Reply #11: Steal $5, you're a thief; steal $5 million, you're a financier [View All]

[Orwellian_Ghost]

"In 1995, the most recent year we can use for comparative purposes, the overall incarceration rate for the United States was 600 per 100,000 population, including local jails (but not juvenile institutions). Around the world, the only country with a higher rate was Russia, at 690 per 100,000. Several other countries of the former Soviet bloc also had high rates-270 per 100,000 in Estonia, for example, and 200 in Romania-as did, among others, Singapore (229) and South Africa (368). But most industrial democracies clustered far below us, at around 55 to 120 per 100,000, with a few-notably Japan, at 36-lower still. Spain and the United Kingdom, our closest "competitors among the major nations of western Europe, imprison their citizens at a rate roughly one-sixth of ours; Holland and Scandinavia, about one-tenth."

Elliott Currie, Crime and Punishment in America

"The number of people in prison, in jail, on parole, and on probation in the U.S. increased threefold between 1980 and 2000, to more than 6 million, and the number of people in prison increased from 319,598 to almost 2 million in the same period. This buildup has targeted the poor, and especially Blacks. In 1999, though Blacks were only 13 percent of the U.S. population, they were half of all prison inmates. In 2000, one out of three young Black men was either locked up, on probation, or on parole. The military-industrial complex of the 1950s, with its Cold War communist bogeyman, has been replaced by a prison-industrial complex, with young Black "predators" serving as its justification."

Dan Parkin, International Socialist Review, Jan-Feb 2002, p69


" The United States is way ahead of the rest of the industrial world in imprisoning its own population. That's for population control. None of that has anything to do with crime. "

Noam Chomsky, American linguist and US media and foreign policy critic


"From 1984 to 1994, Califomia built 21 prisons, and only one state university...the prison system realized a 209% increase in funding, compared to a 15% increase in state university funding."

The Justice Policy Institute (1996)


" Working class addiction to crack (cocaine) is a crime. But, middle- and upper-class addiction to drugs or alcohol is a disease. "

Sabina Virgo - Criminal Injustice


"The U.S. has both the largest prison population and the highest rate of incarceration in the world, including China and Russia. The U.S. incarcerates people at a rate more than 15 times that of Japan, and its prison population is more than eight times that of Italy, France, the UK, Spain, and Australia combined."

International Socialist Review


"Increases in prison spending average twice as high as increases in education spending."

National Criminal Justice Commission (1996)