I am a lifelong fan of the USA. If I was American I would vote republican, i am against abortion, for reducing taxes and minimizing government size and spending. The conservative thinktanks are the best in the world. I look up to much in American culture and history. But 2 million people in prison is unprecedented in any culture at any time. What gives America?
when they are free they are a drain on the economy, both in terms of crime and government benefits. Once we lock them up, the whites (oh sorry, that just slipped out, I meant the "contractors" who own the prisons) can start making money again. True, it costs more to keep a man locked up than it does to send him to Harvard, but we don't make any money when he goes to Harvard (unless you want to wait for a really long time.)
keep in mind, our prisoners live in luxury about a third of the world can only dream of. 3 squares, cot, clean toilets, and heat and a/c. Not to mention a dry roof over their head.
The real reason for the high U.S. prison population is that a large number of prisoners are in for non-violent drug possession charges. Other western countries handle this via drug treatment programs rather than lock-up. Other non-western nations handle drug possession via execution or deportation rather than imprisonment.
you sure about that? I know a lot of drug users. I have never heard of anybody getting locked up for just using. They get locked up when they interfere with the cops drug trade, usually on trumped up charges. the most common crime, failure to provide proof of insurance. All Americans live under the protection of the law. And if you don't pay them on time you could end up in prison.
"n the twenty-five years since the passage of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act (1986) the United States penal population rose from around 300,000 to more than two million." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_rate http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/10/war-on-drugs-prisons-infographic_n_4914884.html
you don't get locked up for using, you get locked up for failing to pay your bribe. Now, if you want to talk about filling private prisons to capacity at taxpayers expense, that is another mater. Who needs a law? We can lock people up for anything from building an unapproved EPA pond to coming up short on your income taxes to smoking pot. If you wanna play you gotta pay.