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US Prison Population at Record High
December 10, 2009 - 4:18am
US Prison Population at Record High
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/dec2009/pris-d10.shtml
"...by far the highest rate in the world.."
from memory I thought the Russian rate was now higher;
it is high, but trails U.S. :
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/depsta/law/research/icps/downloads/world-prison-pop-seventh.pdf
surprising is the high level of incarceration throughout the Caribbean, St Kitts, Virgin Islands, etc., including Cuba
Regarding Cuba, it seems that complaining of hunger is a crime there. That's gotta fill a few prisons.
That includes the "repressive" regime in Cuba. Ha ha. Try again, hoser.
The penal state in an age of crisis.
I didn't say they were worse than the U.S. Seems to me that both are pretty fucked up. Wouldn't you agree?
I'd agree that the the thread is about the record high prison population in the USA, and how no other country in the world comes close.I don't see Cuba mentioned there, though.
Go ahead and start your own thread about those mean, mean Cubans if you like. I'm sure you'll get plenty of bites. Ha ha. A more reactionary or conservative web site might give you more satisfaction in that regard, though.
It's OK to speak your mind. Castro can't hear you. We're allowed to speak our minds in Canada.
C'mon. Don't hide.
Ha ha. Why don't you take your own advice and lecture all us babblers on the virtues of having over 2 million people in US jails? About executing disabled people who cannot distinguish right from wrong? About torturing people in Git-mo and elsewhere?
Yes, tell us all about the virtues of capital punishment, of private prisons, of faith-based prisons and other reactionary atrocities. Babblers REALLY what to know about the benefits of all this right wing shit. Ooh Rah!
I'm not endorsing any of those things. As I said, I think the U.S. prison system is pretty fucked up. I just wondered whether you thought that imprisoning someone for saying they're hungry is also fucked up. Evidently you either have no opinion on the matter, or you lack the backbone to admit that it's fucked up too. I think you've traded your principle for some misguided solidarity. As I said, Castro can't hear you. You won't be betraying the revolution by saying that's fucked up.
Take a look at the article. Yes, the U.S. places first in a race to the bottom, with an incarceration rate about seven times that of Canada. But look at the socialist paradise of Cuba. Why is their incarceration rate over four times Canada's, and nearly two thirds of the U.S.?
Doesn't that strike you as odd? The socialist paradise imprisoning 400% as many prisoners as our little Kapitalist hell-hole?
Go ahead and start that thread on Cuba. And put your sources there as well, that's a good little right winger.
Given that we don't like unnecessary thread proliferation, I think it's entirely reasonable, in a thread about incarceration rates in one country, to discuss and compare incarceration rates in others.
Yea, OK. When you're ready to discuss the topic in the title of the thread, let me know, eh? Snort.
He was arrested for being drunk and disorderly and disrupting tourists. It'll get you arrested in Vancouver and quite possibly tasered.
Never mind Cuba; the scariest thing about the Usian incarceration rate is the implications for Canada. Our current government's mimicry of the reasons for that high rate: the war on drugs, and the mandatory minimum sentencing, is heading us in the same direction.
Private jails in Canada have been thoroughly discredited:
http://www.prisonjustice.ca/starkravenarticles/CNCC_public_1106.html
However, the Harper government is relying on advice from people like former Ontario Corrections minister Rob Sampson, who brought us the disastrous private prison in Penetang.
It might get you a warning or a ride home. It *might* get you arrested.
But how many years in prison do you think you'd get for being soused in public in Canada? I'm going to say "none". I'm also going to suggest that he's not the first person in Cuba to drink some rum and get loud, and that maybe embarrassing the government might be why what would be a trivial offense almost anywhere outside of Saudi Arabia was worth a couple of years to this guy.
American Gulag State Largest Jailer nation in World HRW
Largest total prison population and highest incarceration rates
Another four or five million Americans are embroiled in the punitive legal system in one way or another through parole or probation, or short-term stays in temporary jails.
Suggested alternate thread title: "Land of the free?"
The US Prison Industrial complex is now a permanent and very profitable feature of the US economy. Like all such things, it makes sense to expect its growth and expansion here too.
I think prisons and who imprisons who has always been of importance. It appears that prison building - globally, locally (maybe even personally) is a growth industry. While a prison house of nations is constructed by NATO, OBUSHA, Harper et al internationally - imprisoning as population management (especially for poor people and Indigenous) will likely see a surge domestically as well.
I don't know if they lock up people in Cuba for speaking of hunger. It may be. I do know that my own contacts there tell me hunger is a big problem and that the PTB there suppress the truth. I understand perfectly well why friends of Cuba here would wish as I do that this wasn't true but I believe it is.
However, in terms of a list of worst and dangerous offenders I would put Cuba way down towards the bottom of any such list.
Guantanamo, Bagram, Abu Ghraib, and our own domestic prison systems. These are the places we should start.
I started this thread and see no reason why it can't encompass the subject of prisons in general.
The largest threat to human rights on the island of Cuba is the US Naval base for torture and other human rights abuses at Guantanamo Bay. The gringos are responsible for the largest incarcerated population in the world not only in America, but they own the largest prisoner population on the island of Cuba, too. Hawks in the US are completely full of shit when it comes to human rights and democracy.
There is a very good chance that a person from a First Nations would face very serious repercussions for being drunk and disorderly in the presence of high end tourists. But you are right just like in Frank Paul's case they might not arrest him but instead merely subject him to abuse and potentially fatal weather. Mind you with Frank Paul we have a new law that allows for incarceration for mental illness. This is a great boon to our security and takes a page right out of the Soviet era.
http://www.turtleisland.org/news/frankpaul.htm
Canadian Science Fiction writer beaten by US border Gestapo.
Eat shit, Yanqui lovers.
Hands up, all "Yanqui lovers"!
What? You still here? Have another bite.
Way back in 1992:
Just imprison everyone!
Well, since prison, slave, and indentured labour were critical in the development of capitalism, it just may be that the restoration of great masses of forced labour is a way to preserve this monstrous system. Ain't capitalism grand?
Another bite of what? Don't be shy. What should I have a bite of?
Sisters freed on kidney donation promise 16 years for an armed robbery that netted them between $11 and $200 dollars
God help them.
Obama signs bill, stops Gitmo closure They need Gitmo because Americans can't handle the truth about freedom, liberty, 9/11 etc.
Jebus cripes.
Arriving late to the party.
Snert you're trolling. Stay out of this thread and stop trolling babble. Yes that's a warning.
N.Beltov, stop the personal attacks and name-calling.
I believe they stopped over a year ago.
Bill Maher had a panel on his show in December talking about this, and the guy from California said if pot was legalized, the prison population would shrink by about half - but prisons are a huge US industry, and they want more inmates, not less. And, get this - on the show, they said US prison lobbyists are fighting against legalization of pot. Insane.
A foreshadowing of Canada's future...