than any other nation in the world. I find that morally perverse. Also, the war on drugs? Thoughts?
It is the failed war on drugs that leads to these high incarceration rates, no question in my mind. I m looking forward to seeing what happens in what will become the social experimentation states of CO and WA.
Terry,what do you think motivates the war on drugs ? You d think there would be bi-partisan agreement against it. It s costing us many billions, so you d think the fiscal responsibility people would be against it. And liberals are supposed to be live and let live types, so they should, in theory, be opposed to it. But yet, the more the general population turns against the war on drugs, the more the powers that be, whether Democrat or Republican, dig in. Why do you think that is?
It is a bit of a 3rd rail, y know? I think part of the problem is the term war , which means the populace doesn t want to concede surfboard travel bags defeat. Wars on this, wars on that, it all means so very little. And it diminishes the true meaning of the word. But much of it has to do with money and peoples natural inclination to preserve the status quo.
I was thinking specifically of the drug war when I mentioned mass incarceration. I think it makes no sense to lock up non-violent offenders for crimes that many of us (including our last three presidents) have committed. It s a waste of resources, it destroys communities, and it fuels what has become an incredibly violent power struggle surfboard travel bags in Mexico. But even beyond the drug war, I think we should take a hard look at our prison surfboard travel bags policies. surfboard travel bags We have an unconscionable incarceration surfboard travel bags rate. Does anyone believe surfboard travel bags Americans are vastly more prone to criminality, compared to people in other countries? Or that we re significantly safer because we lock up so many people? And that s to say nothing of ugly racial disparities, the awful commonality surfboard travel bags of prison rape (i.e. cruel and unusual punishment), and our seeming inability to rehabilitate surfboard travel bags prisoners surfboard travel bags while they re in prison, or to reintegrate them into society once they ve served their time.
Dr X mentioned that it was privatization of prisons that may be fueling this. That is an element, but think about how many police departments, federal agencies, and public prison employees benefit by the war on drugs. Without mass incarcerations, their jobs are in jeopardy.
I m hoping, indeed praying to Thor, that Obama plans on addressing this now that he s in his second term. Addressing this first term would ve been political suicide, even though there s decent support for legalization on both sides of the aisle.
Yeah, it does seem we have the largest surfboard travel bags incarceration rate in the world. My question, and I have no idea, is how our rate would compare if you backed surfboard travel bags out drug crimes from our stats and those we are compared against. That is, let s try to normalize the rates to how violent crime rates compare.
I lot of people want to blame drugs, and you re correct non-violent offenses shouldn t receive jail time, but you re missing the larger issue. How many African Americans, other minorities in poverty surfboard travel bags make up the current prison population? How many young men from these groups turn to gangs, drugs and other crimes because they can t find meaningful employment? This is an issue close to home for me as many of my former students from these minorities end up in prison after leaving school.
surfboard travel bags So many decent points there by Edge. As a former surfboard travel bags soldier in the war on drugs, surfboard travel bags I can tell you that at least at the federal level, a lot of nonviolent offenders are getting substantial prison time, but they get it for handling very large quantities of drugs. 500 grams of cocaine is a lot of cocaine, but it s the amount that triggers the 5-year minimum surfboard travel bags under federal law. In some ways, 500 grams is not a lot of cocaine. I had cases where the conspiracy trafficked thousands of kilos. It is not atypical surfboard travel bags for a nonviolent offender to be someone who regularly served as a courier surfboard travel bags or a distributor for multi-kilo quantities. It s not small change. I remember the wholesale price of a kilo being between $18,000 and $21,000. Then at the bottom of the scale, some lookouts, couriers or enabling surfboard travel bags girlfriends got a pass, or got diversion, or got charged with something probationable. A lot of attention was paid to how fair this was.
So while many are nonviolent, many incarcerated drug offenders have made a conscious choice to break the rules and not by just a little bit. They re worth our attention, even as I ve always thought our money would be best spent on demand reduction. surfboard travel bags I had trouble understanding how or why the market s thirst surfboard travel bags for cocaine and heroin was so insatiable. Reducing demand would reduce the criminality and the incarceration levels, but I don t have the faintest idea of how to do that.
I saw a panel discussion with, among others, William Ayers ( Terrorist! Socialist! , okay, now that we have that out of our system) last night and he mentioned that there are 12,000 black men in cages in Chicago. We hear that and we just sort of unconsciously shrug - we assume that they all did bad things surfboard travel bags to get there. But if we were to hear, for instance, that 12,000 Irish men were in cages in Chicago, we d be horrified. That s how institutionalized racism works.
The fact is that blacks are stopped far more often than whites. Once stopped, blacks are arrested at higher rates than whites. They are then charged and convicted at higher rates than whites, and once convicted, they get much harsher sentences for equivalent offenses. So black male violence isn t the problem, the problem surfboard travel bags is the disparity in the treatment of blacks vs. whites (with Hispanics somewhere in between, and Asians treated more like whites, with the exception of Asians who look Muslim surfboard travel bags , who get treated more like blacks).
Here is my suggestion. Start writing to my Congresswoman -- Jan S. -- with your findings of institutionlized racism. She is a hardcore liberal. Have her direct your letter to Eric Holder. And ask Holder to show it to our President Obama.
I agree with MCN (I know you re all surprised) surfboard travel bags that I don t think the war on drugs benefits the police or government in any way. I say this as someone who is firmly opposed to the war on drugs and would like to see marijuana legalized (and other narcotics in time - Brian E is right about staying practical). The motivation for the war on drugs is the same as the motivation for the war on tobacco, the war on alcohol, and now the war on sugary surfboard travel bags drinks surfboard travel bags --- i.e., the government thinks it knows what is good for you more than you do, and it believes it has the right to impose that view on you.
Regarding minority incarceration rates, I believe that they are caught and prosecuted in higher numbers because they are more likely to commit the types of crimes that are easy to catch. When it comes to blacks, we will never solve the employment and crime problems specific to them until their culture changes. That statement doesn t look very nice in writing but I believe it to be true. Here are a couple of anecdotes to explain what I mean. When I ve talked to some of my cop friends about black incarceration rates, surfboard travel bags they ve given me a rundown of what they ve arrested people for and asked me which ones should be let out. That ends the conversation. When I ve been approached downtown for directions, or given a sales pitch, or even been waited on by someone in the service industry who happens to be black, surfboard travel bags I m struck by the number of times I ve thought this person could never be hired at a medium or upscale corporate job because of the way he/she speaks. It s very unfortunate.
I m so glad that for most jobs, your actual qualifications surfboard travel bags (you know, education and training and experience and attitude), and not merely how you sound to someone surfboard travel bags downtown while asking for directions.
The war on drugs tends to concentrate on reducing consumption by severely surfboard travel bags punishing people involved surfboard travel bags in the drug trade, thereby raising prices of illicit drugs since there are so many risks and other costs (bribes, infrastructure to remain undetected, surfboard travel bags etc.) to enter this line of work. Many years ago, politicians wrongly concluded that the higher price of illicit drugs would thereby decrease demand, almost commensurately. However, as we all know, demand for drugs is quite inelastic. A recent study found that demand for drugs decreased by only 5% for every 10% increase in price. And it s estimated that the mark up for drugs, given their illicit nature, is about 200%
Right now, the US spends about $100B/year in fighting surfboard travel bags the war on drugs. This does not include intangible costs, surfboard travel bags such as neighborhood blight. Additionally, about $40K/year is spent on each prisoner. Nobel laureate economist Gary Becker contends, and I agree, that we should reallocate that $100B/year to something that just might provide more public good. Then allow drugs to be sold with about a 200% excise tax that would provide even more funding for our local, state and federal governments.
What do the rest of you think? Will providing legality for now illicit drugs create surfboard travel bags a lot more users? Are there other ideas for reducing consumption. Do programs like DARE make a dent? Is the real answer effective parenting and teaching children and teens about actions and consequences?
1) There actually is some evidence that increased incarceration decreases crime -- and that the benefits at least arguably exceed the costs. Is this evidence conclusive? Absolutely not but I do not think one can fairly claim there is no evidence surfboard travel bags or even no good evidence surfboard travel bags in that direction.
2) Any theory
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