jail in USA

an article in a french newspaper tells 1 american for 140 americans is now in jail.

The criminality in not growing up. I see you are in the same situation as in France where all our government decides to put everybody in jail.

Here is the article in french
french article

links in english

- Bureau of Justice Statistics

- The sentencing project

Coming across as "tough on crime" is a pretty easy way to gain votes.
I think its a huge waste of resources

end the war on drugs... keep the law to just prevention of fraud and force...

exactly. smaller government
hmmm that sounds dangerously conservative

DrStinkypants : yeah you are totally right. in 2002, there were presidential elections in France. all TV show how our country was unsecure. The left side denies this fact and the right side caricaturize it.
Of cours ethere are problems in France but not so much as they said.
Two days before elections, we see in all TV show a very old man who has been beaten by young people. We can see his poor face on TV.
results of elections ; a neo-nazi man and Chirac. We just have to elect Chirac who choose to put everybody in jail.
Our jail are full of people who live in poor condition. suicides in jail are growing.

The governement develop the following system : cops need to show they are useful (they can be fired if they don't arrest enough people). So we have many problems with cops who arrested people in bad conditions (they threat an arrested man to rape him one month ago).our cops have to be productive rigt now in France.... just bullshit !

The article I read claimed 1 in 75.

are you crazy!! end the war on drugs!! think of all the out of work prison gaurds you would create!

after all, I think it's 2/3rds of convicted criminals are there on drug related charges.

Thats interesting, they just started a similar system for the city of Dallas, Texas. "Acountability reports". They need to make changes but this just makes the police arrest anyone. Not the people who need to be arrested. I think it will make the problem worse.
My father sees the same thing. He is a minister in prisons and he knows people that are rehabilitated (which is the whole point of a prison system) but the parole boards are scared to let people go. If they do, and if just one person commits a violetn crime, the next politician will bring it up. So instead the taxpayers and the inmates are being hurt

It's all the dangerous dope smokers. Society's chocolate bars are safe from them all now...

The Christian Science Monitor reports that 1 in 37 adults in the USA have or currently are serving time. I agree it is absurd, but I fear it’s also true.

googuse ; maybe my article is 1 human for 140 and your article just involved men ? But it seem a little ttoo much I think.

egon ; I'm not sure at all about drugs. In France 2/3 people in jail are for sexual attacks.

DrStinkypants : they don't understand, in USA and in France, prisoners need to be helped in jail. They need to be educated if they wanted, they need to learn a job, they need to understand what they have done (especially for sexual acts). We also have the electronic bracelet for some of them.
And I think justice made a big mistake (which what you tell in your post). You can not let a man in jail just because you are scared he will do it again. Law punish crime and not the intention of crime.
Of course, they have discussions about that because some psychiatrists can see how dangerous a man is (example paedophilia).
It is a difficult discussion because it involve you will let a man in jail because maybe he will commit a new crime.


I heard a story about a town in USA (Washington maybe). A woman is renting flats. A man just rents one flat and explains he was in jail for paedophilia. The woman accepts to rent the flat. I don't know how it happened after but many paedophilians decide to rent flats in the same building at the same woman. They keep an eye to each other because they are the best to know when a paedophilian man begin to have paedophilian fantasies. nobody in this building has committed another sexual crimes.
Anybody heard this story ? I think it is very hard to think about paedophilian out of jail. But they have to go out one day, in my thoughts, and this way seem to be useful.

thats a crazy stat. locking people up is proven to be an ineffective crime deterrent. i agree educatino and rehab is essential. worse is when the lock up net catches people who shouldnt even be there. like lisl auman.

Beatings are a great deterrent. Especially if they are swift and severe.

Yep, you're right. Hence the fact 99.9% of prisoners weren't physically abused. Now they respect the law cuz they got beat.

We need to be more like Canada.

Something tells me Canada is a very quiet waiting to happen Atlantis.

the only way it's like atlantis is that we will probably sink it.


i think we should be more like singapore.

Er... that makes no sense. Not in the sense that it's an illogical statement or one that I disagree with; it's simply nonsensical.

Wouldn't one swift, severe beating be more humane than ten years in jail?

you're supposed to protected from beatings, that's the problem.....it might be more humane, but it's not legal.

edited to add: even our death sentences are supposed to be "humane"

[Edited on May 31, 2004 by KlikKlak]

Was being sarcastic.
Point was that beating people is not a deterrant and never will be.