Pew report: 1 percent of U.S. adults behind bars

Hi everyone!

As I'm sure you've all heard, the Pew Center on the State has released a report that shows that for the first time in history, more than one in every 100 American adults is in jail or prison.

The report said the United States is the world's incarceration leader, far ahead of more populous China with 1.5 million people behind bars. It said the U.S. also is the leader in inmates per capita (750 per 100,000 people), ahead of Russia (628 per 100,000) and other former Soviet bloc nations which make up the rest of the Top 10.

The report shows that while one in 30 men between the ages of 20 and 34 is behind bars, for black males in that age group the figure is one in nine.
This, together with the fact that the United States have a national defense budget that represent half the world's collected military expenses as well as disposing of the second largest army in the world, makes me wonder:

For the USA to keep its dominance in the world, is what could be viewed as a police state a necessity to keep the American working class in place? And a superiour military force a necessity to keep the rest of the world in place?

The military and keeping people in prison cost an awful lot of money. Therefore, the American dominance in the world economy is really important.

What would happen, do you think, if America lost its dominance in any of these fields? How would that effect any of the other fields? If, for instance, the United States put more money into education systems instead of the prison system, what implications would that have on the economic system? If a change of economic system would mean a lesser need for capital sucked out from the 3rd World and pumped into the United States, how do you think that would effect the military? If you moved subsidies from the military budget to, say, a universal health insurance system, what negative and positive effects would that have on rich and poor Americans or on people in the 3rd World? What do you think the military would say about this?

What do you think of all this?

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The novelist does not long to see the lion eat grass. He realizes that one and the same God created the wolf and the lamb, then smiled, "seeing that his work was good".

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They had temporarily escaped the factories, the warehouses, the slaughterhouses, the car washes - they'd be back in captivity the next day but now they were out - they were wild with freedom. They weren't thinking about the slavery of poverty. Or the slavery of welfare and food stamps. The rest of us would be all right until the poor learned how to make atom bombs in their basements.

I think we hold our citizens to higher standards than "some" countries. If you reduce the people in jail because of weed or weed-related crimes then we are pretty much right in there with Burinka Faso. High crimes should be considered in a post like this, yes?

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7th is correct; exclude drugs from the equation, and the number drops significantly. So I'm not sure how the term "police state" would find its way into the discussion, unless you believe that a) the laws we have are not being reasonably enforced, or b) the laws we have are, in and of themselves, oppressive enough to suggest the term.

But anyway, suggesting that incarceration rates could pose a problem if America's status as an economic superpower wanes is kind of like suggesting that a kid with a bucket is going to pose a problem if Lake Tahoe experiences a drought. In other words, it's probably not going to be among our most significant problems.

If America's economic dominance should slow significantly, for an extended period of time, the chief concern is going to be entitlements. Far more of our budget goes to Medicare, Social Security and the like than it does to prisons or even the military.

But rather than discuss possible conclusions, I think I'd like to analyze the premise a little. The data, from what I can see, does not support the idea that our military spending is out of control, or even particularly high. As of 2006, we were spending 3.7% of our yearly GDP on the military; a couple dozen countries spend a greater share. That rate is less than half the rate during Vietnam, for example, and a bit less than Russia was spending as of 2005. Our percentage of spending really isn't high at all; it's just that the total that percentage coming from ($11 trillion) is so massive.

Oh my goodness. That's horrible.

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How is that? Drugs are illegal in most countries. If we exclude drugs from the equations we have to exclude them looking at all countries and then the United States' incarceration rate would probably still be higher.

Laws, per se, are oppressive in that they defend the dominating hegemony of which the prisoners are not a part of. This is of course the case in all democratic societies, my own included. This is why it's so much more interesting to learn that United States put away that many people in prison. The Police are the guardians of the judicial system hence the term "police state". The main reason to why I used it though is that I hoped that it would spark some interesting debate.

That wasn't what I was suggesting and I didn't mean that it would be a problem.

What I'm saying is that the judical system, the military and the market serves not exactly the kind of people most likely to end up in prison. If we made adjustments in these systems to make sure that these people chose "the narrow road" instead, would that in the longrun have effects on the judical system, the military and the economic system? It's all marxian thought, really (which you don't have to be a communist to appreciate). Educate the masses and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat will be a fact. Surely, you will have to agree that there are a great deal of very powerful people and institutions in America that wouldn't be too happy about such changes. Why? Because it would put in danger the whole economic system that the military is being built around and that the judical system defends.

That is probably true. I believe that USA is the number one nation in the world when it comes to the percent of GNP put into Medicare and so on. Still, USA ranks 37 on the The World Health Organization's ranking of the world's health systems (http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html, http://www.photius.com/rankings/who_...th_ranks.html) . Why is that? Private health expenses in industrial countries average some 25 percent because of universal health coverage. In the United States, it's 56 percent.

Well, Chris, my dear figure wizard. What country is leading the GDP race? Yes, it is the USA. So, when USA spend 3.7 % of their GDP on the military it is quite different than if Sierra Leone spends 50 % of their GDP.

You do have a point though. You can spend that much money on the military because you can afford it. Vietnam really can't, can they.

My point remains though. I am saying that a strong military, in fact, the biggest and strongest in the world, is primarily a force designed to protect the American economy and those profiting off the current system. The military depends on the economy and protects its interests abroad while the judicial system protects the economy domestically which cranks up the incarceration rate.

I think building prisons and jails is well worth the money.

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Given China's continual refusal to give any numbers regarding the number of prisoners they execute each year (which according to human rights groups number around 10,000), I can't help but wonder where PEW even got the numbers they used in this report… and if they included the executed prisoners because, if memory serves, the US numbers do… not that there were anywhere near that amount executed in the US… we don't even have half that number on death row -- somewhere around 3200 total... and of that number, 42 (all male - 28 white & 14 black) were executed last year…

Approximately 10% of the US numbers also represent the mentally ill who are temporally housed in jails across this country for lack of anywhere else to put them… and they should not be included as they have not committed a crime…




Statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital. ~Aaron Levenstein

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Statistics are what they are; statistics. Do you believe that the incarceration rates measured in, for instance, Iran or China are being measured with a higher degree of fairness than the rates in USA? As long as the numbers are being calculated in the same way, as far as possible of course, in every country I don't think you can question the numbers very much. Well, you could and you are. And that's what USA have in common with countries such as China, Iran, Cuba and other regimes that don't care too much about human rights. I'm not saying that USA are as bad as those countries (and I'm not saying they're better either) but you're not in a very nice company when it comes to issues like these. The number one thing in common is the way that many Americans as well as, for instance, Chinese people refuse to see the flaws of, in many ways, a society very much controlled by the State, in other ways, a society not controlled by the State at all, and in some ways a totalitarian and authoritarian society. When criticism, and very well founded criticism as well, is being laid out for you, you choose to believe that there is something wrong with the statistics instead of the things the statistics are measuring.

Finally, that the mentally ill are being put in jail is too bad, but nothing unique for the USA. In some countries you'll go to jail if you're a homosexual, if you're a socialist or if you belong to an ethnic minority. No matter how you twist and turn the numbers and no matter how you choose to measure these things you can't possibly ignore the fact that USA ended up at number one on this list and that should tell you something about some things.

And isn't it interesting that Americans fight with Russians, Chinese and Iranians about who's the least "unfair"? Shouldn't that fight be fought with the French, the Brits and all the other members of the Industrial world instead of with dictatorships and 3rd World countries?

Btw, Chris, Cait or any other moderator. Do you know what happened to my signature? Is Bukowsky too raunchy for MoFo?

EDIT: Wait! There it is again!! It was lost for a while. Weird....

I did not say drugs btw, I said weed. After saying that however I do not think that the laws should not be ignored and if you break the law you pay the price whatever you are sentenced for be it selling a joint or murder and rape. I just think that these stats here should focus on the higher crimes, because a young person spending a few months in jail for toking it up is really not indicative for this debate.


Many people who are in prison are also being educated, they can get degrees and certificates and actually this helps very many get back on the right track. So a portion of money spent on the "prison" system is used for education.

Well, I just don't see the point since that's a discussion all together of its own. The statistics tell us how many people who are in jail, nothing about who should and should not be in jail. And as I said to Caity, if we left out those who shouldn't be in jail, well then the statistics from all kinds of dicatorships would change dramatically.

True, true. And when that works - it's fantastic. Unfortunately, several studies show that time spent in prison is completely contra productive when it comes to adjusting to a normal life. On the contrary, when you've made your debut into the prison system, your life as a criminal is more or less determined. Prisons serve as platforms for networking for the inmates. Studies also show that the alienation and the attitude to mainstream society has changed to the worse after the time in prison is done compared to when the prisoner begun the sentence. And it should, of course, be the other way around.

The point I was making about educating the masses had not so much to do with educating the prisoners, even if that's part of it. The question I ask myself and the rest of you is whether it's possible that it lies in the interest of someone to keep the working class in their places by refusing them the privilges that might keep many of them out of jail. Who gains advantages by keeping things just the way they are?

[EDIT] My sig is coming and going as it pleases, btw....

Your first post on any page has your sig. The others don't. That's more than one percent though.

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Just wanted to respond to the sig thing real quick; signatures display once per user per page, on their first post. However, the Quick Reply doesn't "know" this, so it'll display the signature to you when you use it. When the page is reloaded, though, it correctly omits the signature if it's not the user's first post on the page.

Dunno if this clears things up, or makes them more confusing.

It's all clearing up, thank you. But I would like to say a word or two to this Mr Q. Reply...