Are there too many laws in the 'land of the free'?

Question

The United States has almost 2,000,000 people in jail and prison, more than another other country on Earth. Why?

Answer 1

I think it's because we do have an excessive amount of law, and some are really ridiculous, and I think that instead of punishing these criminals we try to rehabilitate them. The prisoners believe they have right (I just heard that a prisoner is suing the state cause he can't have pornography, and another prisoner is suing cause the state won't pay for a sex change) I think that if we made the prisons somewhere that people won't want to go for (for shelter and 3 meals a day) we need to make it miserable there. I heard of a sheriff in Arizona who makes the prisoners in his jails wear pink clothes and pink shoes. and he makes them sleep out in pink tents outside. The return rate for his jail is 8%!!! We need programs like that nation wide!!!!

Answer 2

It's not the number of laws. . .

I'm sure that if you checked into each of the almost 2,000,000 people that are in prison or jail, you might find a lot of them in for the same crime(s). I believe the popular ones (assault, robbery and murder) are illegal in every country on the planet. We are just too easy on the criminals, so we get more of them. Some of those countries you are comparing us to kill their criminals as opposed to housing them for life. It cuts down on the number of prisoners.

Answer 3

It's not that there are two many laws, it's that "land of the free, as long as you're not black, gay, Latino, Native American, a woman, or anything else that our white, Christian, male government doesn't like" doesn't flow as well as "land of the free, home of the brave."

Eh, most of the people in prison belong there. It's all the crap that we're wasting money on like gay marriage, flag burning, and all of that nosense that makes me mad. I'd just like to run up to George Bush and show him the Constitution, because he's obviously never seen it.

Answer 4

It's the drug laws and mandatory sentencing that driving a lot of the prison population numbers. Frankly, I could care less if people do drugs. I don't see why their consumption choices should have to raise my taxes to pay for extra policing and ridiculously long jail terms. If they want to smoke pot or shoot heroin or swallow gasoline that's their choice, let them live with it.

Answer 5

its not the laws for the most part, if you look at them individually most would say that 99% (at least) of laws are neccessary

its how we raise our kids and how we deal with those who break the laws that is the problem

we need alternatives to our jail system, which doesn't work

we need to spend more time money energy raising and educating our kids

Answer 6

some of it is people breaking good laws, but at the same time there are a lot of bad laws that are still in use, and for that matter there are laws being made that are necessary

Answer 7

More criminals are getting caught here. We actually let a lot of people off the hook, more than other countries, and our laws are, believe it of not, a lot more lenient than most other countries. We believe in criminals rights, so we clothe, feed, and shelter them instead of killing or ignoring them like other countries do.

Answer 8

Land of what free, that stopped a long ago.
We are borderline Communists.

Answer 9

Not from too many laws, just too many lawbreakers. That happens when people try to get rid of God.

Answer 10

Has nothing to do with the number of laws -- it's the number of folks that don't follow them...