re: Louisiana is the world's prison capital

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Or you could not commit the crime. Either way, though.

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Despite locking up more people for longer periods than any other state, Louisiana has one of the highest rates of both violent and property crimes.

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Of course none are/were guilty, right?

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What a lovely strawman you've built

Well for starters we have archaic drug laws. Second we are incredibly hung up on "punishment" as a reason to put someone in prison (see significant parts of this thread). Finally we do a piss poor job of creating a path towards non-institutional life once a person is in the system.

I will also add as an aside that there are still a lot of messed up views on race in this country (from Blacks and Whites) which perpetuate this system.

For profit prisons
Mandatory minimum sentences
War on drugs

I can think of one statistical anomaly that skews our data...

Personally, arrest more of the bastards.

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How does something like this happen in this country? Pretty scary.

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Maybe it happens because you have so many criminals in your state? Look at how many criminals are still thugging and loving it in BR and NO on a daily basis that should be locked up, if anything you need more prisons so there is room for the rest of the criminals.

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Of course none are/were guilty, right?

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this is a real easy way to continue to marginalize a community that has been considered second class for a few centuries.

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While Louisiana tops the prison rankings, it consistently vies with Mississippi -- the state with the second-highest incarceration rate -- for the worst schools, the most poverty, the highest infant mortality. One in three Louisiana prisoners reads below a fifth-grade level. The vast majority did not complete high school. The easy fix of selling drugs or stealing is all too tempting when the alternative is a low-wage, dead-end job.

More money spent on locking up an ever-growing number of prisoners means less money for the very institutions that could help young people stay out of trouble, giving rise to a vicious cycle

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About 5,000 black men from New Orleans are doing state prison time, compared with 400 white men from the city. Because police concentrate resources on high-crime areas, minor lawbreakers there are more likely to be stopped and frisked or caught up in a drug sweep than, say, an Uptown college student with a sideline marijuana business.

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think how easy it would be railroad anyone in the hood.

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For profit prisons I think are sometimes overstated in importance, but yes that issue is out there. Mandatory minimums are a great example of how we are overly fixated on ensuring that criminals are "punished" harshly enough without any actual context or discretion on a case-by-case basis.

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This

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When you lock up more people than fricking China, maybe your attitude towards "crime" should be reconsidered.

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Yeah, our citizens are worse off than China.

1. Lots of thugs
2. Lots of laws. Everything is illegal.
3. Strong sheriff/DA/private prison lobby to keep the machine going
4. Elected judges who campaign on being tough on crime.