Why does the United States have the highest prison population in the world?
by 
bowlinggreen
ANSWERS: 8
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The United States has 5 percent of the world's population and 25 percent of the world's incarcerated population. We rank first in the world in locking up our fellow citizens, regarding the war on drugs. The U.S. imprison more people for drug law violations than all of western Europe, with a much larger population, incarcerates for all offences." We send more people to prison, for more different offences, for longer periods of time than anybody else. Why are so many people in prison? Blame mandatory sentencing laws and the record number of nonviolent drug offenders.
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You and these questions, wow, on a roll. and i'm the only one answering it seems...ok I wasn't aware we did, but it makes sense i suppose. We're the "number 1 country in the world" a title we barely can hold on to yet we have a huge poverty problem. with a great schism created betweent he rich and the poor, its so difficult to live up to the American stndard for even, well, americans. To cope with ever growing living expenses and our disillusion that we need so many materialistic things, many Americans turn to crime to support their low incomes and high tastes. As well, america is illequipped to support the poor and help them rise up, while it helps some, not enough so crime is the only solution for many americans. amd obviously a life of crime leads to jailtime also because we punish so many on drug crimes, probably harder than any other country when it comes to nonviolent drug crimes, that we have more excuses to put peopel in jail
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My own perspective is that there are good ideas for the justice system in the Old Testament. Nothing was punished there with imprisonment--that just puts you into crime college to compare notes with criminals. Violent crimes were punished with equal pain (so there weren't near as many violent crimes), really serious crimes were punished with death, and property crimes were punished with restitution and penalties, NOT fines, which only benefit the government. The loser in any lawsuit paid double the amount in dispute so there were almost no frivolous lawsuits and people were careful not to commit torts. It worked well for over a thousand years. But some idealist in the 18th century thought that if you just give someone a time-out in a "penitentiary" you will become "penitent," so we punish everything by giving people time-outs. Well, it doesn't work. Time to try something different.
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Because the prison system does not take the necessary time to reabilitate the prisoners.They are thrown into cells and left there.They have no role models or social workers to help them reform.Once they get out they repeat the crime or possibly a worse crime.Prisons should be of more use than to just punish.When you punish a child,do you not try to help them mend thier ways.Another reason is that private corperations are starting to take over the prison system and making more prisons.Once prisons become a profit based interest and the taxpayers foot the bill everyone loses, I understand that taxpayers pay $30 thousand a year per prisoner.Privatized prisons benifit and there would be no incentive to reabilitate.Should not one who has wronged society be shown a better way?Corperations are building more prisons and since prisoners=profits crime is a welcomed sight to them.
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Because, believe it or not, slavery still exists in America. I see it everyday in my life.
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The USA give people prison sentencs to suit the crime. In this country a murderer can be back on the streets in 8-12 years even for double murder. A rapist could serve 2 years. and today they have admitted to losing track of over 300 peodophiles and child abusers. here they say the prisons are overcrowded and they do community time . Murderers and rapists are given the chance to repeat their crimes. The criminal justice system is all in favour of the criminal >Worst still the Court of Human rights in the Hague interferes too and gets a lot of them back on the street on technicalities. You may have a large prison population but it is keeping some very dangerous people off the streets
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tantric and a few others touched on it. the number of nonviolent offenders, drug offenders specifically, far outweigh the number of violent criminals that are presently incarcerated. the supposed drug war that is tax funded and has been waged for a few decades now is not only taking a toll on the american wallet but also claims many global casualties. a sad byproduct of that is a thriving prison system that is drawing in private interests ie corporations utilizing the cheap labor and man power of prisons to make a profit. the moral validity of that is dubious but what makes it worse is it creates a cycle and culture of crime, where generations and families commit themselves to this cycle of incarceration. i'm sure you've seen trends in music, video games, and other forms of entertainment that can validate this.
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Because we are all f**k*D UP..Lol honest opinion.
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