One in 28 US kids has a parent in prison: study

[lonestarnot]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/09/one-28-kids-parent-jail-study/

By Daniel Tencer
Wednesday, September 29th, 2010 -- 9:26 pm

The US's exceptionally high rate of incarceration is causing economic damage not only to the people behind bars but to their children and taxpayers as a whole, a new study finds.

The study (PDF) from the Pew Research Center's Economic Mobility Project, released Tuesday, reports that the US prison population has more than quadrupled since 1980, from 500,000 to 2.3 million, making the US's incarceration rate the highest in the world, beating former champions like Russia and South Africa.

This means more than one in 100 Americans is in prison, and the cost of prisons to states now exceeds $50 billion per year, or one in every 15 state dollars spent -- a figure the study describes as "staggering."


No wonder Jan Brewer runs from reporters. :evilgrin:

[lonestarnot]

1. Sorry but this didn't get enough read.

[Hannah Bell]

2. kr

[TexasObserver]

3. Because prisons are businesses and many felons can't vote.

The criminalization of so many in America has several purposes. One is to fill private prisons, whose owners contribute to candidates all over America. Another is to eliminate as voters millions of Americans who would likely not vote Republican.

[the redcoat]

4. This is why I

like to imagine a world where marijuana is decriminalized.

Free up 12% of already crowded prison space, free up court rooms, free up billions in taxpayer money
and effortlessly generate billions in the process.


Unfortunately politicians are too corrupt and short-sided to see how much more money this would give them than Big Pharma kickbacks.

[bigwillq]

8. Hello

Welcome to DU! :hi:

[Dead_Parrot]

5. Doesn't bode well for the Duggars, then. nt

[Hannah Bell]

6. gee, i wonder if it affects their school performance. but no problem, bill gates'

wonderful unbenefited teachers = superheroes who can fix anything.

[qb]

7. My sister does "Officer Friendly" programs in elementary schools.

From time to time she encounters children who are excited to ask her if she knows their imprisoned mother or father. Sad.

[Nihil]

9. I wonder how many ticked the "Don't know" box?

:yoiks:

[Tsiyu]

10. Recent murders of two kids and the mother shocked many

Alleged murderer? - a military recruiter mom just broke up with.

The biological father of the kids? He couldn't protect them because he was in the local jail for what i am told is a non-violent drug crime.

Can you imagine being locked up for a bogus "crime" and your kids are murdered by a maniac running free?

This is the America I cannot stand. This is why I urge legalization.

Children and parents truly are suffering the worst imaginable circumstances because of our Prison Nation.