Thursday, February 28, 2008

1 in 100 U.S. Adults Behind Bars


This is just wrong.

In today's New York Times:
For the first time in the nation’s history, more than one in 100 American adults is behind bars, according to a new report. Nationwide, the prison population grew by 25,000 last year, bringing it to almost 1.6 million. Another 723,000 people are in local jails. The number of American adults is about 230 million, meaning that one in every 99.1 adults is behind bars.
How can the land of the free be #1 in citizens in prison globally?

China: #2. Russian #3.

USA: #1.

Hell, 5 states spend more on prisons every year than they do on higher education.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

scott
it is disturbing isn't it. It seems we have totally moved from jails rehabing people into just punishment. Speaks volumes about where we are.

mikeo said...

Is it really necessary to use a blog that feeds to "Colorado Entrepreneurs and Technology" to rant about social injustice? Start a different blog if you're inclined, but I'd prefer this one stay focused.

Scott Converse said...

Huh...
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Mikeo- it's unlikely I'm going to change my blogging content here, this is my personal blog. As it says on top: Musing From Scott. Pretty general stuff. It's not focused on just startups and tech. It's focused on musing from a guy who happens to do startups and tech.
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Sooo... the question then becomes: Should I ask Brad Feld, owner of the feed, to pull me off off the Colorado Entrepreneurs and Technology" feed?
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Happy to drop off that feed if posts like this on my personal blog (which is what this is) bother people.
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Let me know what you all think. Post here or email me at scott dot converse at gmail dot com.

Anonymous said...

This blows me away.... and disturbs me. I've held it as "unread" in my google reader queue so I can come back to it. I keep thinking I'll have a better response to write.

As a person struggling with the lack of funding in the local public school system, this is even more disturbing. I wonder ... if we went back to teaching all the things I took as part of the regular curriculum, would our prisons have fewer people in them?

Does reducing art and music and languages to things you touch for 6 weeks and abandon deprive the kids of a personal connection that would keep them from the path to prison? Or is it just the sense that no one cares anymore that sends them down that path?

Your so-called "off topic" musing has me musing along. A lot. (please don't stop musing on ALL the topics that interest you).

An excellent read from an ex-evangelical.

  As you know, I once was an evangelical megachurch pastor and my pastoral career stretched over many years. Eventually, I could no longer t...