Moin91
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Sunday, November 25, 2007
By Kaleem Omar
It is one of historys greatest ironies that the United States, which never tires of billing itself as the land of the free, has more people in prison than any other country in the world. According to figures compiled by the US Bureau of Justice Statistics and published annually in the form of a report, Americas prison population, which has been growing inexorably for years, exceeded well over 2.3 million people
at the end of December, 2006, representing a 2.5 per cent increase over 2005.
Prison-related expenditure now costs the US federal government and states an estimated $ 45 billion a year at a time of rampant budget deficits and a national debt that has now ballooned to a staggering $ 9 trillion - fueled by rampant conspicuous consumption, on the one hand, and the USs obsessive addiction to growth on the other. The problem of the rising national debt is further compounded by the USs failure to accept the fact growth has its limits.
By contrast, China, with a population approaching 1.3 billion people, or 4.3 times more than the USs 300 million, has slightly more than 1.4 million inmates. Russia, with a current estimated population of 150 million, has about 920,000 inmates. The US 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.
The US, today, has a higher percentage of its citizenry in prison than any other country in history, and accounts for an astonishing 25 per cent of the worlds prison population. In other words, one in every four prison inmates in the world today is incarcerated in an American prison.
The Bureau of Justice Statistics report points to some truths, at once staggering and damning, about the social and political conditions facing the most impoverished and oppressed sections of American society. The report found that black males from 20 to 39 years old accounted for about a third of all sentenced prison inmates under state or federal jurisdiction at the end of December 2006.
This means 12 per cent of all black American men in their 20s and early 30s more than one in ten are in jail or prison. The report calculates that over the course of a lifetime, 28 per cent of all black men will have spent some time behind bars. This very high rate of incarceration is a significant contributing factor in creating broken homes and single-parent families, which, in turn, leads to larger and larger numbers of young black males taking to a life of crime, drug use and violence
By comparison, only 2.4 per cent of American Hispanic males in the 20 to 39 age group and only 1.2 per cent of white males in the same age group were in prison. This suggests that there is a great deal of truth in the observation that in America Driving While Black (as opposed to Driving While under the Influence of alcohol) has become a criminal offence.
The number of people in prison, in jail, on parole and on probation in the US increased threefold between 1980 and 2000 to more than 6 million. Since 1990 the US prison population has exploded, almost doubling from 1,148,702 in 1990 to 2,166,260 at the end of 2002, and rising to over 2.3 million by the end of December 2006.
These included more than 1.2 million state prison inmates, more than 151,000 in federal facilities and more than 665,000 in local jails. More than 110,000 individuals were incarcerated in both public and private juvenile facilities, while the immigration and customs services held more than 8,700 individuals.
As Kate Randall noted in an article on the World Socialist Web Site, This increase is directly related to the deepening economic slump affecting working and poor people, with the Bureau of Justice Statistics indicating that the increase is most likely due to a growth in poverty-related crimes, such as burglary.
The jump came at a time when a growing number of US states facing large budget deficits (due to federal social spending cuts imposed by the Bush administration) have begun trying to reduce prison costs by easing tough sentencing laws passed in the 1990s, thereby decreasing the number of inmates.
To rub salt into states wounds, the social spending cuts have come at a time when the Bush administration has upped US military spending to an all-time high of over $ 500 billion in fiscal 2008 (which commenced on October 1, 2007), or more than the military spending of the rest of the world combined.
Today, Americas prisons and jails brim with more than 2.3 million people, and few observers, legislators or government officials seem much bothered. But the story does not end there. Another three million individuals are doing time outside, as satellites of the court system, subject to unannounced visits from parole and probation officers, mandatory urine tests, home detention, or the invisible leash of electronic shackles.
Millions more are connected to punishment from the other end, making their living directly or indirectly from the Keynesian stimulus of the nations lockup costs. Privately-run prisons have become the fastest growing business in America. And since the early 1980s incarceration has changed in both quantitative and qualitative terms: there are more prisons, more captives, and conditions inside are in many respects worse and more restrictive than ever.
The key finding in this report is this growth, according the chief prison demographer for the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the statistical arm of the US Justice Department. Increases in inmates in several of the largest states contributed to most of the national increase. Those states included California, Florida, Michigan and Pennsylvania, the chief prison demographer said.
That California features prominently in this list is not surprising. From 1984 to 1994, California built 21 new prisons and only one state university. Its prison system got a 209 per cent increase in funding, compared to a 15 per cent increase in state university funding.
There are nearly four million people in the US currently or permanently disenfranchised, as a result of laws that take away the voting rights of felons and ex-felons. No other democracy besides the US disenfranchises convicted offenders for life. Many democratic nations, including Denmark, France and Poland, permit prisoners to vote as well.
More than 1.4 million African America men 13 per cent of the adult black male population have lost the right to vote, a rate of disenfranchisement that is seven times the national average. By comparison, in the 2000 general election about 4.8 million African American men voted.
In Florida, the state where George W. Bushs younger brother Jeb Bush was governor, and the state that was at the centre of the voting scandal that gave Bush the presidency in 2000, one in three African American men has permanently lost the right to vote. This helped Republican candidate George W. Bush in his presidential bid, since most African Americans traditionally vote for Democratic candidates.
At the end of 2002, there were 2,166,260 Americans in local jails, state and federal prisons and juvenile detention facilities, the Bureau of Justice Statistics report found. California, aka The Golden State, had the largest number of inmates with 162,317, followed closely by Texas President George W. Bushs home state with 162,003. But since Californias population is much bigger than that of Bushs home state, Texas, in fact, has the largest number of inmates per 100,000 of population.
The US is not only the unchallenged world leader in the overall number of jailed people and the rate of incarceration, but also in capital punishment. The Bureau of Justice Statistics report shows there are more than 3,600 condemned inmates on death rows across the US.
On March 19, 2003, on the eve of the Bush administrations invasion of Iraq, federal death row inmate Louis Jones, 53, was put to death. Jones was a veteran of the 1991 Gulf War, and his lawyers argued that he suffered from Gulf War Syndrome, which made him violent and drove him to rape and murder. President Bush rejected his appeal for clemency.
Since the war against Iraq began, the State of Texas has passed a grisly landmark. On March 20, 2003, Keith Clay became the 300th person put to death in the state. Of the 839 individuals executed between 1976, when since the US Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty, and 2002, 301 inmates were sent to their death in Texas.
During George W. Bushs five years as Texas governor, before he assumed the presidency of the United States in January 2001, Bush presided over 152 of those state killings. The executions included women, the mentally impaired and those sentenced to death for crimes committed as juveniles. Welcome to Dubyas America.
By Kaleem Omar
It is one of historys greatest ironies that the United States, which never tires of billing itself as the land of the free, has more people in prison than any other country in the world. According to figures compiled by the US Bureau of Justice Statistics and published annually in the form of a report, Americas prison population, which has been growing inexorably for years, exceeded well over 2.3 million people
at the end of December, 2006, representing a 2.5 per cent increase over 2005. Prison-related expenditure now costs the US federal government and states an estimated $ 45 billion a year at a time of rampant budget deficits and a national debt that has now ballooned to a staggering $ 9 trillion - fueled by rampant conspicuous consumption, on the one hand, and the USs obsessive addiction to growth on the other. The problem of the rising national debt is further compounded by the USs failure to accept the fact growth has its limits.
By contrast, China, with a population approaching 1.3 billion people, or 4.3 times more than the USs 300 million, has slightly more than 1.4 million inmates. Russia, with a current estimated population of 150 million, has about 920,000 inmates. The US 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.
The US, today, has a higher percentage of its citizenry in prison than any other country in history, and accounts for an astonishing 25 per cent of the worlds prison population. In other words, one in every four prison inmates in the world today is incarcerated in an American prison.
The Bureau of Justice Statistics report points to some truths, at once staggering and damning, about the social and political conditions facing the most impoverished and oppressed sections of American society. The report found that black males from 20 to 39 years old accounted for about a third of all sentenced prison inmates under state or federal jurisdiction at the end of December 2006.
This means 12 per cent of all black American men in their 20s and early 30s more than one in ten are in jail or prison. The report calculates that over the course of a lifetime, 28 per cent of all black men will have spent some time behind bars. This very high rate of incarceration is a significant contributing factor in creating broken homes and single-parent families, which, in turn, leads to larger and larger numbers of young black males taking to a life of crime, drug use and violence
By comparison, only 2.4 per cent of American Hispanic males in the 20 to 39 age group and only 1.2 per cent of white males in the same age group were in prison. This suggests that there is a great deal of truth in the observation that in America Driving While Black (as opposed to Driving While under the Influence of alcohol) has become a criminal offence.
The number of people in prison, in jail, on parole and on probation in the US increased threefold between 1980 and 2000 to more than 6 million. Since 1990 the US prison population has exploded, almost doubling from 1,148,702 in 1990 to 2,166,260 at the end of 2002, and rising to over 2.3 million by the end of December 2006.
These included more than 1.2 million state prison inmates, more than 151,000 in federal facilities and more than 665,000 in local jails. More than 110,000 individuals were incarcerated in both public and private juvenile facilities, while the immigration and customs services held more than 8,700 individuals.
As Kate Randall noted in an article on the World Socialist Web Site, This increase is directly related to the deepening economic slump affecting working and poor people, with the Bureau of Justice Statistics indicating that the increase is most likely due to a growth in poverty-related crimes, such as burglary.
The jump came at a time when a growing number of US states facing large budget deficits (due to federal social spending cuts imposed by the Bush administration) have begun trying to reduce prison costs by easing tough sentencing laws passed in the 1990s, thereby decreasing the number of inmates.
To rub salt into states wounds, the social spending cuts have come at a time when the Bush administration has upped US military spending to an all-time high of over $ 500 billion in fiscal 2008 (which commenced on October 1, 2007), or more than the military spending of the rest of the world combined.
Today, Americas prisons and jails brim with more than 2.3 million people, and few observers, legislators or government officials seem much bothered. But the story does not end there. Another three million individuals are doing time outside, as satellites of the court system, subject to unannounced visits from parole and probation officers, mandatory urine tests, home detention, or the invisible leash of electronic shackles.
Millions more are connected to punishment from the other end, making their living directly or indirectly from the Keynesian stimulus of the nations lockup costs. Privately-run prisons have become the fastest growing business in America. And since the early 1980s incarceration has changed in both quantitative and qualitative terms: there are more prisons, more captives, and conditions inside are in many respects worse and more restrictive than ever.
The key finding in this report is this growth, according the chief prison demographer for the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the statistical arm of the US Justice Department. Increases in inmates in several of the largest states contributed to most of the national increase. Those states included California, Florida, Michigan and Pennsylvania, the chief prison demographer said.
That California features prominently in this list is not surprising. From 1984 to 1994, California built 21 new prisons and only one state university. Its prison system got a 209 per cent increase in funding, compared to a 15 per cent increase in state university funding.
There are nearly four million people in the US currently or permanently disenfranchised, as a result of laws that take away the voting rights of felons and ex-felons. No other democracy besides the US disenfranchises convicted offenders for life. Many democratic nations, including Denmark, France and Poland, permit prisoners to vote as well.
More than 1.4 million African America men 13 per cent of the adult black male population have lost the right to vote, a rate of disenfranchisement that is seven times the national average. By comparison, in the 2000 general election about 4.8 million African American men voted.
In Florida, the state where George W. Bushs younger brother Jeb Bush was governor, and the state that was at the centre of the voting scandal that gave Bush the presidency in 2000, one in three African American men has permanently lost the right to vote. This helped Republican candidate George W. Bush in his presidential bid, since most African Americans traditionally vote for Democratic candidates.
At the end of 2002, there were 2,166,260 Americans in local jails, state and federal prisons and juvenile detention facilities, the Bureau of Justice Statistics report found. California, aka The Golden State, had the largest number of inmates with 162,317, followed closely by Texas President George W. Bushs home state with 162,003. But since Californias population is much bigger than that of Bushs home state, Texas, in fact, has the largest number of inmates per 100,000 of population.
The US is not only the unchallenged world leader in the overall number of jailed people and the rate of incarceration, but also in capital punishment. The Bureau of Justice Statistics report shows there are more than 3,600 condemned inmates on death rows across the US.
On March 19, 2003, on the eve of the Bush administrations invasion of Iraq, federal death row inmate Louis Jones, 53, was put to death. Jones was a veteran of the 1991 Gulf War, and his lawyers argued that he suffered from Gulf War Syndrome, which made him violent and drove him to rape and murder. President Bush rejected his appeal for clemency.
Since the war against Iraq began, the State of Texas has passed a grisly landmark. On March 20, 2003, Keith Clay became the 300th person put to death in the state. Of the 839 individuals executed between 1976, when since the US Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty, and 2002, 301 inmates were sent to their death in Texas.
During George W. Bushs five years as Texas governor, before he assumed the presidency of the United States in January 2001, Bush presided over 152 of those state killings. The executions included women, the mentally impaired and those sentenced to death for crimes committed as juveniles. Welcome to Dubyas America.
indeed 
