Do you find these demographics of prisoners staggering?

It is utterly disgusting to me that the USA runs around the world killing others in the name of democracy while incarcerating a the most people per capita of any nation on Earth. It is even more than disgusting that the racial bias in incarceration is so extreme. Will the Republican’s overlords be happy only when all the wealth has been transferred to them, the middle class eliminated, and most who aren’t wealthy locked up? Who will keep the ultra right-wing Walton family in ever increasing wealth when they finally succeed in locking up all of Wall-Mart’s customers?

@ETpro So you see those numbers and blame it all on the justice system putting away more minorities unfairly? I can’t dismiss the stats that easily to unfairness. The stats make me want to address not only the unfairness in the system, but also the criminal activitity among minorities. It isn’t that I think they are just born bad, far from it, and I find that notion offensive and ridiculous. But, I do think it is worth analyzing what is going on culturally or systemically. Could be poverty, could be cultural mores, could be many things. It’s not just unjust judges and juries.

I’m not surprised by those statistics. I’m actually surprised that you are. They are however staggering and sad.

@Bellatrix My first instinct was similar to the assumptions made about welfare recipients. I remembered that people would say that the majority of people who receive welfare are actually white. But, just now I looked up those stats, and that isn’t true either. Maybe it changed fairly recently. Or, maybe they were lying, I don’t know. I had assumed that the stats are in line with a fairly constant ratio to the total population. For instance if the country is 70% white, I expected the prison makeup to be close to that number, I knew it would be a little below. I did not expect it to be drastically out of whack. Maybe I am analyzing the stats wrong.

No, I don’t think you are @JLeslie.

The though that comes thru my mind, is the reason why certain ethnicities are overrepresented.

Are they more criminal, because they are more prevalent in a subculture more prone to crime?
Are ethnicities correlating with other explaining factors, like income, education, social mobility?
Is the system biassed, creating a bigger chance for criminals from certain ethinicities to be caught, or punished differently?

If I were ‘the US’, I would worry about these statistics and go hunt for underlying mechanisms that need to be addressed.

With regards to your question… these stats are staggering (i.m.o. worse even… akin to repulsive) but not surprising. The US seem to make a habit of applying simple solutions to complex problems.

@whitenoise I agree we need to look at the underlying causes. I think both sides, the people in the groups affected and those outside the group don’t want to deal with the problem realistically. Let’s say poverty is a huge factor (I don’t know how much it actually affects the statistics) do we ignore race and ethnicity altogether and just address poverty? I don’t think we can. But, then if we zero in on race and ethnicity people get all bent out of shape and say it is racist.

I wanted to correct one thing you said before I read the responses or the link. The amendment to the Farm Bill was passed unanimously by both parties. Not only Republicans voted on the amendment to withhold taxpayer monies from certain convicted violent sex offenders, convicted murderers, rapists, and pedophiles; Democratic senators did too.

@bkcunningham I hadn’t assumed it was only republicans, I had no idea who voted yay or nay. It was the jelly on the other Q who made the comment about republicans, but thank you for clarifying so people don’t have misinformation.

I actually blame democrats for giving me this sense of the stats being misrepresented by republicans. There are more minorities in the prison system relative to the total population. I really had thought republicans were twisting the numbers like they do with taxes saying the wealthy pay X amount of tax dollars and ignoring the percent they pay of their income. Or, that republicans were just being discriminatory and had in their minds the prisons are full of black and Hispanic hoodlums without knowing any real numbers and statistics.

LOL wow.

Criminal Justice is what I study so no, I’m not surprised by those statistics. And you can’t blame it on just one thing, as many people like to do. It’s just not that simple.

The career I’m interested in is probation, so I must admit I wasn’t all that saddened by that particular statistic, purely for selfish reasons. I’d like to think that more drug offenders are getting probation as opposed to prison time, which would be an improvement. I know that about 75% of my offenders during my internship had drug convictions. Meth seemed to be the most popular. Crack is a close second. The non-drug offenses seemed to consist mainly of larceny, receiving stolen goods, etc. There were very few times I looked at their offenses and thought they didn’t deserve to be on probation, to be completely honest.

What role do you think the various habitual offender laws played in the sharp increase in numbers?

@bkcunningham Who, me?

Yes, you can answer if you have an opinion, @livelaughlove21. I’d be very interested in your opinion since you are studying the subject in college.

I think the privatization of prisons adds to the increase numbers in prisons, along with other factores of course as we have discussed.

About drug offenses. I absolutely agree the law tends to convict minorities and get rehab for white people. I don’t know exaclty what factors into that, I would assume some of it is a bias in the justice system, but I also think maybe the circumstances are different possibly when arrested. I really don’t know. If white people have more affluency in a community maybe they are less likely to be stealing or dealing than minorities when caught with drugs? The way I remember it dealing charges are much more serious and carry some hefty mandatory sentences.

No the stats don’t surprise me. I’ve known this problem for quite some time. Poverty has a direct impact on who commits crimes. And our penchant for mandatory minimums keeps those convicted in for longer and longer sentenses. Afteral, ‘3 strikes your out laws’, can land you in jail for life, for relatively minor crimes. Drugs take a heavy toll as well and again are related to poverty. I do think we have a lot of people incarcerated unfairly but that’s not what’s driving these statistics. Heck, I heard that Illinios had to add a special wing to the prison just for Democratic Govenors (sorry about the cheap shot, I couldn’t resist).

To make matters worse, we have automated and published criminal records so that if you have a felony, you can’t get a job. So how do you survive? More crime is my guess.

Now here’s the part where I think liberals will squeal. We continuously tell black and hispanic kids (adults as well) that they can’t make it in this society. Society is unfairly treating them so they don’t have a chance. Doesn’t matter what they do, they will fail because Whitey will keep them down. Is it any wonder that they abandon legal avenues and join gangs, steal, and sell drugs to make money. Why even try if you’re convinced you have no chance. And of course convinced that you’re entitled as well. It’s a bad message that doesn’t encourage anyone to try. A self fulfilling prophecy.

@Jaxk I don’t think we can blame just liberals for a message that they have no chance in society with everything working against them. There is a plethora of things going on. One, I blame the minorities themselves for passing that message onto their kids. I guess maybe if you group minorities into the liberal group you can say that is just liberals again promoting the idea, but I think when we look at the groups themselves separate from party affiliation and just deal with the messages within the community and subculture. Poverty and lack of education is probably the biggest problem affecting this and what I call a failure to assimilate and conform (I always get slammed for that).

However, I used to be more idealistic about this, and then I moved to a part of the country that has a significant black population and now I have to agree whitey, to use your term, does do things that keep black people feeling like and treated like second class citizens. I don’t remember what part of the country you live in, but when I was in Memphis the black and white communities were more separate than I have ever experienced. All groups carried some blame in my opinion. Right now Memphis suburbs are trying desperately to keep the inner city blacks out of their school district. It just looks bad, I understand both points of view, really I do, but if I were a black inner city kid it would be impossible for me to not view it as white people saying they don’t want me near their kids.

Back to having no chance, many poor people have a really diffcult time seeing past their community. They don’t have the experience, and so if their neighborhoods are in ruins or look like war zones, and the population around them has very little education to help guide the children, then the cycle continues. They are a product of their environment. Including seeing a significant percentage of peers and older kids go to jail. It’s “normal” where they live. Breaking the cycle is tricky. Judge Mathis himself spent time in jail as a juvenile, I believe he grew up in Detroit, says people aren’t going to jail on college campuses. His change in environment was significant in how he perceived the world. Just to be clear, I don’t think everyone should go to college, I am tired of the financial waste of trying to give a college degree to people who are not very capable, I only mean environment in general as in safe surroundings, clean, and accessibility to good education primary, secondary and tertiary including vocation.

@JLeslie, what do the statistics show is the number one offense committed by the majority in prisons? Do you have a breakdown on the offenses?

@bkcunningham Good question. I found this in wikipedia. Look under the heading violent and nonviolent crime. It states nonviolent crime has caused the biggest surge in the prison population. That three strikes laws were put into place for violent criminals, but in practice it seems to be affecting nonviolent criminals in larger numbers. Maybe @livelaughlove21 has a link with more specific stats.

The FBI publishes annual crime reports which are very thorough.

Nationwide, law enforcement made an estimated 12,408,899 arrests in 2011. Of these arrests, 534,704 were for violent crimes, and 1,639,883 were for property crimes. (Note: the UCR Program does not collect data on citations for traffic violations.)

The highest number of arrests were for drug abuse violations (estimated at 1,531,251 arrests), larceny-theft (estimated at 1,264,986), and driving under the influence (estimated at 1,215,077).

The estimated arrest rate for the United States in 2011 was 3,991.1 arrests per 100,000 inhabitants. The arrest rate for violent crime (including murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault) was 172.3 per 100,000 inhabitants, and the arrest rate for property crime (burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson) was 531.3 per 100,000 inhabitants.

Two-year arrest trends show violent crime arrests declined 4.9 percent in 2011 when compared with 2010 arrests, and property crime arrests decreased 0.1 percent when compared with the 2010 arrests.

Arrests of juveniles for all offenses decreased 11.1 percent in 2011 when compared with the 2010 number; arrests of adults declined 3.6 percent.

Over 74 percent (74.1) of the persons arrested in the nation during 2011 were males. They accounted for 80.4 percent of persons arrested for violent crime and 62.9 percent of persons arrested for property crime.

In 2011, 69.2 percent of all persons arrested were white, 28.4 percent were black, and the remaining 2.4 percent were of other races.

Source

@JLeslie

I don’t disagree with your point. I would however, add that those that make it, that gain a good living seem to have one thing in common. They did know they couldn’t make it in society. They actually belived that they could gain properity if they got educated and worked hard. If you get eductaed and work hard it will not guarantee success. But if you believe that whatever you do you will fail not succeed, that you will fail, that will guarantee failure.

Maybe I’ve been on this site too long. I read through the responses to so many questions that come across as a dismal future with no hope for success. If that’s what we’re teaching our kids, then there is a dismal future waiting for us. Personally, I still believe there is plenty of opportunity out there. The streets may not be paved with gold but there is gold out there. And it’s out there for everyone, regardless of sex, creed, or color. For every kid you convince that their only way to survive is welfare and crime, you’ve created another candidate for prison. For every kid you convince that they have an opportunity at fame and fortune, that’s one less candidate for prison. Call me an optimist or call me a conservative, you are what you believe you are.

@Jaxk We agree on the psychological impact, and I am an optimist in the same way. I think where we diverge is conversations regarding compensation and socioecomonics, regardless of race.

It is a little ironic that the ‘land of the free’ imprisons more of its citizens than any other country in the world. I’m surprised that Americans aren’t more aware of this fact. Another point is that many of these prisoners are held for months and years in solitary confinement in conditions we wouldn’t subject animals to. And I’m not even going to mention Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo Bay.

@flutherother I haven’t looked up crime statistics compared to other countries.

@JLeslie Here’s the list with the USA right at the top

@JLeslie I don’t get what you are surprised about. A plurality of criminals are still white, and the plurality of people on welfare are non-black (and depending on how we class Hispanics, may still be white). What is disproportionate is the rate of imprisonment and welfare among black Americans. Rate is determined relative to percentage of population and does not represent an absolute number. I don’t know anyone, Republican or Democrat, who is unaware that blacks are imprisoned at a rate wildly disproportionate to the percentage of the total population that they make up. In fact, Republican and Democratic politicians typically repeat the same statistics while differing only in their interpretation (“blacks are more likely to commit crime” versus “blacks are more likely to be prosecuted” or “blacks are unfairly targeted”). If you didn’t realize that, then it seems to me you must have misunderstood the rhetoric.

This is not new to me.

A living black man who is at least 25, and never imprisoned is a rarity. It’s a true shame on America, or at least it should be.

You guys make it sound like America’s legal system just picks up people on the street and imprisons them without any reason. There is a lot more to it than just the knee jerk reactions I’m seeing here in defense of the inmates.

@flutherother That is the incarceration rate. I am windering if we have tons more crime oer capita, and that is why the encarceration rate is so high. Or, if we are imprisoning criminals at much higher rates.

@SavoirFaire As I said I was aware the rate is higher, just not that much higher. As I said above, I absolutely accept that black people many times get harsher sentences or targeted to begin with. But, there still is the fact that they are committing crimes. I would think the majority convicted are guilty. Not all of course, but the majority.

@JLeslie

From your linked article:

“As the consequence of “three strikes laws,” the increase in the duration of incarceration in the last decade was most pronounced in the case of life prison sentences, which increased by 83% between 1992 and 2003 while violent crimes fell in the same period.”

And

“A 2008 New York Times article[36] points out:

Still, it is the length of sentences that truly distinguishes American prison policy. Indeed, the mere number of sentences imposed here would not place the United States at the top of the incarceration lists. If lists were compiled based on annual admissions to prison per capita, several European countries would outpace the United States. But American prison stays are much longer, so the total incarceration rate is higher. ... “Rises and falls in Canada’s crime rate have closely paralleled America’s for 40 years,” Mr. Tonry wrote last year. “But its imprisonment rate has remained stable.”

@Jaxk – I also noticed the second paragraph you quoted. That is very relevant in tallying the overall numbers. It is so easy to manipulate statistics to prove your point.

@bkcunningham – I was thinking that also.

If more crimes are committed by a specific group of people, what would you have done? Just ignore crime committed by that group? Let that group prey on each other and hope for the best? Give them more money so they don’t commit crimes? Offer them education so they can get jobs? Send them to Harvard for free? Rehabilitate them while they are in prison? (Yeah, right, give them the magic rehabilitation pills)

It is easy to sit back and criticise, but I have seen first hand, the you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make them drink syndrome. I don’t know what the answer is but throwing more money is not it, Australia is proof of that.

I do agree that jail for minor drug offences is a waste. I think everyone has the right to kill themselves anyway they choose, drugs, cigarettes, booze, bungee jumping, but I don’t think it is my job as a tax payer to fund their choices.

If people become criminals or drug addicts because of lack of education and/or poverty, more than half the people I know back home would be incarcerated. They don’t have arrest records though. I wonder why? They don’t even receive any type of welfare or government assistance.

I’m not saying that the people from the mountains where I’m from are perfect. No. Far from it. I just wonder if the theory is true that it is poverty and lack of opportunity and education that makes someone turn to breaking the law and getting locked away in jail, what it is that is different about other groups who don’t turn to crime?

It’s been some time now, but We used to do ride-alongs with civilian police to augment their forces. The city I live in sends out officers alone in their cars and that is not enough on full-moon’s or payday nights. Because I worked during the day, I would most often do night shifts. I did notice we arrest significantly more Black people than White/Brown people, and nearly no Yellow people. (probably because of the demographics of the area.) It was not due to profiling. These guys were guilty as hell. All of them. Beyond that, I can offer no more. Economically, the area was depressed, I would count economics out of the equation. Most of what we arrested for was public intoxication and OMVI’s, kind of a catch and release thing. B&E’s, Battery, Domestics, Robberies, and Bar Fights were a mixed bag and not much.