Fear, Privatisation and the USA's Prison Population

The USA is the world's undisputed leader in locking up people in prisons or jails. That includes Russia and even China, with more than three times our population. We build more prisons than schools. Per capita and by sheer numbers we have the largest prison population in the world. The public and private prison construction gravy train keeps rollin' along...if you build it, they will come. ~The nations prison population has increased eightfold since 1970...it keeps going up even though crime rates are at 1973 levels. ~For the same crimes, American prisoners receive sentences twice as long as English prisoners, three times as long as Canadians, four times as long as the Dutch, five to ten times as long as the French, and five times as long as Swedes. JFA Associates, a Washington think tank that conducts research and policy analysis in the criminal-justice and corrections fields commissioned a report entitled, "Unlocking America: Why and How to Reduce America's Prison Population"...in which a major trend fueling the prison surge is underlined...It is the rising portion of the prison population involving mostly nonviolent drug offenders imprisoned for technical violations of their parole or probation. According to the report, more than half of all annual admissions to state prisons involve such parole or probation violators. From the report: "For those suggesting that by incarcerating people for non-felony crimes or noncompliance with the terms of probation or parole we are preventing more serious crimes to occur...there is no scientific data to support such a claim." It turns out that not only is war good business, but so is crime...will they turn out to be the USA's only businesses? A tip of the hat to Ruben Rosario...from the StPaul Pioneer Press.