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I've been hearing this %$&* from conservatives ever since Nixon. It's their solution to everything they dislike. In Alabama, they'd probably lock you up for skipping church if they had the power (obviously, you're not someone with proper moral values or to be trusted if you don't go to church)
And what did we get for it? A war on drugs that has become a war on ourselves.
(From another DUer) "The single greatest force behind the growth of the U.S. prison system since the mid-1980’s has been the war on drugs.
The Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics reports :
1. America's prisons and jails held a record 1,860,520 inmates at mid-year 1999 (and passed 2,000,000 in 2000), 400,000 of which were there on drug charges (so, about 25% of all of the people in prison or jail are there on drug charges ALONE. This doesn't address drug-RELATED crimes).
2. The inmate population has more than doubled in the last ten years (from 712,000 in 1990 to over two million in 2001).
3. In comparison, America incarcerates five times as many people per capita as Canada and seven times as many as most European democracies.
In February 1999, the New York Times reported, "every 20 seconds, someone in America is arrested for a drug violation. Every week, on average, a new jail or prison is built to lock up more people in the world's largest penal system."
"Drug and alcohol related arrests made up one-third (31%) of ALL arrests in 1999. While overall arrests decreased by 1% from 1990 to 1999, drug arrests were 36% higher in 1999. (FBI Uniform Crime Reports 10/2000)
"About 1,600,000 people were arrested (not necessarily convicted) for drug violations in just one year (1999). Id."
States with such overcrowding in the jails they are letting prisoners out because the state doesn't have the money to keep them locked up. (Of course, $87 billion dollars to the states would solve most of their debt problems - but I guess that money is already spoken for.)
"After three decades of fueling the U.S. war on drugs with half a trillion tax dollars and increasingly punitive policies, illicit drugs are easier to get, cheaper, and more potent than they were 30 years ago," reads a LEAP statement.
Cops lying about arrests that would justify massive new funding in law enforcement. The Tulia case in particular.
Profiling disasters.
Three strikes laws.
Refusing to amend laws, convictions, or death sentences even when later DNA or other evidence indicates human failure, or worse, deceit!
Executions of the retarded, and the charging kids as adults.
Assaults on the Constitution.
Plea bargaining people into prison for crimes they did not commit. The modern equivalent of medieval torture to get a confession.
An Attorney General (the worse AG in our history) that wants his state attorneys general to fink on judges, effectively 'blacklisting' and intimidating them.
Being declared a "person of interest", never charged by a court. but "accused" nontheless.
A "Justce" Department that asserts a President hads the power to detain, indefinately, any person HE DEEMS an enemy combatant to be denied counsel and held incommunicado - and none of it reviewable by a court of law.
Being incarcerated because of your name (MIT's Amer Jubran ).
A Massachusetts state Rep. (Kay Khan-D) learning about the use of the Patriot Act being used against her after repeatedly asking why a $300 wire transfer had not reached her brother. Well, it seems someone decided that her husband had the "wrong" last name. A state legislator ON A LIST!
Being called "un-patriotic", and "aiding terrorism" because you express dissent and wind up getting on a list.
A Defense Department building massive inter-related databases on everyone, not just criminals - and by THE SAME company that "scrubbed" the Florida electorate of 57,000 voters!!
"LOCK 'EM UP!!" AAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The real criminals are not locked up - they're in Congress and the White House.
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