Re: [A-List] RE: Iraq Debts Add Up to Trouble

["Henry C.K. Liu" <hliu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

And the structural nature of market fundmentalism makes most prioners
political prisoners.  By its own standards, the US needs a regime change
more than any other state.

Henry C.K. Liu

Number Imprisoned Exceeds 2 Million, Justice Dept. Says

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Reuters
Monday, April 7, 2003; Page A04

The number of people in U.S. prisons and jails has surpassed 2 million
for the first time, according to a Justice Department report released
yesterday.

Prisons and jails held one out of every 142 U.S. residents. The prison
and jail population, long the world's largest, has almost doubled since
1990.

There were 2,019,234 people in prisons or jails at the end of June 2002,
according to the report. About two-thirds of the total were in state and
federal prisons, and the rest were in local jails.

U.S. prisons house people convicted of felonies, while jails generally
hold people serving sentences for misdemeanors or awaiting trial.

The Sentencing Project, a group that promotes alternatives to prison,
said state and federal policies continue to drive up incarceration rates
despite sharp drops in violent crime rates since 1994.

"The relentless increases in prison and jail populations can best be
explained as the legacy of an entrenched infrastructure of punishment
that has been embedded in the criminal justice system over the last 30
years," said Malcolm Young, the group's executive director.

In the 12 months that ended June 30, the jail population went up by
34,235 inmates, a 5.4 percent rise and the largest increase since 1997,
according to the report. State prisons added 12,440 inmates, a 1 percent
increase, while the federal prison system grew by 8,042 inmates, a 5.7
percent increase.

An estimated 12 percent of black males, 4 percent of Hispanic males and
1.6 percent of white males in their twenties and early thirties were in
prison or jail.

Among the other findings of the report:

• A total of 7,248 jailed inmates and 3,055 state prisoners were younger
than 18.

• The federal government's prison system had the largest number of
inmates at 161,681, followed by California with 160,315 prisoners and
Texas with 158,131 inmates.

• Twenty states experienced an inmate population increase of 5 percent
or more during the 12-month period.

• Female prisoners totaled 96,099 at the end of June, accounting for 6.7
percent of all inmates.



Sabri Oncu wrote:
> Fadhel wrote:
>
>
> > Today we hear the US government talking about 'reforming
> > the Iraqi educational and healthcare system'. Look who is
> > talking about healthcare and education!
>
>
> I agree!
>
> The rest of the world should liberate the US from Bush, restore
> democracy and reform their educational and healthcare system.
>
> It is a total mess here.
>
> Sabri