"Fred J. McCall" <fmccall@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
> "David Morgan \(MAMS\)" <findme@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> :
> :... and the USA has
> :more incarcerated people (by gross number AND per capita) than
> :any other nation on Earth...
> Not true. Even using 'official numbers China has a higher
> incarceration number.
Dude.... where to you get your information ? China ?
I'm sorry to have to say this, but you are either ill informed; exist in
a voluntary state of denial; or you are simply full of ****.
Here's what the US Department of Justice has to say for 2007....
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/p06.htm
Here is last years DoJ spreadsheet on current US incarcerations....
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/p06.pdf
The stats are pretty easy to find on the net - here's a couple for ya'....
http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/12/05/usdom17491.htm
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080301192147AA4bxru
Here is last month's AP *****sment story from whence I obtained
that earlier quote.... (Oh... read it and weep - and I mean that...
Ze Department of Ze Homeland Zecurity is throwing away the
keys on non-violent, victimless criminals while the cor****ate
theives and corrupt politicians are sliding... it's called, a 'police
state' dictator****p).
________________________________________
Record Number of Americans in Prison
By DAVID CRARY, AP
Posted: 2008-02-28 22:20:03
Filed Under: Nation News
NEW YORK - For the first time in U.S. history, more than one
of every 100 adults is in jail or prison, according to a new re****t
do***enting America's rank as the world's No. 1 incarcerator.
It urges states to curtail corrections spending by placing fewer
low-risk offenders behind bars.
Using state-by-state data, the re****t says 2,319,258 Americans
were in jail or prison at the start of 2008 — one out of every 99.1
adults. Whether per capita or in raw numbers, it's more than
any other nation.
The re****t, released Thursday by the Pew Center on the States,
said the 50 states spent more than $49 billion on corrections last
year, up from less than $11 billion 20 years earlier. The rate of
increase for prison costs was six times greater than for higher
education spending, the re****t said.
The steadily growing inmate population "is saddling cash-strapped
states with soaring costs they can ill afford and failing to have a
clear impact either on recidivism or overall crime," the re****t said.
Susan Urahn, managing director of the Pew Center on the States,
said budget woes are pressuring many states to consider new,
cost-saving corrections policies that might have been shunned
in the recent past for fear of appearing soft on crime.
"We're seeing more and more states being creative because of
tight budgets," she said in an interview. "They want to be tough
on crime. They want to be a law-and-order state. But they also
want to save money, and they want to be effective."
The re****t cited Kansas and Texas as states that have acted
decisively to slow the growth of their inmate population. They
are making greater use of community supervision for low-risk
offenders and employing sanctions other than reimprisonment
for offenders who commit technical violations of parole and
probation rules.
"The new approach, born of bipartisan leader****p, is allowing
the two states to ensure they have enough prison beds for
violent offenders while helping less dangerous lawbreakers
become productive, taxpaying citizens," the re****t said.
While many state governments have shown bipartisan interest
in curbing prison growth, there also are persistent calls to proceed
cautiously.
"We need to be smarter," said David Muhlhausen, a criminal
justice expert with the conservative Heritage Foundation. "We're
not incarcerating all the people who commit serious crimes.
But we're also probably incarcerating people who don't need to be."
According to the re****t, the inmate population increased last year
in 36 states and the federal prison system.
The largest percentage increase — 12 percent — was in Kentucky,
where Gov. Steve Beshear highlighted the cost of corrections in
his budget speech last month. He noted that the state's crime rate
had increased only about 3 percent in the past 30 years, while the
state's inmate population has increased by 600 percent.
The re****t was compiled by the Pew Center's Public Safety
Performance Project, which is working with 13 states on
developing programs to divert offenders from prison without
jeopardizing public safety.
"Getting tough on criminals has gotten tough on taxpayers," said the
project's director, Adam Gelb.
According to the re****t, the average annual cost per prisoner was
$23,876, with Rhode Island spending the most ($44,860) and
Louisiana the least ($13,009). It said California — which faces
a $16 billion budget shortfall — spent $8.8 billion on corrections
last year, while Texas, which has slightly more inmates, was a
distant second with spending of $3.3 billion.
On average, states spend 6.8 percent of their general fund dollars
on corrections, the re****t said. Oregon had the highest spending
rate, at 10.9 percent; Alabama the lowest at 2.6 percent.
Four states -Vermont, Michigan, Oregon and Connecticut - now
spend more on corrections than they do on higher education, the
re****t said.
"These sad facts reflect a very distorted set of national priorities,"
said Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont, referring
to the full re****t. "Perhaps, if we adequately invested in our children
and in education, kids who now grow up to be criminals could
become productive workers and taxpayers."
The re****t said prison growth and higher incarceration rates do
not reflect an increase in the nation's overall population. Instead,
it said, more people are behind bars mainly because of tough
sentencing measures, such as "three-strikes" laws, that result
in longer prison stays.
"For some groups, the incarceration numbers are especially startling,"
the re****t said. "While one in 30 men between the ages of 20 and 34
is behind bars, for black males in that age group the figure is one in
nine."
The racial disparity for women also is stark. One of every 355 white
women aged 35 to 39 is behind bars, compared with one of every
100 black women in that age group.
The nationwide figures, as of Jan. 1, include 1,596,127 people in
state and federal prisons and 723,131 in local jails. That's out of
almost 230 million American adults.
The re****t said the United States incarcerates more people than
any other nation, far ahead of more populous China with 1.5 million
people behind bars. It said the U.S. also is the leader in inmates per
capita (750 per 100,000 people), ahead of Russia (628 per 100,000)
and other former Soviet bloc nations which round out the Top 10.
The U.S. also is among the world leaders in capital punishment.
According to Amnesty International, its 53 executions in 2006 were
exceeded only by China, Iran, Pakistan, Iraq and Sudan.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
2008-02-28 16:39:17
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