More Than One Out of Every Hundred

[Skiptown]

Just read where more than one of every hundred adults in The USA is in prison or jail! To me this means we are either a very lawless country or that our laws are to resrictive. 2,319,258 people is a lot of prisoners that we as US citizens are paying for each and every day.
What is the answer? Deport a bunch of them, decrimalize some crimes such as pot etc.? Bring back flogging? While I don't have the answers I know we cannot continue with this trend as it is both expensive and does not seem to be working. Your thoughts?
I do believe that the "Can't we all just get along" idea will not work.

[Rissask]

Drugs are the big one I bet....legalize and tax the heck out of them would be one solution (not saying I agree).

[roni]

Originally Posted by Skiptown

Just read where more than one of every hundred adults in The USA is in prison or jail! To me this means we are either a very lawless country or that our laws are to resrictive. 2,319,258 people is a lot of prisoners that we as US citizens are paying for each and every day.
What is the answer? Deport a bunch of them, decrimalize some crimes such as pot etc.? Bring back flogging? While I don't have the answers I know we cannot continue with this trend as it is both expensive and does not seem to be working. Your thoughts?
I do believe that the "Can't we all just get along" idea will not work.

Did you see the numbers of Black males and Latino males?

[jamesblonde]

Kevin and I saw this on TV last night. It just made me think of how many people I went to school with that are probably doing jail time

[Rissask]

Originally Posted by roni

Did you see the numbers of Black males and Latino males?

yup...and where I live, 80-plus percent of the prison population is native Canadian, yet they make up only around 15% of the provinces population.

[TJordan]

It doesn't matter what laws we change or anything, there will always be people breaking the law, thus never changing.

[PlayaGroom]

I heard this on talk radio yesterday. Like roni was leading to, the demographic breakdown info was really shocking.

I haven't read the article yet, but was it true that the US leads (or is near the top of) the world in "prisoners per capita"???

[Skiptown]

Originally Posted by roni

Did you see the numbers of Black males and Latino males?

No the article I read did not list them. What are they?

[Skiptown]

Originally Posted by Rissask

yup...and where I live, 80-plus percent of the prison population is native Canadian, yet they make up only around 15% of the provinces population.

Here in our town the police records are about 85% Hispanic but they are only 52% of the population. I chalk this up to the fact that a large % is fairly migrant and farm workers who are not (as nice as I can say this) the cream of the crop from Mexico. We have a lot of DUI, domestic violance, drugs and gangs here. I will say that our town confronts its problems head on and they are making headway on cultoural issues.

[MaripositaII]

Originally Posted by Skiptown

Just read where more than one of every hundred adults in The USA is in prison or jail! To me this means we are either a very lawless country or that our laws are to resrictive. 2,319,258 people is a lot of prisoners that we as US citizens are paying for each and every day.
What is the answer? Deport a bunch of them, decrimalize some crimes such as pot etc.? Bring back flogging? While I don't have the answers I know we cannot continue with this trend as it is both expensive and does not seem to be working. Your thoughts?
I do believe that the "Can't we all just get along" idea will not work.

Put them to work! Think roadside, farm hands, building roads, basket weaving, honey-dos. Lots of work to be done and not enough hands on deck

[Just Lucky]

With more than 2.3 million people behind bars, the United States leads the world in both the number and percentage of residents it incarcerates, leaving far-more-populous China a distant second, according to a study by the nonpartisan Pew Center on the States.
The growth in prison population is largely because of tougher state and federal sentencing imposed since the mid-1980s. Minorities have been particularly affected: One in nine black men ages 20 to 34 is behind bars. For black women ages 35 to 39, the figure is one in 100, compared with one in 355 for white women in the same age group.

washingtonpost.com

My theory is that it is far cheaper to give folks a hand up than it is to imprison them later in life. It says something about our society that we lead the world in incarcerated people. That something is not good.