Political Reality in 2019...

[DKW 86 7,409]

Crime Rates...

Overall crime in Am erica has dropped significantly and steadily since highs around 1991-92. For some reason however, people have been panic buttoned into thinking that crime rates are actually going up. We build ever more walled subdivisions and controlled entry buildings. We plead for more inspections and more guards and more metal detectors. We pay more and more for privately operated prisons, etc. Why is that?

I have an answer and many here arent going to like it. If you have identified being "Law & Order" Party, then you must demonstrate "Law & Order" Need. So, while we know that violent crime is way down all over the country except for some geographical regions (Alaska, Tennessee, etc) and some cities (Baltimore and St Louis, etc) but even those places are just spikes in an overall way downward trend. We all spend more on Security Monitoring and Cameras. We open new prisons for..."What were we talking about again?"

We are ever more expanding prisons and yet our overall crime rates are trending downward. We have a hugely disproportionate population in prisons. Why?

Because Private Prison industry needs inmates and certain percentage of inmates for their contracts. 
Adam Ruins Everything Explains Private Prisons and Their Contracts and Their Contributions to Political Parties.

So to wrap up here.
We pay extra for prisons to be full...
While the overall violent crime rate was dropping thru the floor...
So we had to explode the non-violent crime rate, IE Drug Charges, etc
Therefore we can claim to be Tough On Crime...that no one is a victim of...
Thereby scaring voters into voting for a crisis that we ginned up for the express cause of getting elected for in the first place.

Watch this next part. I am agreeing with Kanye West and Trump on this one thing...

[DKW 86 7,409]

Can one of the mods move this to Smack Talk Forum please?

[homersapien 11,337]

[DKW 86 7,409]

The Moral Horror of America’s Prisons

Sending non-violent people to prison to feed the corporate prison machine is a criminal act in my eyes. We are destroying people for nothing more than self-satisfaction and monetary kickbacks to the political system. WE HAVE TO BE BETTER THAN THIS. 

[channonc 466]

1 hour ago, DKW 86 said:

The Moral Horror of America’s Prisons

Sending non-violent people to prison to feed the corporate prison machine is a criminal act in my eyes. We are destroying people for nothing more than self-satisfaction and monetary kickbacks to the political system. WE HAVE TO BE BETTER THAN THIS. 

If you haven't watched 13th on Netflix, you should. It outlines all of things you discuss here.

[alexava 6,972]

Until you have your s*** stolen. 

[DKW 86 7,409]

10 hours ago, alexava said:

Until you have your s*** stolen. 

Where in hell does theft enter into Non-violent VICTIMLESS  Crime?

Please pay attention. 

[homersapien 11,337]

2 hours ago, DKW 86 said:

Where in hell does theft enter into Non-violent VICTIMLESS  Crime?

Please pay attention. 

Maybe it was his stash that got stolen.

[Mims44 1,863]

On 1/1/2019 at 11:59 AM, homersapien said:

Maybe it's too early, or maybe I'm just missing the point of the cartoon. But how would the pic on the right be self sustaining? I'm not saying it doesn't exist, I know the US has a huge problem with over imprisoning citizens, I guess I just don't understand the economics of it.

The pic on the left provides a huge influx of cash "cotton is king". They made tons of money selling raw goods abroad that kept that machine rolling. The pic on the right is simply money changing back and forth, government pays prison, prison hands it back in donations. There is no huge influx of new cash that I can see. I get that prison sentences usually come with monetary fees as well, but they are hardly ever paid as most people put into the system get put there because they don't have cash on hand.

[alexava 6,972]

3 hours ago, DKW 86 said:

Where in hell does theft enter into Non-violent VICTIMLESS  Crime?

Please pay attention. 

Give some examples of nonviolent victimless crimes.

[homersapien 11,337]

1 hour ago, Mims44 said:

Maybe it's too early, or maybe I'm just missing the point of the cartoon. But how would the pic on the right be self sustaining? I'm not saying it doesn't exist, I know the US has a huge problem with over imprisoning citizens, I guess I just don't understand the economics of it.

The pic on the left provides a huge influx of cash "cotton is king". They made tons of money selling raw goods abroad that kept that machine rolling. The pic on the right is simply money changing back and forth, government pays prison, prison hands it back in donations. There is no huge influx of new cash that I can see. I get that prison sentences usually come with monetary fees as well, but they are hardly ever paid as most people put into the system get put there because they don't have cash on hand.

Seriously?  It's just a cartoon that depicts two different follow-the-money models that exploit an underclass. 

The fact one is based on agricultural products (cotton or sugar) and the other based on (your and my) tax money is not the point, but if anything, it makes it even more egregious.  It's "For Profit Democracy" at it's worst. *

And that's not to say it's a deliberate scheme designed by an evil cabal.  These systems can evolve politically from our culture.  There's always plenty of psychopaths who are eager to profit from the opportunities that emerge.

Does that help?  

 

 

* https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300215359/profit-democracy

(Author is an Auburn Professor.  Haven't read it - yet - but the term is hers and it sounds appropriate based on what I've read of the book.)

 

[DKW 86 7,409]

5 hours ago, alexava said:

Give some examples of nonviolent victimless crimes.

Drug arrests for users for starts. We have 200,000 alone in jail for essentially user possession charges. 

Average incarceration costs of $31K/year.

200K times $31K = $6.2BN 

[alexava 6,972]

4 hours ago, DKW 86 said:

Drug arrests for users for starts. We have 200,000 alone in jail for essentially user possession charges. 

Average incarceration costs of $31K/year.

200K times $31K = $6.2BN 

In jail. They cycle through in very short stints. In prison however less than one percent are sentenced as simple use as their most serious offense. And You would have to do some serious digging but if you did you’d find that 100% of those had a background of serious crimes and plead down. It’s a tired old argument but percentage wise people in prison have earned their stay. 

https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/dofp12.pdf

[homersapien 11,337]

 

1. The United States has 5% of the world's population, but 25% of the world's prisoners.

2. The total incarcerated population in the U.S. is a staggering 2.4 million — a 500% increase over the past 30 years. 

3. One in every 108 adults was in prison or jail in 2012.

4. One in 28 American children has a parent behind bars.  

5. At the end of 2007, 1 in 31 adults was behind bars, on probation or on parole.

6. Currently, 65 million Americans have a criminal record.

7. There are more people behind bars today for a drug offense than there were in 1980 for all offenses combined.

8. The U.S. spent $80 billion on incarceration in 2010 alone. 

9. About as many people were returned to prison just for parole violations in 2000 as were admitted in 1980 for all reasons combined.

10. Parole violators accounted for more than 35% of all prison admissions in 2000. Of those, only one-third were returned for a new conviction; the rest were returned for a technical violation, such as missing a meeting with the parole officer.

11. A first-time drug offense carries a sentence of 5-10 years. In other developed countries, that sentence would be six months of jail time, if any at all. 

12. The vast majority of those arrested with a drug offense are not charged with serious offenses. For example, in 2005, 4 out of 5 drug arrests were for possession, not sales.  

13. In the 1990s, marijuana possession accounted for nearly 80% of the spike in arrests.

14. Three out of four young black men in Washington, D.C., can expect to serve time behind bars. This is despite the fact that people of all races use and sell drugs at the same rate.

15. African-Americans comprised 12% of regular drug users, but almost 40% of those arrested for drug offenses.

16. More than 96% of convictions in the federal system result from guilty pleas rather than decisions by juries.

17. Conservative estimates put innocent people who plead guilty between 2% and 5%, which translates to tens of thousands of innocent people behind bars today.

18. Eighty percent of defendants cannot afford a lawyer. Tens of thousands of people go to jail every year without ever talking to a lawyer or going to trial. 

19. A public defender will routinely have a caseload of more than 100 clients at a time.

https://mic.com/articles/86519/19-actual-statistics-about-america-s-prison-system#.d0RYyp7vN

 

[homersapien 11,337]

The number of US prisoners exploded after the 1970s

[homersapien 11,337]

About half of federal prisoners are drug offenders

[homersapien 11,337]

Black Americans are disproportionately arrested for drugs

Black people are much more likely to be arrested for drugs, even though they're not more likely to use or sell them.

Chart credit: Joe Posner/Vox, with data from FBI Uniform Crime Reports and the US Census Bureau

[DKW 86 7,409]

13 hours ago, alexava said:

In jail. They cycle through in very short stints. In prison however less than one percent are sentenced as simple use as their most serious offense. And You would have to do some serious digging but if you did you’d find that 100% of those had a background of serious crimes and plead down. It’s a tired old argument but percentage wise people in prison have earned their stay. 

https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/dofp12.pdf

1

BTW, "in jail" also includes those arrested and housed in local jails.

I think homey did an excellent job with his contributions here. In the US we are far more likely to put people in prison for basically nothing charges. We lead the world in %age of people in jail. It isnt even close. People are people. We do not have "worse" folks here in the US. What we have is crazy tough on crime legislation that has WWWAAAYYY overdone any good it might have been enacted for and is now negative on the economy and the govt. 

Even in totalitarian regimes, where people are arrested for simple thought and speech crimes the US still OUT INCARCERATES them. It is out of control and needs to be fixed. 

Just curious, what are your justifications for the outlandishly high numbers of those in prison in the US?

[homersapien 11,337]

 

US incarceration and correctional population rates over time. The incarceration rate peaked in 2008.^[3]

 

US correctional population (prison, jail, probation, parole).

 

[NorthGATiger 1,801]

On 1/2/2019 at 10:29 AM, DKW 86 said:

The Moral Horror of America’s Prisons

Sending non-violent people to prison to feed the corporate prison machine is a criminal act in my eyes. We are destroying people for nothing more than self-satisfaction and monetary kickbacks to the political system. WE HAVE TO BE BETTER THAN THIS. 

How many people do you know that go to jail or prison for not committing a crime?  There are laws in this country.  We all know what they are.  We all know the consequences of breaking them.  If you don't wish to go to prison then don't break the law.  Millions of people have no problem staying out of prison.

[DKW 86 7,409]

I think there are adequate stories in the news about people being jailed for little to nothing charges. That was my point, not that we dont need prisons. We are incarcerating so many for very small crimes...It costs us a fortune. Then they are restricted from finding some jobs and that costs us more in the longe run.

[NorthGATiger 1,801]

6 minutes ago, DKW 86 said:

I think there are adequate stories in the news about people being jailed for little to nothing charges. That was my point, not that we dont need prisons. We are incarcerating so many for very small crimes...It costs us a fortune. Then they are restricted from finding some jobs and that costs us more in the longe run.

Crimes are crimes whether big or small.  Drug possession to simple criminal trespass are crimes that break the law.  People choose to do both and they know the consequences.  How are we as a society supposed to draw a line on which laws are ok to break and which ones are not? 

[homersapien 11,337]

1 hour ago, NorthGATiger said:

How many people do you know that go to jail or prison for not committing a crime?  There are laws in this country.  We all know what they are.  We all know the consequences of breaking them.  If you don't wish to go to prison then don't break the law.  Millions of people have no problem staying out of prison.

Do you believe that Americans are, by far,  the most criminally active people in the developed world?

 

[Proud Tiger 4,261]

27 minutes ago, NorthGATiger said:

Crimes are crimes whether big or small.  Drug possession to simple criminal trespass are crimes that break the law.  People choose to do both and they know the consequences.  How are we as a society supposed to draw a line on which laws are ok to break and which ones are not? 

Great point. Wish we would enforce federal immigration aws

[NorthGATiger 1,801]

15 minutes ago, homersapien said:

Do you believe that Americans are, by far,  the most criminally active people in the developed world?

 

By population in a non socialist or communist landscape yes I do.