America, land of free? Not when we have the highest prison rates in the WORLD. We have more people in prisons in this country than Communist China. And most of them are in state and federal prisons for minor drug infractions that get them long sentences due not only to inept and outdated sentencing laws, but also because of crooked officials, judges, and political cronyism that results in our now mostly "privitzed" prison system being a spawning ground for slave labor and exploitation. This is the real face of America, and it is ugly.
And yet, people don't want to discuss that. People don't want to see the real truth about what we have made in this country because all we do is throw money we don't have at problems that just goes in the pockets of those who couldn't care less about fixing this system on the whole. And that is not fair to those caught up in it or those working in it who really are trying to change it . This shames me an American and as a human being with a conscience because I love my country, but I am finding it much harder to love Americans.
If it was your teen caught up in a drug bust and he was arrested and given a lengthy prison sentence in a federal penetentiary just because he was standing on the corner with some kids who he didn't know were drug dealers, what would you do? Well, it happens every day in this country and that is only one scenario. We cut programs for the poor and treat them like substandard human beings in this country. We take away opportunity, trash the education system, and continue to allow the rich to get richer while the poor are out here on their own. Does it then not follow that we make the desperate ones who stoop to doing anything they can to survive?
Surely, not all who are in prisons in this country fall into that category but more than we think do and it is time for us to look at our collective soul and realize that we are living in a country that may be touted as free, but it is not. We may be freeer than some other countries ( but with the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act and a criminal as a "President" not by much) but we are not free and we are not compassionate. Not when we allow this to happen. Not when we allow torture. Not when we turn our heads to a system that demoralizes and dehumanizes others for profit. All I can say to this, is shame on us.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070627/us_nm/usa_crime_prisoners_dcNumber of U.S. prisoners has biggest rise in 6 years By James Vicini
Wed Jun 27, 12:07 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States, which has the most prisoners of any country in the world, last year recorded the largest increase in the number of people in prisons and jails since 2000, the Justice Department reported on Wednesday.
It said the nation's prison and jail populations increased by more than 62,000 inmates, or 2.8 percent, to about 2,245,000 inmates in the 12-month period that ended on June 30, 2006. It was the biggest jump in numbers and percentage change in six years.
Criminal justice experts have attributed the record U.S. prison population to tough sentencing laws, record numbers of drug offenders and high crimes rates.
State or federal prisons held two-thirds of the nation's incarcerated population while local jails held the rest, according to the report by the department's Bureau of Justice Statistics.
The number of inmates in state prisons rose by 3 percent, the report said. That growth mainly reflected rising prison admissions, which have been going up faster than the number of released prisoners. Also, more parole violators have returned to prison, the report said.
Forty-two states and the federal system all had more inmates in June last year than the previous year. The number of jail inmates increased by 2.5 percent during the same 12-month period, the report said.
snip
Jason Ziedenberg of the Justice Policy Institute, a group that seeks alternatives to incarceration, said the new numbers showed an "alarming growth" in an already overburdened prison system.
"Billions of public safety dollars are absorbed by prison expansion and limits the nation's ability to focus on more effective strategies to promote public safety," he said.
Officials at the Drug Policy Alliance, another group opposed to long prison sentences for drug offenders, said the drug policies of the past 30 years have been a major contributor to the U.S. prison population explosion.
According to the International Centre for Prison Studies at King's College in London, the United States has long had the world's largest prison population, followed by China at 1.5 million and Russia at 885,670.
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This is a disgrace.
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