Filling Up Prisons Without Fighting Crime: Mark Kleiman on America's Criminal Justice System

[Matariki]

This is an issue in our country that needs far more attention. I've always found the idea of privatizing prisons a very dangerous practice. There are certain aspects of a culture that just should NOT have the profit motive attached to them.

The first comment after the article has very good information about prison labor and cites how much military and war equipment is being supplied by cheap prison labor. Apart from how disturbing that is on a moral level, it can assumed that the cheapness of the labor isn't being passed back to taxpayers but rather it benefits companies that profit from war and military contracts.

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/08/27/filling-up-prisons-w.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+boingboing/iBag+(Boing+Boing)&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher

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UCLA Professor of Public Affairs Mark Kleiman is "angry about having too much crime and an intolerable number of people behind bars." The United States is home to five percent of the world's population and 25 percent of the world's prisoners, yet, says Kleiman, our high incarceration rate isn't making us safer.

In his book, "When Brute Force Fails," Kleiman explains that, when it comes to punishment, there is a trade-off between severity and swiftness. For too long the U.S. has erred heavily on the side of severity, but if we concentrate enforcement and provide immediate consequences for law-breakers, Kleiman says we can both reduce the crime rate and put fewer people in prison.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

1. Class warfare.

It's not even up for debate.

[Matariki]

3. Clearly an important issue around this place

:(

[Bragi]

2. The American prison system is a disaster

I wish Michael Moore would take it on as a documentary project sometime.