[QUOTE=Kalhoun]
I’d like to see how that “drug offenses” breaks down. Dealers are one thing, basically because there is usually other crime attached to it. But I wonder how many are due to possession independent of other crimes.
[/QUOTE]
Remember that a lot of these are probably “add-on” charges. I.E, they weren’t arrested just for posessing drugs— they were arrested for robbery, or whatever, and also had drugs on them when they were busted.
On final note (unless I think of something else to post): the federal prison system does not have a typical population. It has a much higher proportion of people serving for drug related crimes than the average state system (where most prisoners are). In a state prison the average figure for prisoners convicted of drug crimes is 20 to 25%. This because crimes like murder, rape, assault, and major thefts are generally prosecuted under state laws not federal ones - so relatively few of that type of criminal ends up in a federal prison.
[QUOTE=Cluricaun]
What would be construed as “Miscellaneous”?
[/QUOTE]
Littering and creating a nuisance.
[QUOTE=Dewey Finn]
Littering and creating a nuisance.
[/QUOTE]
Come on, if “creating a nuisance” was a real crime punishable by a prison sentence, half of Americans would be in prison already. 
[QUOTE=Cluricaun]
What would be construed as “Miscellaneous”?
[/QUOTE]
Premeditated mopery.
[QUOTE=Little Nemo]
In a state prison the average figure for prisoners convicted of drug crimes is 20 to 25%.
[/QUOTE]
Out of curiosity, is there any consensus regarding the proportion of robberies, murders etc that are indirect drug crimes, i.e. committed in order to obtain drugs or drug money?
Which one of those categories is for tax related stuff?
[QUOTE=Rigamarole]
Come on, if “creating a nuisance” was a real crime punishable by a prison sentence, half of Americans would be in prison already.
[/QUOTE]
(about 2/3 of the way down on the page)
[QUOTE=Uncommon Sense]
Which one of those categories is for tax related stuff?
[/QUOTE]
The category that includes fraud would probably include tax fraud. I’m not sure where other tax related crimes would be grouped.
[QUOTE=Captain Amazing]
You commit a federal crime.
[/QUOTE]
Don’t federal crimes usually have to be committed in multiple states, or involve contraband smuggled into the country, for Federal jurisdiction to take effect? If so it makes some sense that so many drug-related convicts end up in the Federal system, if we assume that most of them are dealers or smugglers. This implies a close connection to the transporting of drugs into the country, which makes it a Federal crime, and also, usually, a distribution network over many states, which also makes it a Federal crime.
I dont’ agree with most of the antidrug laws or the penalties they incur, but it does make some sense that there are so many drug offenders in the Federal prisons.
That said, where are the tax violators? Are they included in one of the other categories?
[QUOTE=Ragiel]
If you get one of those serrated grapefruit spoons, you could saw with it.
[/QUOTE]
I can’t say I ever saw a serrated grapefruit either. Maybe that’s why I need a spoon! :smack:
[QUOTE=Spectre of Pithecanthropus]
Don’t federal crimes usually have to be committed in multiple states, or involve contraband smuggled into the country, for Federal jurisdiction to take effect?
[/quote]
That’s part of it, but federal jurisdiction reaches a little more broadly than that. Under the Commerce Clause, Congress can regulate the channels of interstate commerce, instrumentalities of interstate commerce and persons and things traveling in interstate commerce, or activities that substantially affect interstate commerce (there are other clauses in the Constituition that allow the feds to create crimes, but the Commerce Clause is a biggie).
That last one, activities that substantially affect interstate commerce, allows the federal government to regulate and criminalize even conduct that occurs wholly within a single state (“intrastate activity”) if it can demontrate a rational basis for concluding that there’s a substantial affect on interstate commerce. Some crimes haven’t cut the mustard (SCOTUS threw out the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990 in U.S. v. Lopez and the Violence Against Women Act of 1994 in U.S. v. Morrison), but regulating drug possession and distribution on a large scale qualifies. A fairly recent case put it like this:
“Unlike those at issue in Lopez and Morrison, the activities regulated by the CSA [Controlled Substances Act] are quintessentially economic. “Economics” refers to “the production, distribution, and consumption of commodities.” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 720 (1966). The CSA is a statute that regulates the production, distribution, and consumption of commodities for which there is an established, and lucrative, interstate market. Prohibiting the intrastate possession or manufacture of an article of commerce is a rational (and commonly utilized) means of regulating commerce in that product. Such prohibitions include specific decisions requiring that a drug be withdrawn from the market as a result of the failure to comply with regulatory requirements as well as decisions excluding Schedule I drugs entirely from the market. Because the CSA is a statute that directly regulates economic, commercial activity, our opinion in Morrison casts no doubt on its constitutionality.”
Gonzales v. Raich, 545 U.S. 1 (2005).
[QUOTE=RTFirefly]
This is interesting data, but one should be aware that the distribution of the roughly 175,000 convicts in Federal prisons doesn’t necessarily tell us much about the rest of the roughly 2 million persons incarcerated in the U.S. Most everyday crimes aren’t Federal crimes, after all.
My thinking is that 94,000 is an awful lot of drug kingpins and high-level dealers even for as large a country as the U.S., so I’d assume until shown otherwise that most of these guys are low-level dealers and users.
At the lower levels, the line between ‘dealer’ and ‘user’ is a blurry one. If four of us are sitting around watching the football game, and we decide to order a pizza, I’m not a pizza dealer even if I’m the one who places the order, collects the other guys’ money, pays and tips the delivery guy, and gives everyone their share of the pizza. But if the same transaction involved marijuana rather than pizza, the law would regard me as a drug dealer.
So even if every last one of those 94,000 is technically a ‘dealer,’ I’m not buying the notion that most of these guys are predators who had to be gotten off the streets, absent better evidence than a Federal drug conviction for dealing. A decent minority of them surely are, but that doesn’t necessarily mean all of them are.
[/QUOTE]
A lot of it is plea bargained down from multiple accounts.
A lot of badgers avoid serrated spoons because they chip their incisors.
I’m just sayin’.
[QUOTE=Annie-Xmas]
WHOOSH!
(about 2/3 of the way down on the page)
[/QUOTE]
Just because I’m not familiar with some obscure 1960’s song doesn’t make my comment less valid. 
Obscure? OBSCURE???
Geez, if I’m 29 getting all het up over this, I can’t imagine how the Baby Boomers must feel. I suggest you take cover now!
[QUOTE=Rigamarole]
Just because I’m not familiar with some obscure 1960’s song doesn’t make my comment less valid.
[/QUOTE]
Honey, you don’t know what you’re missing. Get the CD and/or DVD of the movie and enjoy a blast from the past.