One out of a hundred Americans in prison

The Pew Center On The States reports that about one out of a hundred Americans are in jail or prison right now.  That means an even more appalling percentage will have prison records and cannot participate in our economy beyond a minimal (or illegal) level.  It’s more than Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, more than any of those countries we’re accustomed to regarding as examples of oppression.

The article says we spend “more than $49 billion” to be the worldwide imprisonment leader but that’s just the up-front cost.  By exiling so many people from the legitimate economy and creating a vast criminal infrastructure for common street drugs (let’s face it this is mostly about drugs) the cost to our economy will dwarf the cost of damaging it.  The war on drugs is a giant hemmoraging injury to our economy.  We have to stop it. 

If only there were some historical example we could learn from, where the war on a drug turned out to be more damaging than the drug itself.  Hmm… it seems there must be something but I can’t quite remember what it is.  Maybe I should go have a few beers and forget the whole thing.

Notes:

  • ***Dave, Paul, and Les open up major cans of whup-ass following the Pew report.
  • One out of six federal inmates is in for marijuana-related offenses, more than are in for violent crime.
  • I don’t actually drink beer; that was just snark.
  • The War On Drugs falls disproportionately on the poor and on people of color.
  • Baltimore Sun report on this story gives the following example:
    There are 23,342 people incarcerated in Maryland, according to the Pew report. “And roughly 70 percent of them are in prison for drug or drug-related offenses,“ Anderson said. “And of that 70 percent, 92 percent are African-American.“
  • WCBSTV report on this story
Posted by George on 03/01/08 at 10:21 AM
Politics • Law • (10) Comments • Link
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