And these are just the prisons which are documented!
America #1!

USA! USA! USA!
This is a good thing right?

Some other disturbing other trends from the Bureau of Criminal Justice Statistics:

As of June 30, 2006, almost 5% of all Black men were in prison or jail, compared to 0.7% of white men and 1.9% of "Hispanic men".

More than 11% of Black men ages 25-34 were incarcerated.

Black men comprised 41% of the more than 2 million men imprisoned.

Across age groups Black men were between 5.7 and 8.5 times more likely than white men to be imprisoned.

Black women were imprisoned at nearly 4 times the rate of white women.

Last month, the California legislature voted to expand the state's prison and jail system by 53,000 beds. The legislature did this without benefit of public debate or even debate in the legislature. The bill was proposed and passed by the legislature within a 24 hour period.

The legislation was hammered out in a backroom deal between the Democratic leadership--Fabian Nunez and Don Perata--and the Governor. The deal that was brokered traded more cages for support for efforts to expand term limits for legislators. Nunez and Perata are quite literally, and despicably, securing their political careers on the backs of the working class, communities that will be devastated by the massive expansion of California's gulag.

The legislature is financing this $15 billion prison expansion through expensive Lease Revenue Bonds rather than the cheaper General Obligation Bonds, because the former do not require the legislature to seek voter approval. The California electorate has repeatedly rejected attempts to borrow money for prison expansion and instead support efforts that would reduce, not expand, the number of people in cages.

I laughed, but it's really not funny.

Ummm yeah... It's good to know that absolute idiots have the freedom of speech to say assenine bullshit. Go America! Otherwise, some fucking total toolbox, may be executed for his/her pathetic attempt to defame the govt. which affords him/her the very right to say stupid shit and point fingers... Just sayin'.

For example, not that this has happened, but... If you were a writer for a website and had no fucking clue as to what you were talking about. You could try to dig up some bullshit article and put a cool-guy spin on it, in order to appeal to your 18-25 demographic, cuz you get paid per article, and hardly anyone reads your shit anyway because it is absurd, and relay it as too-cool-for-school fact, in order to milk the public for a buck or two... But the real fact of the matter would be (in my hypothetical example, because I would never insult a member of this site, much less, the staff): that person would, in all likelihood, be a total friggin' loser, who could not identify that that United States is, quite possibly, the only remaining super power, which is capable of dealing with a continuously growing group of sociopathic criminals, whom have no regard for human life whatsoever. Much less the "so-called petty" crimes that take place and rob average humans of their dignity and security for the rest of their lives. The police can't solve the crimes because they're too frequent and law enforcement personnel are understaffed, so crimes squeak by. In the countries or Central/South America -- it's rare that a murder get's solved when there are 3 times the number of murders than in the US, and that's not per capita, that's overall... Some people have no fucking clue what it's like to live in the US and under her laws and protection... Some people should buy a fucking plane ticket and go check out some other places, neighboring the US, who aren't so fortunate to have a prison system who is "number one in something." That person, whoever it may be, would probably be shaking in his/her shit walking through the nicest neighborhoods in Central/South America, because that person has either never left the states or could be a total fucking jack-ass.

Cry me a river that we have a large prison population... Are you kidding me? We've a portion of the most violent criminals on earth and they are armed with better weapons than the police. Waaaaa. The justice system is unfair... Whatever. Don't be a criminal and (in all likelihood) you will never, ever be charged with a crime. It's that fucking simple.

my bad... double post... third-world internet...

As someone who has spent time in jail, let me tell you this: it accomplishes NOTHING positive. You sit there bored out of your mind contemplating revenge being kidnapped and placed in a cage. Or at least that's how it is for the massive number of imprisoned people who haven't done anything ethically wrong. I was jailed for speeding. Did I hurt anyone? Not even close. Did I even endanger anyone? Nope. I can potentially see locking someone up who is some sort of extremely violent criminal, but jail time for selling weed or speeding is just f-in retarded.

America doesn't really have any more criminals per capita than any other country in the world- we just imprison more innocent people than any other country in the world, dwarfing our nearest rivals. You have to realize, our courts are illegitimate kangaroo courts, put in place with a mere semblance, an appearance, of legitimacy, to pacify the ignorant, complacent masses while they threaten, coerce, pillage, and steal wildly from the populous.

Next time you go to court, play a little game: look at the people standing before the judge as real human beings- don't let the court dehumanize them. Then, calculate how much money the court steals from these people per hour as you sit there.(Remember, the definition of stealing is taking what doesn't belong to you... and nothing justly belongs to the court) In the last court I was in, they stole approximately $25,000 per day per judge, low balling it. With 4 judges, that's $100k/day. That's roughly $25 MILLION dollars a year stolen from the citizenry, and that's only ONE city's courts! Our court system is a joke.

That is disturbing. What are we going to do about the other 95%?

Ahu! Ahu! Ahu!

OMG. I was offended in that really hilariously funny way. Kudos to you sir.

Another statistic that isn't so funny. Black consume about 25% of all illegal drugs in this country but are 50% of those in prison for drug posession.

Just a teeny bit odd.

Aww, someone stole my Team America reference.

In any case, I find it mildly ridiculous that we have twice the number of people in prison as China, and less than half their population. And it's mostly for stupid shit, too. I had a friend who spent a little less than a month in prison. Why? Because he and some buddies moved around lawn ornaments. We're talking, on the same block.

Of course, then we have Paris Hilton who has probably come close to killing plenty of people with her drunk driving skills, and she spends the same amount of time in jail. Go figure, huh. Justice and all that. Yep.

As if it weren't enough that we have such a huge number of people in jail for nonviolent offenses (many of which arguably shouldn't be crimes at all), we also seem to have a prison culture that is way too tolerant of rape and abuse by guards and by other prisoners. :-/

You know what I'm increasingly thinking these days? The abuse at Abu Ghraib wasn't just a few dumb people, nor was it anything in particular to do with the current administration. It was just the way US prison culture works.

Nothing personal, but anyone who's nearly been killed by a speeding motorist won't agree with you. Speeding is more likely to kill someone than getting obliteratingly high on PCP, loading a gun, and wandering around in some crowded city. Hang out in a wheelchair shop someday -- most of those people were injured in car accidents.

But your point's taken; jail doesn't improve behavior or teach anyone to be remorseful about their crimes.

Why is having that many people in jail not a GOOD thing? The number should be comforting in that criminals are being punished and locked away... It's really about what percentage of people are in jail for bullshit reasons, and what exactly the reasons are. I know most would say drug charges, but where is the line? Selling drugs? Selling dangerous drugs? I'm curious, what crimes do you all think to be considered ridiculous to be punishible by jailtime? I'm not trying to make a point, I'm actually curious what people think...