Why are so many Americans behind bars?

[damnedifIknow]

More people are in prison in America than anywhere else in the world, driven in part by laws with heavy sentences for non-violent drug charges.

Drug policy has had a severe impact on African-Americans in the US, who make up the largest proportion of these sentences.

President Barack Obama wants to make the country's prison system fairer, and the high cost of keeping so many people in prison has attracted both Republicans and Democrats to the cause of sentencing reform.

Rajini Vaidyanathan looks at how the US prison population got to record levels.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-33511974

[Cleita]

1. The privatized prison industry isn't profitable unless all the cells are

full of prisoners.

[delrem]

6. Exactly.

Likewise the weapons industry and privatized armies (Blackwater etc) aren't profitable unless there are unending wars.

I wonder why the majority of voters don't seem to have the wit to understand these elementary connections?

[Skittles]

2. the wrong people are being jailed

imagine if they put the white-collar crooks in jail, you know, the ones who really do destroy lives

[BarbaRosa]

3. The republican era of mean started in 1980,

otherwise known as the "conservative revolution". Remember that?

[NobodyHere]

13. Sad to say

You can't blame all this on just Republicans

[Initech]

4. Five John Oliver segments worth watching that explain a lot about the prison industiral complex:

1. Prisons

2. Police Militarization

3. Elected Judges

4. Civil Forfeiture

5. Bail Bonds

Add all of these things up and it's a perfect shitstorm as to why there's so many Americans locked up.

[MindPilot]

5. That is a nice little anthology!

I've watched literally every episode of LWT and never connected those dots. Thanks for pointing that out.

[Initech]

11. LWT is currently the best show on TV. Bar none.

Now that there's no Colbert and there soon won't be any Jon Stewart, John Oliver is consistently putting out the best comedy news show since the Daily Show at the height of the Bush era.

But yeah connecting all those dots is pretty horrifying to say the least!

And the Jesus Bail Bonds commercial from the last one still kills me every time I see it.

[tkmorris]

7. $$$$$$$$

It's that fucking simple.

[7wo7rees]

8. For profit prisons! nt

[951-Riverside]

9. We need to end the barbaric practice of keeping people in a small cage for life n/t

[Comrade Grumpy]

10. We are a very punitive society. And it's a way to control certain population groups.

It's the black population that is most disproportionately affected by our incarceration mania.

Kudos to President Obama for taking this latest step to reverse the juggernaut. When it comes to the war on drugs and mass incarceration, he's the best president we've had in decades.

[NobodyHere]

12. The short answer is

No politician wants to be seen as soft on crime.

[Comrade Grumpy]

15. I think that is changing. See Obama's actions today. Instead, we can be "smart on crime."

[NobodyHere]

16. Then again

Obama isn't running for re-election either,


although he should just to make right wing heads explode.

[davidn3600]

14. Private prisons, war on drugs, and a public that loves their prisons

The public demands their politicians be "tough on crime" and therefore politicians have to keep increasing the mandatory minimums to keep getting votes. At the same time you have the private prison industry lobbying for longer sentences and more prisons. And then you got the war on drugs which has been a colossal failure.

[flamingdem]

17. True, the public needs an education about what crimes

require prison and the amount of money involved.

But the politicians won't spell it out.. they get elected with fear, many do in urban areas.