Looks like that Snowcrash author picked one item wrong for the US to lead in the future. http://www.christiansciencemonitor.com/2003/0818/p02s01-usju.html US notches world's highest incarceration rate A report highlights extent to which many citizens have served time in prison. By Gail Russell Chaddock | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor WASHINGTON – More than 5.6 million Americans are in prison or have served time there, according to a new report by the Justice Department released Sunday. That's 1 in 37 adults living in the United States, the highest incarceration level in the world. It's the first time the US government has released estimates of the extent of imprisonment, and the report's statistics have broad implications for everything from state fiscal crises to how other nations view the American experience. Related stories: 12/02/02 A flood of parolees hits streets 12/02/02 If current trends continue, it means that a black male in the United States would have about a 1 in 3 chance of going to prison during his lifetime. For a Hispanic male, it's 1 in 6; for a white male, 1 in 17. The numbers come after many years of get-tough policies - and years when violent-crime rates have generally fallen. But to some observers, they point to broader failures in US society, particularly in regard to racial minorities and others who are economically disadvantaged. "These new numbers are shocking enough, but what we don't see are the ripple effects of what they mean: For the generation of black children today, there's almost an inevitable aspect of going to prison," says Marc Mauer, assistant director of The Sentencing Project, a nonprofit advocacy group based in Washington. "We have the wealthiest society in human history, and we maintain the highest level of imprisonment. It's striking what that says about our approach to social problems and inequality." Numbering in the millions Justice Department analysts say that experts in criminal justice have long known of the stark disparities in prison experience, but they have never been as fully documented. By the end of year 2001, some 1,319,000 adults were confined in state or federal prisons. An estimated 4,299,000 former prisoners are still alive, the new report concludes. "What we are seeing is a substantial involvement of the public in the criminal-justice system. It raises a lot of questions in the national dialogue on everything from voting and sentencing to priorities related to state's expenditures," says Allen Beck, chief of correction statistics at the Bureau of Justice Statistics, who directed the report. Nor does the impact of incarceration end with the sentence. Former inmates can be excluded from receiving public assistance, living in public housing, or receiving financial aid for college. Ex-felons are prohibited from voting in many states. And with the increased use of background checks - especially since 9/11 - they may be permanently locked out of jobs in many professions, including education, child care, driving a bus, or working in a nursing home. Enfranchisement for ex-felons More than 4 million prisoners or former prisoners are denied a right to vote; in 12 states, that ban is for life. "That's why racial profiling has become such a priority issue for African-Americans, because it is the gateway to just such a statistic," says Yvonne Scruggs- Leftwich, chief operating officer of the Black Leadership Forum, in Washington. "It means that large numbers in the African-American community are disenfranchised, sometimes permanently." Some states are already scaling back prohibitions or limits on voting affecting former inmates, including Maryland, Delaware, New Mexico, and Texas. In addition, critics say that efforts to purge voting rolls of former felons could lead to abuses, and effectively disenfranchise many minority voters. "On the day of the 2000 [presidential] election, there were an estimated 600,000 former felons who had completed their sentence yet because of Florida's restrictive laws were unable to vote," says Mr. Mauer of the Sentencing Project. The new report also informs - but does not settle - one of the toughest debates in American politics: whether high rates of imprisonment are related to a drop in crime rates over the past decade. The prison population has quadrupled since 1980. Much of that surge is the result of public policy, such as the war on drugs and mandatory minimum sentencing. Nearly 1 in 4 of the inmates in federal and state prisons are there because of drug-related offenses, most of them nonviolent. Narcotic-related arrests New drug policies have especially affected incarceration rates for women, which have increased at nearly double the rate for men since 1980. Nearly 1 in 3 women in prison today are serving sentences for drug-related crimes. "A lot of people think that the reason crime rates have been dropping over the past several years is, in part, because we're incarcerating the people most likely to commit crimes," says Stephan Thernstrom, a historian at Harvard University. Others say the drop has more to do with factors such as a generally healthy economy in the 1990s, more opportunity for urban youth, or better community policing. But no one disagrees that prison experience will be a part of the lives of more and more Americans. By 2010, the number of American residents in prison or with prison experience is expected to jump to 7.7 million, or 3.4 percent of all adults, according to the new report.
If current trends continue, it means that a black male in the United States would have about a 1 in 3 chance of going to prison during his lifetime. For a Hispanic male, it's 1 in 6; for a white male, 1 in 17. ugly
Is there anyone that wil try to make the claim that our justice system isn't racist in it's application? It is hard to argue otherwise if you look at the numbers.
The numbers show how many per race are convicted of crimes. I don't see any evidence to show that these convictions are racially disproportionate due to a racist application by the justice system. Your statement assumes all races commit crimes at an equal rate. This is very unlikely (but unprovable) due to the economic, educatiuonal inequalities in the races.
the reason is more obvious blacks get stopped 7 times as often as whites If police stopped kids leaving a late night party at Kinkaid or Strake Jesuit, do you suppose they would arrest a lot of people for DUI, DWI, or illegal possession? But the police won't be arresting them. they will be directing traffic for the kids. It starts there and it continues up through the criminal justice system. People with the ability to fund a legal team get in one line. everyone else gets in the other line - the conveyor line. whites get stopped less, get hassled less, get arrested less, get prosecuted less, and get convicted less. anyone who wants to believe that all happens without prejudice playing an active role needs to go hang out at the courthouse for a few years and get educated.
There are massive disparities. Here is a quote. According to the federal Household Survey, "most current illicit drug users are white. There were an estimated 9.9 million whites (72 percent of all users), 2.0 million blacks (15 percent), and 1.4 million Hispanics (10 percent) who were current illicit drug users in 1998." And yet, blacks constitute 36.8% of those arrested for drug violations, over 42% of those in federal prisons for drug violations. African-Americans comprise almost 58% of those in state prisons for drug felonies; Hispanics account for 20.7%. Source: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, National Household Survey on Drug Abuse: Summary Report 1998 (Rockville, MD: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 1999), p. 13; Bureau of Justice Statistics, Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics 1998 (Washington DC: US Department of Justice, August 1999), p. 343, Table 4.10, p. 435, Table 5.48, and p. 505, Table 6.52; Beck, Allen J., Ph.D. and Mumola, Christopher J., Bureau of Justice Statistics, Prisoners in 1998 (Washington DC: US Department of Justice, August 1999), p. 10, Table 16; Beck, Allen J., PhD, and Paige M. Harrison, US Dept. of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics (Washington, DC: US Dept. of Justice, August 2001), p. 11, Table 16.
I find this interesting. Andy has previously quoted studies showing the more educated you are, the less likely you are to use drugs. It is widely assumed, in this and other threads, that minorities get less effective education, and that it is a cause of their increased drug involvement and incarceration. Both of those things don't seem to be able to be true at the same time. Thoughts? Also, what are the percentages corresponding with pot vs H, C, or others? What is the breakdown of offenses, be it dealing vs possession? Not denying there is racism in enforcement, but is seems grossly exaggerrated without these breakdowns.
My thought is that he throws out any evidence he can find and ignores whether it really supports his conclusion or not. He lives in some dream land where we will legalize drugs and all of a sudden people will stop using them.
I have never claimed that it would be all of a sudden, nor would I. Reducing drug use will be a long, slow, painful process that will continue to be impossible while we ignore facts and continue prohibition. Regulating drug use will be the only way to reduce use by adults and eliminate use by minors. You can stick your head in the sand if you wish, but the dream world is the one where people believe that prohibition has any positive effect on society. (BTW, this is not directed at Hayes, we have already established that he does not agree with prohibition) As far as my evidence goes, I guess that when you don't use anything but conjecture, evidence might seem a bit daunting. I am sorry that you think my evidence (that shows how many more blacks are in jail than whites) does not support my conclusion (that the justice system is racist in its application) but it remains that those are statistics gathered by our government and not disputed by anything you have said. I would love to see further breakdowns of those numbers myself, Hayes. I do not have those numbers in front of me, but if you are that interested, I quoted the SAMHSA source if you would like to compile them. I would be happy to take back my assertion if you can prove your point with evidence. I am quite certain that education reduces the prevalence of drug use and abuse and you make a good point that lack of education in the minority population could have an effect on the numbers I quoted. It is also true that people who leave prison have a markedly higher rate of drug use and abuse than people who have not been in prison. By this logic, it would be FAR more effective to put people caught using drugs in college rather than prison. That is, if the aim is truly to reduce drug use and abuse. Apparently, there is more money in incarcerating those people.
You cite drug use. Come on. You probably don't even believe most of these offenses should be crimes. My problems with arguement: 1) Quantity? Amount drug of violation would factor in sentence. No information on quantities per race of user. 2) Drug violations include dealers. Dealers spend more time in jail. 3) Federal prisons? Are users sent to federal prisons? 4) Location. Different states handle drug crimes differently. Drug convictions and race proportions differ between states making national statistics invalid. 5) No stats on dealer races supplied. 6) Police don't have X-ray glasses to see in houses. So if you're educated, concealment of crime is more likely. Look at murder. 7) "Estimated" "Survey" 8) If you're rich, you have a better chance of getting off. Stats aren't broken down by wealth of offender. 9) Where are the asian stats? To me, these stats look like SAT math scores in reverse. 10) Kind of like #7. Doesn't show stats on how many caught versus convicted. I'd prefer you made your arguements on something easy for police like murder to diagnose and have an accurate count (For example, holes in a body will tip off a cop that there was a murder, but a house with people doing drugs inside looks like a house without drugs being done...I'm oversimplifying here for explanation of easy) and only look at a state by state basis. Drug use has a lot more variables. I am receptive to arguements, but I am very skeptical of statistical arguements that oversimplify a problem. I do believe racism has affected a lot of cases. More in the past than today (I hope). I do not believe the stats provided accurately portray the extent of racism as I believe lack of education and economics are more of a driving force. My main purpose on this thread is to get people to be skeptical of stats. It irks me when someone says "It is hard to argue otherwise if you look at the numbers" and the numbers provided lead a person to a conclusion, but not prove it. If all data included is not the same (apples and oranges), it is not valid to use statistics. BTW, if you want some warm fuzzies go over to Hangout regular and check out the Longhorn QB thread. 15 years ago, Young would have been a definite no because he was black. Never underestimate the godfather of soul. I do have to say you are a b*stard for bringing up drug use to counter my arguement. Education and economics don't tend to deter drug use, but I still say they have a lot to do with not getting convicted in these offenses.
Here are some statistics that have nothing to do with drug use (sorry, they didn't include asian-Americans). As you can see, the rates for white men and women were considerably lower than the rates for blacks and hispanics. No matter how you slice it, the justice system in this country is horribly skewed in favor of white people. According to the US Dept. of Justice, in the United States "The rate of incarceration in prison and jail in 2002 was 702 inmates per 100,000 US residents -- up from 690 at midyear 2001. At midyear 2002, 1 in every 142 US residents were in prison or jail." The incarceration rate for African-American women was 349 per 100,000; for African-American men, the rate was 4,810 per 100,000; the rate for Hispanic women was 137 per 100,000; for Hispanic men the rate was 1,740 per 100,000; The rate for white women was 68 per 100,000; and for white men the rate was 649 per 100,000. Source: Harrison, Paige M., & Jennifer Karberg, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2002 (Washington, DC: US Dept. of Justice, April 2003), p. 2 & Table 14, p. 13.
There is an underlying racism in the way minorities are treated by our police and our legal system that goes beyond economics and education. As I pointed out in another thread though, economics and education correspond quite well to race in this country so it's faulty to cite those reasons in order to explain the discrepancies in these stats.
I still don't see how "regulating" drugs will reduce drug use. Please define "regulation." Isn't regulating drugs just another way of not letting many people get drugs? Those stats do not prove that our system is racist in it's application. Must there be an equal number of crimes be commited by each race (relative to their size) for the justice system to be non-racist? That logic is messed up. Here is your logic: People in prison have a high rate of drug use. People in college have a low rate of drug use. Therefore, people should be put in college istead of prison. Do you see something wrong with this picture? By the way, I am not completely against trying a new approach in the war on drugs, but just saying we will "regulate" it and expect people to stop using drugs isn't much of an alternative. Please tell me what is involved in this regulation.
What? More likely its impossible to separate the factors from each other. That is the point. It can more than explain the discrepancies. For you to declare that they are irrelevant and race is the only explanation is an assertion you have no chance of proving. Its like saying 'blacks are drug dealers because they're black, not because they're poor.'
Those stats point out that in our system, we incarcerate minorities at much higher rates than we incarcerate white people. If you can show me evidence that black people commit crimes at similarly elevated rates, then your argument might hold water, but the stats that I have seen point to crimes being committed by different races at nearly the same rate. Even if black people are twice as likely to commit crimes as white people, my stats show that blacks are nearly 10 times as likely to be incarcerated. And that if is a big one. I will be more than happy to, but it does not belong in this thread. I will post a new one.
But you are acting as if the stats mean absolutely nothing when, in fact, they point to a system that incarcerates blacks at nearly ten times the rate of whites. You can throw in all of the socioeconomic, psychological, and other factors you want, but the fact remains that black people are 10 times more likely to be incarcerated than white people. There are other factors, but they cannot explain a discrepancy of that size.
