Do I really need to write something clever here, or is this enough?

[Scuba]

[JaneyVee]

1. Land of the free...

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

22. Home of the slave...

[GeorgeGist]

2. Home of the brave ...

[bobclark86]

18. 700 what? N/T

[xtraxritical]

23. I'm pretty sure it's billion per annum and that's a low ball figure.

[Earth_First]

29. 2010 defense budget... nt

[niyad]

3. the graphic is enough

[Sheepshank]

4. two lovely graphs on this thread.

re-assigning funds from one, could certainly help the other.

Symbiotic shit can be very gratifying.

[zeemike]

5. Oh no...France is at the bottom of the list.

Now we know why the right wingers hate them so much.

[Recursion]

6. China looks to be catching up... we should fix that

One day we will figure out a way to break the prison-industrial complex...

[JDPriestly]

8. And China's population is much greater than ours.

France -- relatively small.

The graphs are great, but I would like to see one showing the percentage of citizens incarcerated.

[Curmudgeoness]

9. That was the first thing I thought too, then I thought

it is probable that China executes a lot more criminals than we do, so they don't have to house them in prisons. But that is just speculation.

[JDPriestly]

37. Could be.

[Shankapotomus]

39. China would have to be

executing half a million people per year just to explain the difference, all things being equal.

[Curmudgeoness]

50. For all we know, that could be possible.

But I also have a hard time believing it. And that makes a big statement against what we are doing with our prisons.

Another thing I thought about was that I wonder how we know how many prisoners China has...they are not exactly transparent, and would not be above lying about it, if asked.

But still.

[GoCubsGo]

11. You know wat makes it all even more egregious?

That figure is not a "per capita" figure. It's total prisoners. The US has somewhere around 350 million people. There are 1.3 billion Chinese, yet they still have a half million fewer prisoners.

[Recursion]

12. I saw that, and had to shut my brain off

Appalling.

[Shankapotomus]

41. So wait...

At any one time, there are more people incarcerated in the U.S. then not??? Or is that total number of incarcerated over a year?

[GoCubsGo]

44. ???

There are just over 2 million incarcerated. There are 350 million people in the U.S. How could more people be incarcerated than not?

[Shankapotomus]

47. lol thanks

Don't mind me, I'm not fully awake yet.

[GoCubsGo]

48. The story of my life.

[kudzu22]

49. Maybe China's prisons are significantly less pleasant than ours

and that is strong motivation to stay out of them.

[Demeter]

15. China Has 4 times our population

not a fair comparison

[snappyturtle]

7. This would be more helpful if it included the ratio of total population to prisoner population. nt

[HereSince1628]

14. Yes comparison of per capita rate would be much better I just did a couple

Ukraine has a rate of .44 per hundred, the US has a rate of .64 not nearly as lopsided as the graph appears.

But when you look at France vs US, the US still is about 8 times that of France (.64 vs .08)

[snappyturtle]

30. Yes!! that's very helpful. Thank you. nt

[MynameisBlarney]

10. Wooot! USA! USA! USA!

At least we're still number one at SOMETHING!

Seriously though.

This lead will increase greatly due to the privately run for profit prisons.

[sadbear]

13. I think per capita statistics would be enlightening, too. Maybe more enlightening.

[Purplehazed]

16. How about this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_incarceration_rate_timeline.gif

tried to get the image to show but the link works

[Scuba]

17. That spike also aligns with the spread of private prisons.

[L0oniX]

19. Let the pot sellers and smokers out ...and quit joining the military. n/t

[caraher]

20. Here are some normalized to population

[grantcart]

21. We're Number One! We're Number One! We're Number One!

USAUSAUSAUSAUSA

[Bohemianwriter]

24. Land of the Free?

How many of these 2 million prisoners serve time for something like a simple drug possession?

How many here thinks that Prohibition is unconstitutional and breaches the most basic of our human rights?

[JaneyVee]

25. Exactly.

[Blanks]

40. I'm going to draft a freedom to garden petition.

What kind if police state controls what kind of plants it's citizens can grow.

[malaise]

26. And China's population is four times the US

Go figure

[Brainstormy]

27. The non white prison population

is very telling. estimates are 60 to 69%

[Deep13]

28. Very bad, but in fairness China executes a lot of people...

...the USA would send to prison.

[Paul E Ester]

31. Interesting observation.

http://vimeo.com/35130115

[snagglepuss]

36. Horrifying situation. I wonder what happened to the lawyer arrested after the interview.

I wish Sky News had subtitles. I tried searching for the name but to no avail. I recently read that China said it no longer will harvest orgnas from prisoners. I wonder if that has any truth.

[valerief]

32. All it needs is a column with population. We have a quarter or third of China's pop, yet

we have 33% more prisoners.

[mojowork_n]

33. Well come on, it's a Money-Maker!

Last edited Wed Mar 20, 2013, 05:42 PM - Edit history (1)

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_shame_of_americas_gulag_20130317/

The bodies of poor, unemployed youths are worth little on the streets but become valuable commodities once they are behind bars.

“People have said to me that the criminal justice system doesn’t work,” Kerness said. “I’ve come to believe exactly the opposite—that it works perfectly, just as slavery did, as a matter of economic and political policy. How is it that a 15-year-old in Newark who the country labels worthless to the economy, who has no hope of getting a job or affording college, can suddenly generate 20,000 to 30,000 dollars a year once trapped in the criminal justice system? The expansion of prisons, parole, probation, the court and police systems has resulted in an enormous bureaucracy which has been a boon to everyone from architects to food vendors—all with one thing in common, a paycheck earned by keeping human beings in cages. The criminalization of poverty is a lucrative business, and we have replaced the social safety net with a dragnet.”

Edit to add another link. Prisons for women are also endemic in this country. Not all of them are still being allowed to operate, I was surprised to read today, even with lax or nearly non-existent regulatory oversight:

http://www.opednews.com/articles/African-American-Women-Bl-by-Earl-Smith-130320-231.html

Amnesty International has reported more than 11,000 reported allegations of sexual assault on female prisoners. For female inmates incarcerated in federal and state facilities, the rate is 1 in 10. In private prisons, the rate is 1 in every 4. These figures are merely the reported allegations as far too many incidents of rape and sexual assault still go unreported.

Black women are overrepresented in the federal prison system.

Most of these women made mistakes (non-violent mistakes) mainly because they don't have the skills (or access to these skills) to be productive members of society. Locking them up ensures they will never gain the skills needed to better their life chances and those of their children and families.

[indepat]

34. Promote starving wages, criminalize a medicinal plant, privatize the prison system,

promote the gun industry and assault weapons, and what do you get? The fruits of a violent right-wing soused society.

[RainDog]

35. The Netherlands was closing prisons last year

because they didn't need them.

Of course, they have also liberalized their laws concerning victimless crimes.

The prison system is big business in the U.S. - which should make every single American politician ASHAMED of themselves for allowing "for-profit" prisons.

[MannyGoldstein]

38. Enjoy this while you can

The number of US prisoners will soon be secret. I mean, can you imagine what the terra-ists can do to us with that information? They could post it on pinko web sites, inciting the weak-minded and unserious among us to think bad thoughts.

[Blanks]

42. A matter of national security.

These people involved in purchasing drugs from other countries may be involved in some kind of international conspiracy to overthrow the U.S. government.

I can see them singing the praises on Fox News now. They broke the law; they should have known that they would be locked away in a secret prison.

[Shankapotomus]

43. Let's Go To Prison

It's All The Rage...And everybody's doing it!

[rhett o rick]

45. I didnt need to know that. I am working on the ignorance is bliss thing.

I would like to see the statistics regarding costs.



ps: The ignorant people I've ever run into dont seem blissful to me.

[lunatica]

46. If you count all those free people behind walls and barbed wire in China

working in those factories that Mitt loves so much, I bet they have more prisoners.

[treestar]

51. Needs to be done as a proportion

Since the US is third most populous in the world. Very far behind India and China. Which does mean, though, in raw numbers, China having less means it is a lesser proportion of the population.