(thanks to DU'ers lovuian, and Radio_Lady)
Sunday 9th April, 2006
Prisons flourish where freedom reigns
While the U.S. is striving to make the
free, it is locking up more people than ever
before. In 1972, there were 300,000
inmates in America. By the year 2000, the
number had risen to two million. Today,
America has half a million more people
locked up than China
Renato Redentor Constantino Saturday 8th April, 2006
Have you asked yourself lately, for whom the bells toll? The prism of prison has more than four walls.
"No nation is exempt from the demands of human dignity," said US president George W. Bush. "Everybody desires to be free; embedded in the soul of each man and woman on the face of the Earth is this deep desire to live in liberty."
Three decades from now, said the head of the star-spangled country, "people are going to look back at this moment and say, thank goodness a generation of Americans stood up and said, we have faith in democracy."
Easy to stand up; a little harder to be free.
Today, America has more people locked up compared to any other country in the world, half a million more than China, in fact, which has a population five times greater than the US. "No other society in human history," said the American organization California Prison Focus, "has imprisoned so many of its own citizens." Studies "reveal that the United States holds 25 percent of the world's prison population but only five percent of the world's people." (snip/...)
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