This is a country that loves it's prisons. America by far has a higher rate of imprisonment than any other country on the planet. We are at 720 per 100,000 people. The next closest is Russia at 570. A country like Norway is 70.
But even more alarming is this...Our recidivism (rate of prisoners that re-offend upon release) is over 60%. In Norway, it's 18%. It wasn't always this way. Our rate of imprisonment in the 1930s was around 120 per 100k. That was more in line with the rest of the world.
So our system is a major failure. There is no question or debate about that. And the reason for that is because starting in the 1970s we flipped from a system that focused on rehabilitation to a system that focuses on punishment. Politicians started pushing "tough on crime" policies. And this trend has continued for the last 30 years. Now we pass mandatory minimums. We have not just criminalized more things but have been sending people to prison for petty offenses and non-violent offenses. When law enforcement sees a crime, many times they will wait for more crimes to be committed so they can stack the offenses and put people away for longer times. Prosecutors will threaten extremely long sentences to avoid trials.
We are a nation that relies on the threat of imprisonment to maintain social control. We are prison state, and becoming a police state. And I say that because police no longer just watch to see if you commit a crime...they actively try to get you to commit a crime. Undercover cops will attempt to get people to transport drugs or sell them. They have tried to get people to enter into gambling schemes. They pose as prostitutes and johns and actively try to get people to break the law. And the courts really don't give a shit about entrapment anymore.
From 1980 to 2000, the US population grew 21%. Do you want to guess how much the prison population grew during that same period? 312%. We have really gone down the wrong path. And the extremely high rate of recidivism proves these "tough on crime" policies simply do not work.
The for-profit prison industry is another example of how messed up our system has become. These facilities do not have any true rehabilitative services. They are unsafe with poorly trained and inefficient staff. Why? Because the focus is on punishment and profit-margin. These prisons do not want to rehabilitate people. They do not want them to be released. In fact, these corporations (GEO and CCA are the big ones) lobby congress and legislatures to push for more harsh and more longer sentences. They push police unions and departments to conduct more undercover stings. Their whole objective is to get more and more people in prison. Not to stop crime. Not to rehabilitate. They want more people in prison.
But dont expect any big change. For one, these lobby groups on behalf of the private prisons are very strong. And second, like I said...America loves its prisons. We want them to be cruel and inhumane. We want people to suffer in them. We want people to be raped in them. Another example of how sick and deranged our society has become.
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