Startling & very sad statistics about those who are incarcerated in the USA.

I hope the link works.

Record-high ratio of Americans in prison - Yahoo! News

 

Amazing and disturbing at the same time!

 

Only because the inmates get their free education, free medical/dental, free cable entertainment, free gym access............all at taxpayer's expense.

All of that costs money. They get it why, because inmates have rights. The hell with that. If they choose to do the crime, then they need to do the time....................that means no free school, no free medical/dental and not tv or gym at all. Bring back the chain gangs. If prison is made into an unbearable place, then people will think twice about commiting a crime. I'm tired of paying for some of these hooligans' education and medical benefits only to have them come out in 10 years to go back into the old criminal groove.

 

I knew a plumber once with a bumper sticker (he had gotten in Bakersfield California) which read....

"My kid was inmate of the month at County."

Was tempted to get same, but knew Hell awaited if I did. Funny though, and strange how the prison/jail thing seemed to be no big deal.

One of the smartest (yet tough) contractors I know has been in & out a dozen times. His x wife dun "rund oft" with a lawyer, who was quite familiar about every way there was to $@%# with him.

He's the kind of guy to which the old saying applies....

Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, cause I'm the meanest S-O-B in the valley.

 

Heard it in the morning news. Some 1% of the US citizens in prison....

 

You have worked in a prison Carl, do you have any realistic ideas on how to reduce the populations ? I have read that many inmates have mental problems that are not fixed. It seems for gang members it is a way of life but I really don't understand that line of thinking or culture. Poor education seems to be a common theme, plus drugs and liquer abuse.

I really hope they don't get someone like William Wayne Justice to fix Texas's problems again. He should be held liable for his stupidity !

 

bring our troops home and use these guys as substitutes, personally I'd like to see some of the larger gangs rounded up and sent over there to do their "thing"

 

Poor Prescription: The Costs of Imprisoning Drug Offenders in the United States

Take a look at this. I by no means advocate doing drugs but these numbers are way too high(no pun intended) Absolutely, lets catch the drug dealers and manufacturers of these products but lets keep the kid with 1/2 a joint in his ashtray out of jail. The article is a bit old, but I'm almost positive those numbers are going up.

 

Mind-boggling :-(

Often prisons doesn't solve things, on the contrary, criminals can make a lot of connections and become more pro.

I just feel that the issue should be solved "earlier" on the national level so that people wouldn't have to make crimes in the first place (ie improved welfare: if you have money, you don't have to take risks or break the law).


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Way to go guys, you all are seeing what REALLY is happening in the prison systems. Sorry Kai, I will have to make multiple replies since I still have not learned the multi-quote thing ;-))

First off, i'll start with Ike and the quote he posted here.

That quote sums it up PERFECTLY. IN other words, the more prisoners that are in the "tender-loving-care" of the local, county, state and federal governments-the more money they get to spend-and all of that money comes from all of us taxpayers.

Also, the rest of Ike's post is A~B~S~O~L~U~T~E~L~Y~~~T~R~U~E.

WHen I still worked for the State Prison system, they finally did something that I thought should have been done all along-which was to start charging inmates for medical care. But OH-HO, when that happened, the inmate population was in a huge uproar. No longer did they get any and everything for free. When they go seek some sort of medical care-whateverthatmaybe? they are now charged a "Doctor's Office Fee" to go see them. When I was there-that fee was only $3.00 per visit-I don't know if that is still the same now or not? Anyway, that $3.00 fee, was instituted in order to keep a number of inmates from putting in a request to see the Prisons Dr or Nurses. What many inmates did was to fake an illness just so that they could be excused from work or whatever, for the day-or however long their "illness" lasted, just so they could go to see all the pretty nurses that worked there-and there were some beauts there. Also, since the "hospital" was airconditioned, that was another reason why many inmates faked an illness-just so they could go spend a few to several hours, in an airconditioned building. The inmates dorms were not airconditioned when I worked there and we C.O's also suffered from the heat.

But the main reason for this fee, was to "keep the numbers down" of those who put in for; Sick Call. You might wonder where an inmate might get their money from as they are in prison and where the state got their $3.00 fee paid from-the answer is that all inmates have a sort of "Bank Account" at whereever they are serving their time at. It's called their Commissary Account-menaing-an inmate has money placed there by some of their relatives-and also if they are working at a state prison job that actually pays them something. I can't remember what they got paid but-it was less than about 50 or so Cents per hour of work. This pay was automatically deposited into their Commissary account - so the inmate never actually sees "real" money. Also, sometimes they get money sent to them by mail-which is against prison rules and for good reasons. When an inmate gets a letter or package in the mail, the mailroom clerks open all letters and packages-to make sure no contraband of anykind is hidden in the letter or package. Contraband is anything from illegal drugs, to cash monies, to pornographic photos etc.

 

What Otto says in TA's post is definately true.

Hi TA, The only ideas I have for reducing prison population is to not ever imprison a person because they are addicted to illegal drugs-as most of these people are still good honest productive Citizens. Now, if someone who usese illegal drugs and does some other crime (such as rape or robbery or whatever?)-those are the ones who need to be imprisoned. I think it's nothing bt a waste of space, resources etc, to imprison those who are addicted to drugs.

One might ask how to punish those people? I'd suggest making them do somekind of Probation and or Community Service and to give them a high number of hours to do-such as starting them off (depending on the situation) starting at no less than 500 hours-on up to several thousand hours of community service. If for some reason they do not complete their hours in a proper allotted amount of time - which would be an automatic violation of their probation-then and only then-should these people be placed behind bars.

The prison system spawns gangs of allkinds. A few you most likely heard the name sof are:

MS-13, The Aryan Brotherhood, The Bloods, The Crips - yadda yadda yadda. Many on entering a prison are not affiliated with gangs on the outside-but join gangs on the inside in order to survive.

 

Mike, what you say is also too true and I completely concur with it. I have seen this and all of the above listed here. I've also seen many teens -as young as 13, who were sent to "adult prisons" for whatever horrendous crime(s) they have committed.

The whole sandwich to this is-that it's nothing but a M~O~N~E~Y~M~A~K~I~N~G~~I~N~D~U~S~T~R~Y for the stinking politicians on all levels of Govt.

I almost forgot one other important item-which is in that some of the inmates who are in and out of prison like a revolving door, do so because they are not charged for housing and food-in other words-prison is the only "home" some have-or that some choose to have. Many inmates are homeless people who commit a crime just to have a place to live and three meals a day.

Oh and, those who are indigent-do still get free medical care-that is something I do not have a problem with.

And finally, until when the prisons start charging an inmate for being incarcerated-then the population numbers will not decrease and only increase over time.

 

No one wants to face this, or even hear this....because of the "touchy-feely" nature of PC.

So we should just ignore it and it will go away? take care of itself?

Yeah....like a cavity

http://www.phxnews.com/fullstory.php?article=53618

Anyway, it states that 30% of all incarcerated in Federal prisons are "Illegal Immigrants"

 

Thats now probably a correct percentage. When I was a CO, it was 1 in 4 and those 1 in 4, about 95% were from Mexico.