Quote of the day II
America's criminal justice system has deteriorated to the point that it is a national disgrace. Its irregularities and inequities cut against the notion that we are a society founded on fundamental fairness. Our failure to address this problem has caused the nation's prisons to burst their seams with massive overcrowding, even as our neighborhoods have become more dangerous. We are wasting billions of dollars and diminishing millions of lives.
The United States has by far the world's highest incarceration rate. With 5% of the world's population, our country now houses nearly 25% of the world's reported prisoners. We currently incarcerate 756 inmates per 100,000 residents, a rate nearly five times the average worldwide of 158 for every 100,000. In addition, more than 5 million people who recently left jail remain under "correctional supervision," which includes parole, probation, and other community sanctions. All told, about one in every 31 adults in the United States is in prison, in jail, or on supervised release. This all comes at a very high price to taxpayers: Local, state, and federal spending on corrections adds up to about $68 billion a year.
Our overcrowded, ill-managed prison systems are places of violence, physical abuse, and hate, making them breeding grounds that perpetuate and magnify the same types of behavior we purport to fear. Post-incarceration re-entry programs are haphazard or, in some places, nonexistent, making it more difficult for former offenders who wish to overcome the stigma of having done prison time and become full, contributing members of society. And, in the face of the movement toward mass incarceration, law-enforcement officials in many parts of the U.S. have been overwhelmed and unable to address a dangerous wave of organized, frequently violent gang activity, much of it run by leaders who are based in other countries.
With so many of our citizens in prison compared with the rest of the world, there are only two possibilities: Either we are home to the most evil people on earth or we are doing something different--and vastly counterproductive. Obviously, the answer is the latter.
-US Senator Jim Webb
(via Mandalay)
4 comments:
Interesting Slate article on prison myths. This is the one that surprised me the most:
Myth No. 2: Low-level drug offenders drive prison population growth.
http://www.slate.com/id/2211585/
Sometime I'm not sure it isn't the former. I'll be more precise, I think that our society is the most dysfunctional as opposed to "evil".
Our cities are plagued with poverty which means unemployment, which means no tax base which means crappy schools which means a lot of kids with nothing to do except get in trouble.
We advertise contradictory messeges constantly. We preach incessantly about protecting our children (this could mean anyone from 1-21 depending on the issue) but as soon as they screw up, as kids do, they instantly transform into adults and we demand they be prosecuted as adults.
We use increasingly sexualized imagry to advertise to kids at the same time telling them to just say no or avoiding a real conversation about sex all together. My daughter came home yesterday from kindergarten and said that a boy in her class who was picking on her said "I'm going to eat your private parts". I was freaking floored. I want to believe that it isn't true but she didn't pick that up in this house. I don't want her to have to deal with trailer park shitbags in kindergarten. That is fucked.
Here's my 2cents. If a full 14-16 year education was offered instead of only 12, the playing field would be leveled. Nobody can earn a decent salary with a high school education these days and everybody knows it. What do you expect? My grandson who is 14 only cares about his Ipod, cell phone, new sneakers, new skateboard, etc. He'd beter go to college, who's going to pay his cell phone bill or even his rent? Do the math. You can't pay $1200. a month rent working a low level job. And another thing, legalize pot.
"Our cities are plagued with poverty which means unemployment, which means no tax base which means crappy schools which means a lot of kids with nothing to do except get in trouble."
Eh. I would argue the reverse. Our cities are plagued with poor decision makers which means they choose not to be productive which means no tax base. The crappy schools are due to those same people, not a lack of money. The worst school districts in the country get the most money in a lot of cases.
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