U.S. prison population largest in world
The Baltimore Sun
With a record-setting 2 million people now locked up in American jails and prisons, the United States has overtaken Russia and has a higher percentage of its citizens behind bars than any other country.
Death Penalty Facts
COST: The Death Penalty is Expensive.
Capital punishment is a far more expensive system than one whose maximum penalty is life in prison.
A New York study estimated the cost of an execution at three times that of life imprisonment. In Florida, each execution costs the state $3.2 million, compared to $600,000 for life imprisonment. Studies in California, Kansas, Maryland, and North Carolina all have concluded that capital punishment is far more expensive than keeping someone in prison for life.
The greatest costs of the death penalty are incurred prior to and during trial, not in post-conviction proceedings. Even if all post-conviction proceedings were abolished, the death penalty system would still be more expensive than alternative sentences.
Under a death penalty system, trials have two separate phases (conviction and sentencing); they are typically preceded by special motions and extra jury selection questioning. More investigative costs are generally incurred in capital cases, particularly by the prosecution. When death penalty trials result in a verdict less than death or are reversed, the taxpayer first incurs all the extra costs of capital pretrial and trial proceedings and must then also pay either for the cost of incarcerating the prisoner for life or the costs of a retrial (which often leads to a life sentence).
The death penalty diverts resources from genuine crime control measures. Spending money on the death penalty system means:
Taking it away from existing components of the criminal justice system, such as prosecutions of drug crimes, domestic violence, and child Reducing the resources states put into crime prevention, education and rehabilitation, investigative resources, and drug treatment programs.
"Elimination of the death penalty would result in a net savings to the state of at least several tens of millions of dollars annually, and a net savings to local governments in the millions to tens of millions of dollars on a statewide basis." --Joint Legislative Budget Committee of the California Legislature, Sept. 9, 1999
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The death row population fell from 3,601 in 2000 to 3,581 in 2001, the first year-to-year decrease in 25 years. Last year's total of 155 was the lowest number sentenced to die and put on death row since 1973. It was the third straight year of declines.
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MAKING THE WALLS TRANSPARENT
Slave Labor Means Big Bucks For U.S. Corporations
At the same time, the United States blasts China for the the use of prison slave labor, engaging in the same practice itself. Prison labor is a pot of gold. No strikes, union organizing, health benefits, unemployment insurance or workers' compensation to pay. As if exploiting the labor of prison inmates was not bad enough, it is legal in the United States to use slave labor. The 13th Amendment of the Constitution states that "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted shall exist within the United States."
There are approximately 2 million people behind bars in the United States-more than three times the number of prisoners in 1980. The United States now imprisons more people than any other country in the world. In fact, in the last 20 years California has constructed 21 new prisons while in the same amount of time, it has built only one new university. That statistic is even more astounding when we think about the fact that it took California almost 150 years to build its first 12 prisons. Another five new prisons are under construction and plans are in the works to build another 10.
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UNICORE
-Pot Smokers Arrested In America At A Rate Of One Every 45 Seconds-
YEAR MARIJUANA ARRESTS
2002 697,082
2001 723,627
2000 734,498
1999 704,812
1998 682,885
1997 695,200
1996 641,642
1995 588,963
1994 499,122
1993 380,689
'Relax Your Muscles as Much as Possible'
According to FBI Uniform Crime reports on numbers of marijuana arrests, in 1991 there were 200,465 arrests in the United States for marijuana possession. But far from being "phased out," arrests for marijuana possession rose steadily through the 1990s, reaching 646,042 in 2000 (3,742 of those in Nevada alone -- costing 10,000 police hours just for "processing.") More than half of all federal inmates are now nonviolent drug inmates.
According to the government-funded National Household Survey on Drug Abuse, 800,000 million youths between 12 and 17 tried marijuana for the first time in 1991. But in 2000, according to the same survey, 1.6 million youths between 12 and 17 tried marijuana for the first time. "If arresting more people is supposed to stop kids from trying marijuana, it seems not to be working," comments Bruce Mirken, spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project in D.C.
What's life like in our prisons for those 77,000 marijuana convicts? Let's steel our nerves and go visit the Web site http://www.spr.org, where the Los Angeles outfit "Stop Prisoner Rape" has posted the little plain-talking handbill it has prepared for young men entering our prison system, titled "For Prisoners: Advice on Avoiding HIV/AIDS."
The group's handout -- targeted primarily at heterosexual men who have no desire to ever be involved in homosexual activity -- advises:
"HIV/AIDS transmission during a sexual assault is a serious concern. The following are practical tips for reducing your risk. ...
"If you have a choice, try to avoid men who used needles for drugs in the past or are still doing so. ... The more often you are raped, the more exposed you will be, so especially try to avoid anal gang-bangs. The most dangerous situation of all is if your anus is bleeding, for that allows easy entry of the virus into your bloodstream. So try to use a lubricant or grease or cream if you can to minimize injury to your delicate internal body parts, avoid anal gang-bangs, and if you must endure forced anal penetration, try to relax your muscles as much as possible. These tactics are not 'cooperating' or consenting, they are just common-sense measures to try to save your life.
"In many situations you are better off agreeing to do something (masturbating, oral sex, sex with a condom) rather than just resisting until you are overwhelmed and forced to deal with unprotected anal sex from one or many guys. You may feel you should resist to the end, but that would put your life in danger. There is no shame in doing what you have to do to survive; nothing changes the fact that rape is involved and you are not morally or legally responsible for it; these compromises are just pathways to your survival. It may even be to your advantage to develop skills in oral sex so that guys you have to deal with will be satisfied with that alone. Don't feel guilty about it; you're just trying to save your life...."
Feeling pretty comfortable now with what the legal system is doing to these 77,000 nonviolent pot-smokers in your name? (And those are just the ones who end up doing hard time, mind you. Remember, 646,000 were arrested in 2000. Do you suppose most of them had a nice, restful night in jail? Do you realize, if their families spent a few thousand dollars apiece on legal fees, that adds up to more than a billion dollars, and taxpayer costs for lost police time are several times that?)
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