The mafia really became hugely powerful in the 1950s controlling large cities in America. The Kennedies fought them and it cost them their lives. The US is riddled with more minor criminals these days as proved by the 2.3 million in prison currently. If each prisoner costs the taxpayers about $100,000 a year plus the costs of an army of law enforcement then that's a lot of money. Way up in the trillions without a single useful return. 2,300,000 * 100,000 + law enforcement = $230,000,000,000 plus ?????????????????? Putin would probably cull 10% a year. The figures would drop substantially. The decent folk of the US could live again without fear. It could come down to letting them go or culling the worst offenders.
The "war on drugs" inflates our prison population. Why are we putting non-violent drug offenders in prison? We CREATED a black market for drugs with another failed attempt at prohibition and the result is the largest percentage of incarcerated individuals in the industrialized world.
I am using similiar figures from the UK + probably better food etc. in the US. Perhaps you could get more accurate ones off the web ? My contention is ridiculously simple - that the politicians should make the country they are responsible for a decent place to live in for decent folk.
This is a good point imho. The solution is probably to drop the drugs Prohibition as in the 1930s. Unworkable unfortunately and put drugs under the alchohol laws.
I consider the "war on drugs" to be a travesty of epic proportions. No, I don't use drugs, and don't plan to. However, a truly "free" country we are not, and haven't been for 100 years. Sad part is it's only gotten much, MUCH worse as time went forward.
"The fee to cover the average cost of incarceration for Federal inmates in Fiscal Year 2011 was $28,893. The average annual cost to confine an inmate in a Community Corrections Center for Fiscal Year 2011 was $26,163."
State Corrections Expenditures, FY 1982-2010 Tracey Kyckelhahn December 10, 2012 NCJ 239672 Presents data on state corrections expenditures from fiscal years 1982 to 2010. This bulletin examines trends in state corrections spending for building and operating institutions and for other corrections functions. The report also details institutional operating expenditures per inmate over the study period. It compares trends in state corrections expenditures with state spending for public welfare, education, health and hospitals, and highways. Data are drawn from the Census Bureau's State Government Finance Survey, which collects information on state expenditures and revenues, and the Bureau of Justice Statistics' National Prisoner Statistics, which collects information on state prison populations. Highlights: Preliminary data from the Census Bureau's annual State Government Finance Census indicate states spent $48.5 billion on corrections in 2010, about 6% less than in 2009. By comparison, states spent $571.3 billion on education in 2010 and $462.7 billion on public welfare. From 1999 to 2010, among 48 states, 11 states showed a linear decrease in current operations expenditures per inmate, with an average annual decline of $1,093; 5 states had a linear increase, with an average annual additional cost per inmate of $1,277. The mean state corrections expenditure per inmate was $28,323 in 2010, although a quarter of states spent $40,175 or more. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lower than expected but still a lot of money.
Rather than throwing away any hope of release on the 3 strikes policy it might be more humane to offer a corporal punishment option. It was a real deterrent at school as far as I recall and hurt like hell.