It’s no secret that the U.S. incarcerates a shocking number of swaths of its own people, primarily the poor and people of color. With 2.3 million Americans currently being held in prisons, the country has the largest prison population in the world. But even as awareness of mass incarceration grows, two crucial questions remain at the heart of the debate on prison reform: Why does the U.S. imprison so many people, and how do we change our toxic approach? These are the issues Tony Platt, author of “Beyond These Walls: Rethinking Crime and Punishment in the United States,” and Truthdig Editor in Chief Robert Scheer discuss in the latest installment of “Scheer Intelligence.”
(snip)....There’s a tendency these days for people to say the United States proportionally incarcerates more people than any other country in the world. I don’t know if that’s true. I just don’t think we know what the real situation is in China and Russia, which are the big competitors in incarceration. I think the U.S. is in the ballpark; I think the U.S. is close. When you compare the U.S. with Canada or Australia or New Zealand, or France and England, then there’s no contest. There’s no other country that’s comparable to the United States in terms of its political economy that puts as many people away, that hires as many cops, and invests as much money in repression as this country does.
CONTINUED---https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-liberal-betrayal-of-americas-most-vulnerable/
If every American had to do 30 days to get a taste of what it's like inside, we would put an end to this mass incarceration real fast. You don't realize how bad it is until it happens to someone close to you. Out of sight- out of mind....2.3 million forgotten souls living in hell.
You have to decide whether you want a lot of people in prison, or a very high unsolved crime rate. We fortunately have the best investigators in the world, so we catch a lot more criminals than other countries. Our high prison rates are a good thing.
Although I somewhat agree with you I also think the time should fit the crime.
Young people experimenting with drugs is nothing new. If private owned prisons were around back then at least 7 out of 10 in the 60s & 70s would have went to prison.
I am totally against any private run prison system.
America is not what it use to be when capitalism was capitalism before big biz took over our nation and dictated their wishes to our corrupt leadership on both parties.
I don't and never have liked or did drugs so no bias.
There is the problem with your theory: Currently judges are pressured to send only the most violent offenders or repeat offenders to prison. Why? Because we have such little prison space to put them. At least over here, that resulted in more serious crimes because an offender just clipped off their ankle bracelet and decided to get even with the person(s) responsible for their conviction even though it was house arrest.
In short, private prisons are not looking for more prisoners, and even if they were, our police, judges or juries would not be part of the action. The problem in the US is not too few offenders of law, our problem is too many.
