Why does America incarcerate more of its population than any other on earth?

Question

As a % of her people, and in total, more than China, Russia, and other repressive regimes.

The notion that the difference is in killing prisoners is a gross mistatement of the facts.

Answer 1

Three words: War On Drugs.

400% increase in incarcerations since the mid 70's.

Answer 2

WOW, where do you get your facts on "The notion that the difference is in killing prisoners is a gross mistatement of the facts." Of course one needs to defines what killing is, if one dies from lack of health care treatment or from freezing it could be called dying of natural causes.
I have friends who have worked and lived in China and Russia.
Drug crimes are punishable by death.
China prohibits publication of any arrest or imprisonment, unless approved by the government.
They only allow a short statement when someone is executed,
The persons name and the fact they were executed for crimes against the people.
Both of these countries are very secretative on their prison population and rarely allow visitors.
Prison conditions are harsh, many prisoners die in prison(work camps). Prisoners are forced to work and products are sold world wide. Health care is limited for prisoners. Individuals that would be treated in the United States are allowed to die.(There is no cancer treatment, dialysis, odiabetic, high blood pressure, or other illiness are not treatment.
Law enforcement in both countries have ruthless enforcement power and can execute on the spot without recourse, criminals caught in the act are quickly shoot---example a robbery.
If we treated our prisoners in the same manner, our prison population would be less.

However, I agree we have to many people incarcerate.
I believe putting individuals behind bars for DWI, white collar crimes, illegal firearms, and etc. is self defeating.
We would be better off giving these individuals massive fines and allowing them to work their fines off, and restricting their movements.
When it comes to child abusers, I support the death pentaly for these individuals.

Answer 3

An acquaintance who works at a prison once told me that a large percentage of the inmates are imprisoned for victimless crimes such as drug possession. The drug war has done little or nothing to stop the drug trade, but it has put a lot of people behind bars. He also said America has a larger number of offenses punishable by imprisonment than most other countries.

Answer 4

I don't know how you could gt reliable info on the subject from those repressive regimes.

One reason is we have tough drug laws that apply to non- violent offenders. We also have "three strikes" and there is a govt beurocracy that feeds itself well on this. I am opposed to harsh sentences for non-violent offenders.

Another reason is we lock up illegal alien criminals that make up close to 30% of the prison population.

Answer 5

It is a serious problem. Talk about a waste of taxpayer money. But the real solution will never be realized because too many rich and powerful like this system (apparently) or they aren't smart enough to see the errors.

We need to look at why people turn to crime. Our justice system favors the rich. Poor people are not treated fairly.

Answer 6

Because we are stuck on punishing crime rather than fighting the causes of crime. If we improved education, improved job opportunities, and kept the guns out of the hands of criminals, crime would go down. Crime dropped a lot during Bill Clinton's presidency, but is now on its way back up.

Also, I heard that 60 percent of the people in jail in the US are in for minor drug violations. Maybe we should try and reduce the dependence on drugs rather than just locking people up.

Of course, this is very logical so I expect Republicans to give me a lot of thumbs down.

Answer 7

China executes 10,000 prisoners per year. In Russia they don't have to execute their prisoners they work them to death so they call it DIED of Natural Causes. Why do we have so many person in prison??? we aren't allowed corporal punishment. Maybe if we had a "beat straight" program we wouldn't have so many career criminals.

Answer 8

It has to do with the fact that we have a higher percentage of criminals than other countries. It also has to do with the fact that we warehouse hundreds, if not thousands, of murderers, rapists and child molesters who should have been executed, and all at taxpayers' expense.

Answer 9

because prisons make a lot of money

"The private contracting of prisoners for work fosters
incentives to lock people up. Prisons depend on this income.
Corporate stockholders who make money off prisoners’ work lobby
for longer sentences in order to expand their workforce. The
system feeds itself," says a study by the Progressive Labor
Party, which accuses the prison industry of being "an imitation
of Nazi Germany with respect to forced slave labor and
concentration camps."

Answer 10

Because it has more laws than any other nation on earth, most countries have simple laws, but America has complex laws that are difficult to understand, and hard to know when you'll go to jail and when you wont.