re: America has the highest per capita incarceration rate in the world - Cause?

#1 is war on drugs. Police basically are a fund raising arm of the government. If Trump wanted real change he would have suspended asset forfeiture for 6 months until we could have a real look at how many police interactions are because of this. I'm willing to bet most 'driving while black' is because percentage wise, you are MUCH more likely to find drugs on the car full of black kids than the car full of white kids. It's not that cops are racist, it's that they have a finely tuned system to extort money from the people. Follow the money.

#2 is we have probably one of the least homogeneous societies out there. It's much easier when the country is all one race/group/culture. Meaning there are more things that unite those people than divide them. Here, every race and culture do things differently and sometimes that leads to more violent crime. Even geographically here in the US it's different. If we would work towards a melting pot of what makes us similar and working towards a goal of being better as a country these differences seem less. If you have a media highlighting and creating victims out of every group, then you have what we have now. I believe we are better having every group here and participating in this American experiment even if it just means better food.

#3 Freedom sometimes means we have people who choose to live life on the edge.

Our whole justice system needs overhauling. There is no reason why if you can't make bond that you have to sit in jail for 2-3 years waiting on your trial. That is not the definition of a speedy trial. I believe as long as you are over 21 (or even 18 really), you should be able to handle freedom over your own person. That could mean ingesting drugs or alcohol or tobacco or even suicide. AS LONG AS YOU ARE THE ONLY VICTIM. We already have plenty of victim crimes on the books to enforce if they have a little too much 'freedom' and commit a victim crime. I don't even really believe in speed limits. If you can control your car and not drive recklessly (meaning 1am and nobody on the interstate or likewise) then you should be able to without some county yokel writing you up for some $500 ticket. The answer is more freedom and less interference from the govt/law. This would make the police's jobs much easier also without having to go out and produce revenue to save their job.

So I just turned on this doc "13th" on Netflix, and the 2nd person on here is Van fricking Jones saying, and I quote "A little country with 5% of the world's populationhaving 25% of the world's prisoners?"

Now, I can see where that is problematic, but let's delve deeper:

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While the United States represents about 4.4 percent of the world's population, it houses around 22 percent of the world's prisoners.[1] Corrections (which includes prisons, jails, probation, and parole) cost around $74 billion in 2007 according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics.

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So, with some BS rounding since not all are actually in jail, we've gone from 4.4% to 5% (.6% is 46 million people ) of the world population, right off the bat. (Idk where these folks were taught how to estimate or round in school, but we will give them the .6% population, but it is actually around 4.25%). So, we are, once again with some dubious rounding 22% of the world's population of prisoners rounded up to 25%.

I was gonna type out this long arse post that nobody would read and it's just not worth it. Yes, we have the highest prison population in the world, but guess what: people from all over the globe try and come here by the millions every week to make a better life because this country has figured out how to give the most people a chance at a better life. But the very small minority of people are trying to ruin this country and smear it's reputation as a place where anyone can come here and work hard to carve out their own little slice of happiness.

frick everyone of them pushing this narrative.

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War on drugs for sure.

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End thread. The massive failure of the war on drugs is the #1 reason.

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For saying you were going to type out a long post, you used a lot of words to say that you weren’t going to answer the question

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I know . I got like halfway through and realized,, it was pointless and deleted 3/4 of it. I can't get my entire thoughts on this issue down on a forum like this.

I could have written a doctorate thesis on this issue. But I wasn't forward-thinking enough to ever think the country would be here 20 years ago.


ETA: But this 13th doc is triggering the frick out of me with downright historical inaccuracies.

If we simply abandoned the war on drugs, cut our losses, legalized most drugs, and had drug treatment facilities for anyone who engaged in criminal conduct related to drug use, our prison population would dramatically decrease. There are still going to be murders, kidnappings, and other misconduct, BUT you could effectively eliminate a sizable portion of those crimes having a nexus to drug abuse/addiction. Also, if various opiates and narcotics were available with cheap, legal access, the need to commit a robbery to fund an addict’s addiction would be mitigated. The idea is basically that certain folks are predisposed to the use of such drugs—they will do whatever it takes to get a fix—so, if the “fix” were as readily available as CBD oil is now (or tobacco or alcohol, whatever), they could manage to just feed their addiction without resort to mayhem. Unfortunately, there is no appetite for ending this failed war as long as the Prison Industrial Complex has its lobbyists arguing for longer sentences and a more restrictive approach overall.

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War on drugs

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And For Profit Prisons. How in the hell can it be legal to make money from putting people in prison?

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America has the highest per capita incarceration rate in the world - Cause?

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Freedom.

When people are free to make their own choices, they are free to suffer the consequences of them.

I think the high incarceration rate also has to do with aggressive district attorneys, high bonds and over worked public defenders. Given the high number of people arrested, it blows my mind that district attorneys have 99% conviction rates. I think a lot of it is a “guilty until proven innocent” filter that our society looks through. That being said... if you want things to change in society (in either direction) you CAN do something about it... show up for jury duty.

Contributing factor is the steep penalties for even minor drug offenses....which IMO needs to stop.