We understand that something has made you upset, or sad, or something. I think a few of us are hoping that you will actually take the time to articulate something about what you think is wrong. Juxtaposing numbers is not a particularly strong forensic tactic. It’s not even that effective as an emotional ploy, unless you wrap a thought or two around the numbers. You may think you are doing that, but you are not.
You also don’t seem to have thought about or responded to the various people who have mentioned that most of your stats are horse-shit.
And like Lilacs, I volunteer in a prison. There is no one in that prison who is there only for drug charges. The guys I work with belong in prison, IMO. I agree with most people here that mere drug offenders should not be in prison. I suppose this logically leads to the idea that there should be fewer people in prison. The various things you have posted don’t logically lead anywhere.
If 1 in 31 adults is a criminal, then 1 in 31 adults is a criminal. There are many things that have happened in the U.S. to cause this to be the case (assuming it is). We have a vast underclass that lives in poverty and glamorizes crime. Criminality in this community has grown more serious, widespread and vicious than it was fifty years ago. We have a huge number of children being raised in single-parent or what amounts to no-parent homes. We have a huge number of people doing drugs. We have a revolving-door prison system. And nationwide we have a huge number of apologists for all of these people, defending them and making excuses for their behavior, whose sympathies only serve to encourage more of the same and make things worse.
Frankly, I’m surprised that things aren’t worse than they are.
I think the point he is trying to make is that people like Reyes have been made into criminals by “the Government”. Apparently Bush Senior forced Reyes to rob someone at knifepoint, Bill Clinton forced him to beat someone up and then Bush senior forced him to get legless drunk and drive home.
Since “the Government” has forced people like Reyes to become criminals, and since there are so many of them, he thinks they shouldn’t be locked up. They should be allowed to wander the streets, terrorising ever more people and costing society ever more money with no penalty whatsoever for their behaviour. He believes that the 69% of law abiding citizens should be forced to be perpetually victimised by the 31% of criminals, with no recourse whatsoever.
I think that’s his point, but he is being so coy about it that it requires a lot of reading between the lines.
OK, I actually meant 3.1%, as per the Wiki link. :smack:
But the point is equally valid regardless of the percentage
If 31% of people are recidivist criminals then 31% of people need to be locked up to keep society safe. That statement is equally true if the number is 3% or 99%. Recidivist criminals need to be incarcerated to keep society safe. Society simply can not function with large numbers of incorrigible offenders at large.
If it helps, there is not “a” point. This isn’t prescriptive, I don’t have an agenda to sell.
The responses are interesting though; used to be you’d primarily get the my-country-right-or-wrong types, but now things seem more fragmented, more entrenched, and much louder.
None of you are mentioning equality of opportunity, social justice, social inclusion - the kind of language the rest of the developed world requires for issues like this.
So you posted a lot of facts in The Pit, and the facts are not linked in any way or intended to provoke any sort of response?
You may want to contact a Mod and ask them to move this thread. It is clearly in the wrong forum. You might also like to read the forum descriptions so you don’t repeat this mistake.
No, you are wrong.
So members of the SDMB don’t use a lot of trendy weasel-words.
And that surprised you?
I think it is very telling that you describe such words as “required”. Required by whom exactly? The Thought Police? And what happens if people refuse to use such weasel words? Are they sent off for “re-education”?
Your bigotry is showing.
It may interest you to know that at least 4 of the posters in this thread are not from the USA.
There is a belief nowadays that equality and social justice and such were radical mistakes. Post hoc ergo propter hoc: the great liberalization happened before the era of high crime, therefore it caused the era of high crime.
Oh, I don’t know. The breakdown of marriage and responsible two-parent homes, epidemic drug use, the popular embrace and defense of gangsta/hip-hop culture, and a pro-leniency stance on jail sentences and parole are all directly attributable to “the great liberalization”, and are all responsible for much of our current rates of crime and imprisonment.
There is nothing at all wrong with the ideas of equality and social justice. But when you go about trying to implement them in all the wrong ways you are going to create more problems than you solve, and one of the ways we’re seeing these problems made manifest lies in today’s crime and incarceration rates.
That to me is the problem. Why are there so many criminals, not why are criminals in jail. The impact of crime on all of us is enormous. We hire security guards, change packaging, restrict how customers can pay, alter store hours, do not place businesses in high crime areas and make it harder for poor people to buy things at reasonable prices. Women do not feel safe walking to their cars, people are afraid to leave windows open in the heat, we carry heavy locks around on our bikes. Criminals suck.
Jailing people is good business. Since we started privatizing prisons, the prison owners have fought hard for draconian legislation to increase prisoners. The 3 strikes rule is absurd. Mandatory sentences is stupid. Jailing people for weed is counterproductive.
We have judges who we presume have the ability to decide cases in a fair manner, then take the power out of their hands.
Over 100,000 prisoners work for corporation making about 20 cents an hour. Somebody is getting super cheap labor and a free building to work in.
Our system is going to hell in a hurry. The prison officials can dream up ways to extend sentences to increase profits.
Earlier this morning, I listened to the current This American Life episode “Thugs”. There was a story at the end about a heartless, probably sociopathic killer named Kenneth Williams and his juvenile social worker. True, he was raised with little or no parenting, but he killed four people, one “just to see what it felt like”. While listening to this story, I was outraged that we as a society are paying to house, feed and clothe this worthless individual while there are many honest people out there that need help.
Say what you like about there being too many people behind bars. I think many of them truly belong there. I think we’d be better off using the death penalty in an expeditious manner and spending our resources on citizens that actually deserve it.
"(2005 - incarcerated population for drug offenses) “The United States leads the world in the number of people incarcerated in federal and state correctional facilities. There are currently more than 2 million people in American prisons or jails. Approximately one-quarter of those people held in U.S. prisons or jails have been convicted of a drug offense. The United States incarcerates more people for drug offenses than any other country. With an estimated 6.8 million Americans struggling with drug abuse or dependence, the growth of the prison population continues to be driven largely by incarceration for drug offenses.”
In my opinion, the War on Drugs is one of the most heinous ideas ever conceived by our government.