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.



interesting,,,,and sad

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

We can't talk about God in schools but encourage inmates to find God.

Many of the incarcerated people were originally picked up by police who practice racial profiling.

Some drug offenders are referred to treatment programs, but it doesn't address teaching them to cope with the underlying issues they try to mask with the drugs.

There is a high rate if recidivism because ex convicts, especially those who entered the penal system at a young age, were never taught the social skills to enter the mainstream society.

the United States of America is the unquestioned business leader of the free world.....the statistics bear out the fact that incarcerating people is a very lucrative business in which the USA is the big broker in filling those jail cells with non-violent and victimless offenders...when the "powers that be" refuse to strike down archaic laws with unjust punishments, you can rest assured those at the top are reaping huge dividends by turning whole classes, of basically ordinary citizens, into long-term criminals....

items 7, and 11 thru 15 are of particular note...

We need more public defenders!

There are 33 countries and territories that use the death penalty for drug offenders.

That would certainly cut down on prison population here , no?

Often times public defenders barely make a token effort to represent.

You think more murders would be committed without a death penalty?

A view circulated by us Grumpy old people of the situation here in the UK.

Let's put the pensioners in jail and the criminals in a nursing home..

This way the pensioners would have access to showers, hobbies and walks.

They'd receive unlimited free prescriptions, dental and medical treatment, wheel chairs etc and they'd receive money instead of paying it out.

They would have constant video monitoring, so they could be helped instantly, if they fell, or needed assistance.

Bedding would be washed twice a week, and all clothing would be ironed and returned to them.

A guard would check on them every 20 minutes and bring their meals and snacks to their cell.

They would have family visits in a suite built for that purpose.

They would have access to a library, weight room, spiritual counselling, pool and education.

Simple clothing, shoes, slippers, PJ's and legal aid would be free, on request.

Private, secure rooms for all, with an exercise outdoor yard, with gardens.

Each senior could have a PC a TV radio and daily phone calls.

There would be a board of directors to hear complaints, and the guards would have a code of conduct that would be strictly adhered to.

The criminals would get cold food, be left all alone and unsupervised. Lights off at 8pm, and showers once a week. Live in a tiny room and pay �600.00 per week and have no hope of ever getting out.

Think about this (more points of contention):

COWS
Is it just me, or does anyone else find it amazing that during the mad cow epidemic our government could track a single cow, born in Appleby
almost three years ago, right to the stall where she slept in the county of Cumbria?

And, they even tracked her calves to their stalls. But they are unable to locate 125,000 illegal immigrants wandering around our country. Maybe we should give each of them a cow.

Got something there!

Could change that very quick!
Stop putting people in Prison for having a bit of a relatively harmless Weed in their possession,just because some Idiots who had the ear of some other Idiot-Lawmakers declared it were a dangerous "Narcotic"!

Social scientists have found that children growing up in single parent families are disadvantaged in other ways when compared to two biological parent families.

Many of these problems are directly related to the poor economic condition of single parent families, not just to parenting style.

These children are at risk for the following:

lower levels of educational achievement
twice as likely to drop out of school
more likely to become teen parents
more conflict with their parent(s)
less supervised by adults
more likely to become truants
more frequently abuse drugs and alcohol
more high-risk sexual behavior
more likely to join a gang
twice as likely to go to jail
four times as likely to need help for emotional and behavioral problems
more likely to participate in violent crime
more likely to commit suicide
twice as likely to get divorced in adulthood

Studies have also found that children who live in a two parent family where one parent is abusive or has a high level of antisocial behavior do not do as well as children whose parents divorce if the child then lives in a single parent family with the nonabusive parent.

Read more: http://www.healthofchildren.com/S/Single-Parent-Families.html#ixzz36ghwYkBu



There's so many dysfunctional without prospects for beneficial education, careers, or stable coexistent/loving relationships that drugs either numb the hopelessness or bring excitement to the psyche and become the only form of entertainment and distraction while jails/prisons are their home away from homes.

Prisons often times provides those who've grown up and known only pillar to post with a family type environment where some become the female to their male partner and may live happily ever after with the modern day comforts they wouldn't have on the outside.

Once being paroled etc., they'd rather go back in where the familiar stability is much preferred over the solitude of a branded existence. From what I've learned...

Then there's the innocent being locked up... I'm not saying it's right, but it would seem that something about their lifestyles may have put them in a position to be an easier target for an already quasi-corrupt legal system that doesn't need much of a nudge to incarcerate somebody for the crimes being committed.

And I'm wondering if black men are just being reported about more than white men when it pertains to the % data? And what about Mexicans?

I think some the factors you cite here have more to do with it than profiling by the police. The police are often from minority populations themselves, and scrutinized so closely for profiling that the argument had become almost moot.

I think the statistic about guilty pleas being the main reason and your comment about the potential poverty levels are very telling as prison, tho it IS prison, is three squares a day for free, a bed and a roof over the head.....all at our expense.....

Not only are authority figures scrutinized for profiling behavior, now with modern technology even in our remote rural county video cam vests and/or patrol cars catch every event so there's solid and mostly indisputable evidence during arrests to take to court if accusations are made.

Our main problem in the USA is overpopulation from forgotten morals and illegal immigrants with no family structure. IMO. But without the taxes of those who pay them to provide what little basic living expenses the system dependents need to survive our country would literally be in chaos.

I know a lot of functional people begrudge the dysfunctional poor and needy who might also be alcoholic drug abusers trying to numb the shame they often deal with as a have not. But there's just as many alcoholic drug addicts in the middle and upper classes too. And the only difference in people's positions in life is accessibility. Doors are open for some that are held shut to others. Again IMO.

Few of them use it though, the death penalty is widely disregarded by most countries as an applicable punishment.

In the entire G7 the United States is the only country that practices the death penalty...It is in good company with China and North Korea.

I sympathise and am amazed at certain injustices and atrocities that senior citizens, have had to contend with - currently do - and are still going to have to do in the future!

I just wish to note a few things

hispanics have been and continue to be a small portion of those incarcerated, so I disagree their presence really is a factor in this dicussion,,,


although single parents are the easy scapegoat to avoid pointing at racism,,

more significant factors in the war on drugs,are DRUG USE AND ARREST,, (regardless of parental upbringing, breaking a law is breaking a law)

and although Blacks do not USE drugs at any higher rate than whites, they are much more often incarcerated for drug use,,

From a figure of about 40,000 people incarcerated in prison or jail for a drug offense in 1980, there has since been an 1100% increase to a total of 500,000 today.


http://www.sentencingproject.org/doc/dp_raceanddrugs.pdf


trust me, no single parent demographic has seen anything like comparable increase,, so I doubt very much its as significant a role as ..other things,,,

I think prisoners should be made to sign a deal, promising that they won't try to intimidate anyone, if being released back into the community. Some learn their lesson the first time around. Others not so much. Some prefer a life in prison, because their life outside of prison feels worthless.

I dont think anyone can really live up to a promise of not being intimidating as it takes so many various things for individuals to feel like someone is 'trying' to intimidate them

however, I do believe its a little easier to enforce a hands to yourself environment and requirement,,,,although it may be difficult to prove who initiated a physical contact where no witnesses are about or where they dont witness the START of the altercation,,,


I think it makes more sense to take what we invest in incarcerating and put it into services which promote, encourage, and teach social skills, anger managment, educate about realistic options and choices,, etc,,,,,, to prevent incarceration in the firs tplace,,