Why does America have the highest prison population?

[ajushi]

I think it's a mix of reasons:

1. Men are pushed to the bottom or the social order, essentially emasculating them, and putting bitchy women on top, socially
2. The laws are ridiculously tough and frequently biased against men, often presuming men are guilty, before a trial
3. The prisons are full of "criminals" for very minor offenses, which would never call for prison time in other countries
4. Once in prison, even light offenders find themselves in a downward spiral: often they also have monetary fines to pay off in addition to the time behind bars, in order to be released, but not earning any money, they can't pay the fine off; also prisons are so overcrowded and violent that generally mild people eventually turn into animals in order to survive, thereby sealing their own fate as "hardened criminals".
5. Once out of prison, men can't find decent jobs, since they're "damaged goods" and no one will hire them.
6. In order to feed themselves and their families, these men often turn back to crime, since they can't work, and being in prison has taught them how to fight the system, and get around the law.

Basically, once you're in a US prison, for whatever the offense may be, you're royally screwed for life. One of my greatest fears after returning to the US (FROM RUSSIA OF ALL PLACES!!), was that I would commit some minor offense and either get sued by some idiot or end up locked in some shithole prison.

I resonate with much of what Redog has said here and I will add my 2 Centrs to the thread:

There are many factors, but the biggest factor of all is this: Isolation, mistrust, over independence, extremely cliquish social tendencies, exclusionary social tendecies where rejection and frigid energy os commonplace, people living in a tiny social bubble, and people feeling unable a to be authentic and open about theiur needs of companionship, or their own inner struggles... these factorsd in the social dynamic and way of life int n the society causes tremendous internal conflict, lonliness, and angst in the individuals and hence, in the population. This results in alarmingly highj rates of mental illness, suicide, drug an acohol addiciton, emotional eating, and so on, especially for men who struggle in the isolation even worse than women, who by nature are somewhat more social and suportive with one antoher than men are. People who suffer with all of these things are of course also vastly more likely to fall into crimes, sometimes even taking extreme forms like mass murder. In most instances, I attribute the broken and loathsome American social paradigm to be largely responsible.

Well intended, decent men who actually care about how they treat others and actually just want good and wholesome things in life for themselves and others, suffer the most, persistently waiting and trying desperately to make something good happen in their own lives and perpetually feeling like thye are swimming up stream as they continue to be lacking in friendfships, friendless, significant other, and community despite their best intentions and best efforts.

Not to say thathumanity outside of the US is free from all this loathsome crime and misery, or even lonliness and addiction.... far from it!!! I am just saying that this is whay it is much worse in the US. And yes I am grateful yet again to be where I am now, where a woamn just said to me last night "when someine says they are stuggling with some issue, depression, or life struggle, or whatever, YOU should listen to them and help them, not tell them thye need to go see a therapist. That is what friends are for here."

In the US, a person who has any sort of issue is ostractized and shuned and referred to a therapist. It is taboo to admit openly to a friend that you were lonley last nightj ior that you wish you jyst hjad someone to eat dinner with, and thi staboo takes an alreadty serious problem of isolation and lonlines and and turns it into a social crisis where peopleloathe themselve dna ssume they are sick or something siowrong with them becaus etey want someine to share dinner with or to be in a normal supportive friendhsip with.


She spoke exactly how I have thought of it and percievd it since I was a teenager. One of those conversations that brings it home that America is SOOOOOOOOOOOO sick.

[polya]

America has over 30 million illegal immigrants who SHOULD be in jail, (just see what happens to you if you enter Belarus, North Korea, etc illegally). Why aren't these people in jail??
Yet the USA NOW will put citizens in jail for not paying child support & some fines - how is this a "crime"? Politicians just want more & more people in prisons so they can't vote, or be armed - that's what dictatorships do - make everything a crime!
Unite and change these corrupt laws.

[Shokkers]

As it happens, we probably have the biggest prison population due to drug offenses. Some ridiculous amount of nonviolent drug-users are in prison...and, to add to the fun, while they're inside they may become violent, join gangs (it's almost mandatory), and learn criminal skills.

It started with Nixon, who needed something to campaign on, picked "War on Drugs", and started railroading drug users into prison. Every president since has increased the drug-war budget and added more punitive laws. Every single politician claims to be "Tough on drugs", except when their kids get busted.
However, it's no longer political suicide to question the drug war.

The Prison lobby is gigantic and sucks up tax dollars like a tick. What might scale back this Police State is the realization we simply don't have the money to feed and house all these prisoners.

You can help by assisting the Drug Policy Alliance (http://www.dpa.org) and the November Coalition (http://www.novembercoalition.com)

[Winston]

Here's a great rant I received about this topic:

"I like the topic about the U.S. having the highest prison population. How ironic that a country that claims to be such a beacon of freedom and claims to be the envy of the world has such a high prison population.

Also, I agree that the entire criminal justice system, the federal and state legislatures, the federal and state courts, right down to the local police departments are under the control of hateful feminist dictators who truly wish to incarcerate every man in Amerika and ultimately the world!!!!!

I witness the bias on a daily basis. Almost every week there is another story about a man locked up for rape who is later exonerated by DNA evidence, usually after being locked up for years. This is proof that American women are compulsive liers, who will say and do whatever they can to ruin the lives of innocent men. It's shocking to watch everyone involved in a phoney rape accusation just brush it off and walk away like nothing happened. The dopey police, prosecutor, judges just skip along on their merry way and enjoy nice comfy retirements at the end of their careers, while the accused is ruined for life. That's why I have little sympathy for the police when I hear about something bad happening to them.

Also, I've noticed how males can get arrested and locked up for things that females just get a slap on the wrist for. So much for equality!!! What a joke. It seems that feminists only demand equality at the top but never at the bottom. They want all the good stuff but never the bad. They seem content to leave all the dirty, dangerous, menial, dead-end jobs to men. I still don't see many of them lining up to take jobs like coal miner, constuction worker, ditch digger, laborer,etc. What hypocrisy!!!

Anyway, thanks for letting me rant again. Take care."

[Winston]

Check out this relevant comment I found on YouTube that applies here:

"Number of people in prison Per Capita
# 1 United States: 715 per 100,000 people
# 2 Russia: 584 per 100,000 people
# 3 Belarus: 554 per 100,000 people
# 4 Palau: 523 per 100,000 people
# 5 Belize: 459 per 100,000 people
# 6 Suriname: 437 per 100,000 people
# 7 Dominica: 420 per 100,000 people
Where is Cuba ? North Korea ? Iran ? How odd, we are the nation with the most people per capita in prison yet the majority of Americans believe we are a free nation... how sad."

[Winston]

Is it true that 2 million people are now incarcerated in America?! That's crazy. Why? Someone told me that.

[onethousandknives]

I think besides speaking about it from a societal perspective and whatnot, I think it's fairly simple to explain just by the basically unseen change in judicial process in USA.

The biggest problem is very simple. The removal of the grand juries and plea bargaining. Most states do not have grand juries anymore. With a grand jury, if you get arrested, the prosecutor has to make a case of why your case should go to court. With the grand jury, it determined if your case was even strong enough to go to court at all. Nowadays, though, grand juries more or less don't exist, except on the federal level for some cases. Most of the time only a preliminary hearing by a single judge is needed to get the case to go to court. So one huge check and balance is destroyed or no longer in use, and the whole system crumbles because of this.

Without a grand jury to get cases dismissed, every single case more or less goes to court, because it's obviously in the judge and prosecutor's interest to get cases in court. The grand jury was meant to be the check and balance. So every case goes to court now.

What happens after it goes to court? Well, theoretically, you can get a jury trial. But the total time in court for a jury trial for the court to organize one is generally in years. So if you're in jail and don't have money for bail (which is also very high compared to other countries) you can in some cases, wait years for your trial which you may get found guilty for anyway. So if the judge plea bargains you for 6 months or a year or whatever in jail plus probation for ____ offense, you generally take it no matter your guilt or innocence, because of the amount of time it'd take for a trial to happen and the threats of bigger punishment if you don't take the deal.

So because the grand jury is broken, the regular jury trial system is broken as well since there's only a finite number of cases a jury can hear, and it takes too long to get a jury trial and you will be strongly discouraged by the court from getting one, due to it costing more money and the prosecutor (and unless you have a private lawyer...) your public defender actually having to work and do their jobs instead of sitting down over coffee playing Let's Make a Deal with your future.

Lastly, too, with plea bargaining, the system penalizes people who go to trial. The average federal drug charge penalty resolved with plea bargaining was 4 years. For people who went to trial, 16 years. Prosecutors simply threaten you that if you lose, you'll get a ton of years in jail and if you take the "deal" you don't. The judges don't do anything except rubber stamp the prosecutor. The prosecutor is the judge and jury in the courts in USA now. Obviously this cannot work as the prosecutor is literally your adversary, as the USA is Common Law and by definition an adversarial court system, so it's the prosecutor's job to argue your guilt no matter what his or her actual opinion is on the matter, so having him or her be judge or jury isn't a workable system. So 97% of cases end up resolved via plea bargaining. In USA only 1/100 cases ever see a jury trial.

So besides societal issues of people's moral character, mental health, etc, there is this. That the US legal system does NOT work as it's constitutionally supposed to work. The USA on paper has a great legal system and on paper great rights. This is why if you look at other countries on paper and their rights and legal systems, you think it must be terrible to live in a country with no rights like us or whatever. Lots of patriotic people and proponents of gun rights in USA think this way. The fact is, the on paper rights do not match the reality of living in the USA day to day.

[pete98146]

I watched a video on this topic and now I can't find it. But one of the main reasons why we jail so many of our citizens is correctional facilities are BIG BUSINESS and huge cash cows. As usual, it's a matter of following the money. Any chance that the elite have their fingers in this business as well? Better believe it!

The more full the prisons, the more money they make. They supply the cell blocks, the food, the energy and manpower to run the facilities and then pass the bill on to the government. Ka Ching!

[Yohan]

It should be noticed, that US-citizens are not known for criminal activity while outside of USA.

I see a reason of the high prison population within USA in the juridical system. It is unusually complicated, very expensive and what is a crime in one state might be perfectly legal in another state.

Many are often in jail because of the plea bargain system, a strange form of justice totally unknown elsewhere. You are accused of a crime, but even when you obviously did not commit it, you confess because you do not have enough money for your legal defense council. If you confess, you are a criminal but get away cheaply with a lenient sentence.

Another problem is with the prison administration, often privately organized, it is a business for some big companies. In many other countries I know, prison is merely a costly affair for the government and nobody wants people to stay in prison serving full sentences for minor offences.

[Wolfeye]

You guys have hit on some good points, but I think there's some other things on top of those & maybe at the core of it:

(1) Some people's compass just points backward- maybe call that "general cruelty." Overall, it's that they LIKE "aw, it's such a shame" type of shit.

(2) There's a concept applied to these situations that is not functional. I guess it would be called the "What if a bad guy did that?" model. There's no exchange of situation through imagination, but there's a frequent situation where an assessment of a real situation is based on a fictional conditions. This even happens in conversations- particularly when people make a point about making an inhospitable environment for attack, especially a sanctioned attack. The other people debate against that with the argument being that it would be an injustice in a different situation.

(3) Possibly being too arrogant to think well of anything. Nothing would measure up as good quality to someone like that. If someone thinks agreement is defeat, that would be another thing that would cause the same result of never being okay with anything or anyone.

(4) Having a "better safe than sorry" attitude with locking people up. This is also disregarding the situation of someone getting wrongfully imprisoned as a safety concern. The "what if" is obviously someone committing something other than putting people through all that being locked-up consists of (insert sarcastic tone).

(5) Getting led. This can be all kinds of things, including things they see on T.V. and various lawyer tricks. A big thing is that they might see policy implementation agencies, including the court, as an infuence of incarceration AND something to model their decisions after at the same time. It's like trying to get a good grade from a teacher.

[Winston]

[Moretorque]

There is big money in prisons to help ultimately with the total wealth transfer of all humanity to the people who are creating this world wide prison gulag, just go research who is heavily invested in our prison system. These people claim to promote freedom when in reality they are total fascist.

[Renata]

If the US is the richest and freest country in the world, then why does it have the biggest prison population?

Shouldn't a rich country be able to provide opportunity for all?

Well it's a big business in the US to incarcerate people. Prisons have been privatised so the more prisioners they have the more money there is to be made.

Check out how cool the prisons ın Norway are
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgujwijPwxo

[Zionosis]

If you go by GDP per capita as it should be, I think Qatar is the richest country, and we know why they don't have a huge prison population there.

Things like Qatar and Monaco don't really count.
For instance technically Japan is #2 in life expectancy after Monaco but Monaco is a tiny country with only 33k people living there and it's a mini country of super rich people living there. It's land size is so small it isn't even funny. It's size is only 0.78 sq mi.

Anyone with logic would call Japan the world number 1 in life expectancy because it's a real country not some tiny piece of land that you can walk across in 5 minutes and is full of super rich people.

Qatar isn't anywhere near as bad because it's 4,416 sq mi. But even still the damn town I live in has a larger size than that according to google and it's just a large town.

Monaco isn't listed on most country statistics for that very reason because calling it a country is a joke. It's like if you announced that your mansion is now a country.
Quatar doesn't have that great of a life expectancy considering how rich they are. Maybe because it's full of middle eastern type people and even being rich their genetics eventually fail them in time.


Also no one is saying what's obvious as to why the USA has a large prison population because it seems most of you are scared to break political correctness.
It's obviously because of the large black population compared to other white countries. You are aware how many black people are in prison.
Remove all the black people in prison and I think you will find that the USA's incarceration rate would be no worse than the other white countries.
Black men per capita are 6.8x more likely to go to prison that a white man.

Call it whatever you want. Say it's because whites are racist and throwing blacks in jail. But you can't deny that blacks make up a large percentage of the prison population.