Cole on our "shameful" prison systems
"With approximately 2.3 million people in prison or jail, the United States incarcerates more people than any other country in the world–by far. Our per capita rate is six times greater than Canada's, eight times greater than France's, and twelve times greater than Japan's. Here, at least, we are an undisputed world leader; we have a 40 percent lead on our closest competitors–Russia and Belarus." So writes Georgetown University Law School Professor David Cole in the New York Review of Books last year. On Friday, March 5 at 11am the he'll be discussing our "shameful" prison systems at the Miller Center.
2 comments
Our prisons are being used to warehouse the mentally ill, this is no secret, and should be considered a NATIONAL disgrace.
There are people committing crimes so they can get locked up and get their medications. Ask any prison guard, they are becoming the new mental health providers to the poor in this Country, and are not trained for this.
What can we expect from this situation, more crime, more victims.
This is truly a "SHAMEFUL" prison system, worse than the southern chain gangs of the 20s.
per capita makes no sense. Lets move all of the people in the city of detroit to paris and see how many of them get locked up in a year.
The number of people in this country is still lower than the number who commit crimes or the crime rate would be zero.
The jails are not full of innocent people. While there are some people who are innocent in them it is hardly a measurable number for the purposes of this discussion.
The problem with the American system is that it is neither swift nor just... but the answer is not less prosocution and less jail time it is swifter prosecution and more severe jail time. Bring back road gangs and hard labor and see what that does to the recividism rate.
The only problem with the jails here is that it is not so bad that people never return.
There are very few people who got burned by a stove or bitten by the same dog twice.
If employers thought criminals actually learned their lessons in jail they would be happy to hire them.