Discussion»Questions»Life and Society» Answer me this. The U.S incarcerates more people than any industrialized nation. Yes, in the land of the free much doubt, so how can it
If they'd execute the bastards instead of feeling sorry for them, they wouldn't have such a problem with crime. Less crime = less offenders in jails. Less offenders in jail = less money for incarcerations and more money to help with homelessness. They spend more money housing, feeding and defending 1 murder (confessed) than they do on all the homeless in 1 state in an entire year!
And when told to "reduce" jail occupation, they simply load the criminals (murderers, rapists along with "petty" criminals) on a bus in the middle of the night and dump them off at some random small city or town. (they do the same thing to "solve" their homeless problem too).
Only ~8.5% of US prisoners sentenced under state and federal jurisdiction are housed in private prisons, along with 65% of non-citizen detainees under the DHS.
Thanks, Bozette. It surprises me, and I always appreciate being corrected if a make a mistake. I didn't know that so many US prisons were publicly funded. That is clearly a general misperception in Australia. I did know that our Australian system has been becoming privatised over the last 20 years. Some of the consequences have not been good.
Welcome. The US was the first (in modern times) to privatize prisons, but as a percentage it is still relatively low. They do have a large lobby, though, and more and more services are being privatized on the local and state levels.
While I favor privatization of many services, our prison system is not among them. We had a private juvenile prison here in Michigan that we had issues with several years back.
Same thing exactly here - with a juvenile prison. It caused a national scandal when the footage of the brutality hit the news. The official inquiry found systemic problems and the individuals and company are now before the courts.
There are no rights that come without responsibilities. Unfortunately, most people only know about the former, and completely ignore the latter. The connection here is that some people also seem to believe that "the land of the free" means that negative actions should not result in negative consequences. Creating victims means that some people will be locked up. Perhaps one of the reasons that the percentages are so much higher in the United States has to do with those countries where the rule of law is applied less often, is ignored more often, is bought off more easily. ~
The first thought that comes to mind is fear. As terrible as it sounds in my head, it probably is going to look written down. This is fear-driven and would rather have them behind bars where they can be watched 24/7 than have them on the streets. Apparently, we would rather sleep on the streets ourselves. At least we know they are safe to sleep on that way.
I know. It looks as terrible as it sounds in my head but there must be some validity to it because that's what has happened time and again. I'm all for the death penalty with some of these people. Petty crimes, jail is good. Murderers, child molesters, rapists, random shootings, etc. Those people are mentally deranged and don't need our tax paying-dollars to keep them breathing. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you? Well, an eye for an eye with some of these wackos.
I don't know much about how other countries handle the mentally ill and addicted, but our prisons are filled with people with such issues that have committed non violent crimes. It's been proven that it's more expensive to throw someone in jail when we could be using those resources to rehabilitate. And yes, addiction and mental illness is a tough cookie to deal with. It often takes years to get someone on the right track.
Shuhak 