A quarter of all prisoners in the whole world are locked up in the United States, while the USA counts only 5% of the world’s population. In 2008 the USA had 7.3 million adults in prison or penitentiary supervision, about 1 out of 31, making it by far the highest in the world: http://thinkprogress.org/justice/201...oners-in-2013/
The USA has (by far) the highest percentage of prisoners in the world.
For some reason since 1980 the amount of prisoner in the USA exploded. Since 2008 (because of reducing population levels?) the amount of prisoners has gradually declined.
The chance that - a black man in the USA ends up in jail, is: 32%, for Latino men: 17% and for white men: 6%. There are now more African American men in prison (or in provisional release) than black slaves in 1850 (the beginning of the civil war): http://www.globalresearch.ca/america...gal-system/885
Of course I wouldn’t mind if only “real” criminals are put in prison, but I have the strange idea that if somebody breaks a law without a victim, this should not be punished too harshly. The writer of the following story has similar views: https://mic.com/articles/8558/why-we...ion#.C5X0CKTOV
When I think about laws prohibiting drugs, I see this as a ploy to keep the prices high, while it makes it easy for a corrupt legal system to punish targeted individuals.
More than 40 million arrests over the last 40 years were drug-related. In Texas, a person can be sentenced to two years in prison for possession of 4 grams of marijuana. In New York State even 15 years to life for possession of 4 grams of drugs.
A large number of prisoners in the USA are victims of the Three Strikes law, giving an extra long imprisonment for a third conviction (usually 25 years to life). This leads to situations like life sentences for crimes such as stealing food.
It gets even worse when people simply get arrested because they cannot afford repairs, so in turn violate state health laws: http://billmoyers.com/2013/12/16/lan...its-prisoners/
Over here in the Netherlands I’ve heard a lot of homeless people telling me about being locked up because they cannot pay fines for “crimes” like sleeping outside...
I’m probably not the only one to think that locking up completely innocent people is even worse than locking up “criminals” that don’t have the money to repair their septic system.
According to the following story in the USA some 2.2 million people are actually locked up, of which around 2 million have never been to trial. Of all federal criminal cases, less than 3% went to trial; thanks to attorneys: http://thefreethoughtproject.com/due...eceived-trial/
Samuel Gross estimated that 4.1% of the people who are sentenced to death are in fact innocent. Of course this means that for “normal” prisoners the rate of false convictions is even higher: http://phenomena.nationalgeographic....s-do-the-math/
An important question when investigating a crime is - motive.
The prisoners in the USA are forced into slave labour for the company Unicor (if they do not work “voluntarily”, they are put in isolation cells). In 2012 they earned 23 cents per hour (I’ve computed that they make less than 500 dollars for 52, 40-hour work weeks).
The US Department of Defense is the biggest “employer” for the prison slave labour; companies that use them include: IBM, Boeing, Motorola, Microsoft, AT&T, Texas Instrument, Dell, Compaq, Honeywell, Hewlett-Packard, Intel and TWA: http://www.alternet.org/story/151732...t_prison_labor
While most people avoid being arrested, some activists think it’s smart to show for what ridiculous reasons you can be arrested.
Feeding the hungry: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDD6FtNMpNw
Selling lemonade (for 10 cents): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocZFsQgbIjM
Dancing in a public area: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWeF6lwg4aY
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