Youngest your wife has had
- Thread starterwayward_one
- Start date
Um... say what?
That's an accurate statement.
No, that isn't "for sure." You might spend some time traveling in other countries (not just as a tour group member) and learning something about them before making an assertion like that.
Not so. The U.S. has a higher percentage of its population incarcerated by far than any other country in the world, including countries considered to have highly repressive governments. Approximately 1% (if it's less, it's only slightly less) of Americans are in prison. That's a HUGE percentage of our population to have locked up. Another statistic I recall reading (this is from memory, so it may be somewhat inaccurate) is that roughly 30% of Americans are tangled up in the "justice" system, as it's called, in one way or another — that is, awaiting trial, or out of prison but they're on parole, etc. That's not just a large percentage; it's an incredibly large percentage.
The huge percentage of the American population either in prison or otherwise tangled up in the "justice" system is a direct result of the so-called "war on drugs," which can and does result in large numbers of people who have committed minor victimless drug offenses being imprisoned with long mandatory sentences. Prior to the beginning of the "war on drugs" (by former President Richard Nixon), the percentage of the American population serving time in prisons was similar to the percentage in (e.g.) Great Britain. Now, it's many times higher.
The "war on drugs" has failed and has been lost decisively, both within the U.S. and internationally, but so many people and organizations have a vested interest that it continues unabated at very high cost to U.S. taxpayers as well as to those who run afoul of it in minor ways.
Statistical extrapolations by The Innocence Project — which attempts to free prisoners whose innocence can be unambiguously proven, usually with DNA evidence — indicate that a high percentage (something like 20% I seem to recall, but I may not be remembering that accurately) of prisoners awaiting execution on death row and others, many of them serving very long sentences, have been falsely convicted. Meaning, they did not commit the crimes they were found "guilty" of.
I'm pretty sure that throughout advanced western societies, the U.S. is the only country in which many of the states have death penalties, as does the federal government; the Supreme Court has defined that as "constitutional;" and people are executed, often in a particularly barbaric way, for capitol crimes. This has long been criticized by other countries as an extreme violation of human rights. DNA proof that a substantial percentage of the prisoners on death row are innocent has shown that this criticism is well-justified.
"America land of the free" has become "America land of the incarcerated."
MacNfries said:
That's an accurate statement.
MacNfries said:
No, that isn't "for sure." You might spend some time traveling in other countries (not just as a tour group member) and learning something about them before making an assertion like that.
MacNfries said:
Not so. The U.S. has a higher percentage of its population incarcerated by far than any other country in the world, including countries considered to have highly repressive governments. Approximately 1% (if it's less, it's only slightly less) of Americans are in prison. That's a HUGE percentage of our population to have locked up. Another statistic I recall reading (this is from memory, so it may be somewhat inaccurate) is that roughly 30% of Americans are tangled up in the "justice" system, as it's called, in one way or another — that is, awaiting trial, or out of prison but they're on parole, etc. That's not just a large percentage; it's an incredibly large percentage.
The huge percentage of the American population either in prison or otherwise tangled up in the "justice" system is a direct result of the so-called "war on drugs," which can and does result in large numbers of people who have committed minor victimless drug offenses being imprisoned with long mandatory sentences. Prior to the beginning of the "war on drugs" (by former President Richard Nixon), the percentage of the American population serving time in prisons was similar to the percentage in (e.g.) Great Britain. Now, it's many times higher.
The "war on drugs" has failed and has been lost decisively, both within the U.S. and internationally, but so many people and organizations have a vested interest that it continues unabated at very high cost to U.S. taxpayers as well as to those who run afoul of it in minor ways.
Statistical extrapolations by The Innocence Project — which attempts to free prisoners whose innocence can be unambiguously proven, usually with DNA evidence — indicate that a high percentage (something like 20% I seem to recall, but I may not be remembering that accurately) of prisoners awaiting execution on death row and others, many of them serving very long sentences, have been falsely convicted. Meaning, they did not commit the crimes they were found "guilty" of.
I'm pretty sure that throughout advanced western societies, the U.S. is the only country in which many of the states have death penalties, as does the federal government; the Supreme Court has defined that as "constitutional;" and people are executed, often in a particularly barbaric way, for capitol crimes. This has long been criticized by other countries as an extreme violation of human rights. DNA proof that a substantial percentage of the prisoners on death row are innocent has shown that this criticism is well-justified.
"America land of the free" has become "America land of the incarcerated."
