As Prison Population Sinks, Jails Are a Steal

HughPickens.com writes After rising rapidly for decades, the number of people behind bars peaked at 1.62 Million in 2009, has been mostly falling ever since down, and many justice experts believe the incarceration rate will continue on a downward trajectory for many years. New York, for example, saw an 8.8% decline in federal and state inmates, and California, saw a 20.6% drop. Now the WSJ reports on an awkward byproduct of the declining U.S. inmate population: empty or under-utilized prisons and jails that must be cared for but can't be easily sold or repurposed. New York state has closed 17 prisons and juvenile-justice facilities since 2011, following the rollback of the 1970s-era Rockefeller drug laws, which mandated lengthy sentences for low-level offenders. So far, the state has found buyers for 10 of them, at prices that range from less than $250,000 to about $8 million for a facility in Staten Island, often a fraction of what they cost to build. "There's a prisoner shortage," says Mike Arismendez, city manager for Littlefield, Texas, home of an empty five-building complex that sleeps 383 inmates and comes with a gym, maintenence shed, armory, and parking lot . "Everybody finds it hard to believe."

The incarceration rate is declining largely because crime has fallen significantly in the past generation. In addition, many states have relaxed harsh sentencing laws passed during the tough-on-crime 1980s and 1990s, and have backed rehabilitation programs, resulting in fewer low-level offenders being locked up. States from Michigan to New Jersey have changed parole processes, leading more prisoners to leave earlier. On a federal level, the Justice Department under Attorney General Eric Holder has pushed to reduce sentences for nonviolent drug offenders. Before 2010, the U.S. prison population increased every year for 30 years, from 307,276 in 1978 to a high of 1,615,487 in 2009. "This is the beginning of the end of mass incarceration," says Natasha Frost. "People don't care so much about crime, and it's less of a political focus."

Comments

Prison population

[galgon]

Am I the only one who thought the prison population was at an all time high?

Re:Prison population

[Anonymous Coward]

Am I the only one who thought the prison population was at an all time high?

No worries. Since the for-profit prison industries have politicians firmly in their back pocket, I'm sure new laws will be manufactured to enable the prisons to fill their beds once again.

Re:Prison population

[invid]

It's especially surprising considering that there is a population bulge of young people with the Millennials. Conventional wisdom states that since most crimes are committed by people in their teens and twenties, such a population bulge would increase crime. I guess it's time to toss out conventional wisdom.

Re:Prison population

[The Ickle Jones]

Or could that be due to other factors? Besides, a lot of it is victimless crime like arresting people for smoking weed.

Re:Prison population

[Anonymous Coward]

I think they would probably address the poverty issue rather than decide to look everybody up.

Re:Prison population

[jabuzz]

The rise in crime since WWII is a historical blip in a long term (on the scale of centuries) downward trend.

Why it is dropping is the million dollar question and nobody knows for sure. It is commonly known as the "Crime Conundrum" and it is unlikely that prison has anything to do with it because the same drop in crime is being seen across the developed world with countries that have wildly different incarceration policies.

Re:Prison population

[DocSavage64109]

They're probably the ones buying prisons for pennies on the dollar. Watch crime somehow go back up to previous levels right after the for-profit prison industry buys up all the government prisons.

Re:Prison population

[Anonymous Coward]

You joke, but all that get-tough-on-crime stuff in the 80's did have some beneficial effects--though whether it was worth the trade-off or not is up for debate.

Not only the value of the trade-off up for debate but also if "get-tough-on-crime" has anything to do with it.
I can't speak for Finland specifically, but in Sweden we have seen a steady decline in violent crimes without ever going tough on crime. Essentially there is no correlation between the two. Factors that can explain lack of violent crimes are the removal of lead in paint and gas or that young people to a greater extent stays in and plays violent computer games instead of being bored. (Correlation exists, but the real cause have not been proven.)

Let's see how Finland behaves when we ship over the 20% of our population of children living in poverty.

Of course poverty also is an important factor. Finlands social structure is very good at preventing crime by reducing poverty but considering that the part of your population that lives in poverty is several times larger that the entirety of Finlans population it doesn't seem viable to dump your problems on them.
Perhaps you could spend the tax money that goes into the prison system and use that on a welfare program to reduce poverty. Our experience is that it works very well as a preventive measure against crime and becomes cheaper in the long run.

Re:Prison population

[dywolf]

the drop in crime rate had more to do with the drop in the levels of lead in the everyday environment following its ban in everyday items like gasoline and paint, than with the "get tough" 80s.

Re:Prison population

[hoggoth]

I believe you, seeing attitudes like this: " "There's a prisoner shortage," says Mike Arismendez, "

Re:Prison population

[Applehu Akbar]

It's an election year. This is the occasion for prosecutors to lobby for jail construction bonds, at the same time as inventing new categories of prisoners to fill them. How many people are jailed for "paraphernalia," which means common items that might possibly be used in the drug trade. Failing that, we can always crank down the blood alcohol limit one more time until one beer with dinner out is enough to expose middle-class people to the prison system for the first time.

Re:Prison population

[Anonymous Coward]

Lead in pretrol. The rise in crime and the subsequent drop tracks the curve of the amount of lead released in the enviroment due to using TEL as a fuel additive almost perfectly. Children breatling in air with elevated levels lead are more likely to exhibit criminal behaviour as adults. This effect is especially strong for violent crime.

The problem was solved in Europe and North America around 1990, when lead-containing additives to petrol where almost eliminated. It just took a while before this affected crime statistics measurably.

Re:Prison population

[Anonymous Coward]

Then you must be the dimmest pupil in class, everybody knows Cold Fjord would never make such an admission; as he or she is a consummate professional.

Re:Prison population

[ebrandsberg]

I'm not sure you are aware, but crime rate has fallen across the world, even in countries that never went through a "get tough on crime". One plausible theory (I won't say it is correct, just possible) is that Lead poisoning in youth resulted in criminal tendencies later (http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2013/01/03/how-lead-caused-americas-violent-crime-epidemic/). Attributing to the incarceration the reduction in crime though is a pretty tough sell, in particular when you look at crime statistics of juvenile offenders who's father is incarcerated: http://www.scholarsstrategynetwork.org/sites/default/files/ssn_basic_facts_swisher_on_children_of_the_incarcerated.pdf.

Re:Prison population

[ZombieBraintrust]

It depends who you count. People in prison plus people on parole is at all time high. I read other stories and they state that prisons are still over capacity and the federal goverment is looking at buying some unused prisons from the states.

Re:Prison population

[AvitarX]

No, age demographics dictate it'll go down for a while, like graduating class sizes.

Though the shorter sentences thing is surely having an impact too.

Re:Prison population

[mu51c10rd]

I read on the internet that 92% of statistics are made up. Then again, I also ready that 84% of people are bad at math, whereas 28% are not.

Re:Prison population

[s.petry]

23.71% of those made up statistics are correct.

Re:Prison population

[AvitarX]

Ugh, that was "yes" not "no"...

Re:Prison population

[AvitarX]

Hah, I posted the opposite, that we're in a local minimum of 20-25 year olds.

One of us is using outdated info...

Re:Prison population

[NatasRevol]

As a kid growing up in the 1980's, man I had a perfect excuse!

Re:Prison population

[CanHasDIY]

Indeed, it sounds like "Oh no, economic crisis! Not enough prisoners! We need to do something to reverse this trend and get the prisoner counts growing again!"

If you read the prospectus for one of those for-profit jails, it basically says just that - we need more laws so we can incarcerate more people so our shareholders can turn a quick, tidy profit.

Re:Prison population

[Anonymous Coward]

There is always the gold mine of incarcerating kids in schools. A kid speaks up, draws a picture of a gun, or maybe isn't into football are good enough charges to have them arrested.

To boot, juvi, there are no set sentences. Kids "earn" their way out, or they sit in the clink until age 23 (was 18, but in California, the prison lobby bumped it to 23.)

Re:Prison population

[MatthiasF]

Mod parent up.

Obligatory link to Atlantic article exposing the link between leaded gasoline and crime rates.

http://www.theatlantic.com/nat...

Re:Prison population

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong. We do know why: It's because of the right of abortion. Do look it up. It's a huge impact, maybe the biggest, although of course not a single reason.

It's just that political correct people are unable to conceive that such individual empowerment can yield so realistic consequences.

Re:Prison population

[MatthiasF]

Mod parent up.

Obligatory link to Mother Jones article exposing the link between leaded gasoline and crime rates.

http://www.motherjones.com/env...

And yes, I grew up in the 80s so I blame the double post and bad link on leaded braincells.

Re:Prison population

[sconeu]

Easy way to solve the "prisoner shortage".

Put Congress, Wall Street Execs, and Hollywood execs into prison.

Re:Prison population

[joss]

Leaded petrol has a high correlation with crime rate too.

The nice thing about the abortion correlation theory is that it pissed off both the left and the right.

Saying that we should reduce the number of children born by unmarried mothers and this will bring the crime rates down is something that excites the right and pisses off politically correct lefties.

Saying that a good way of doing that is legalising abortion excites the left and pisses off the right

Re:Prison population

[Rhipf]

Or better yet, let's see how much faster the crime rate in the US falls if you implement proper universal health care and properly fund social programs like Finland. Oh. Wait. That's like communism and anti-capitalism so we have to fight that at all costs in the US (land of the free home of the brave and all that).

Re:Prison population

[Stuarticus]

Come on, the Star Wars prequels were bad but that's going a bit too far even for me.

Re:Prison population

[mlts]

The problem is that once in prison, always in prison. With NCIC records public of both arrest and convictions, even an arrest for PI in college can keep someone from getting meaningful employment.

I know at least a few companies who ask for -arrest- (not conviction) records. The people I asked said that someone can buy their way out of a conviction, but if the cop thinks they are guilty enough to pull out the cuffs, they are guilty.

Felonies are also ridiculously easy to get. In the '80s, if two people were caught racing in their cars, it would be a $111 fine. Now, here in Texas, that is a felony.

Of course, once a felony is on a record, a person is pretty much hosed for life. For insurance reasons, few employers other than call centers will hire felons. They are not part of the voting bloc. They are prey to other felons. They cannot get apartments for the most part. Any brushes with the law will almost certainly result in an arrest. In society, they are persona non grata; the untouchables. This pretty much means that without a solid family support structure, there is no future. Good luck moving to another country. Nobody will take US felons.

So, because there isn't any real way to make income, crime is always available... which usually means arrest and another, longer sentence. Great for private prison profit margins, but a cost center until the person dies... all paid for on the US taxpayers nickel.

Re:Prison population

[Stewie241]

Also, 65% of peple are bad at typng.

Re:Prison population

[kilodelta]

Here's a few theories. Better policing, the banning of ethyl lead in gasoline - take your choice.

Re:Prison population

[Stewie241]

Welfare does not reduce poverty structurally; it merely reduces the effects temporarily. If a government wants to really reduce poverty, it should invest in education and everything that fosters the creation of jobs in the long term.

You could say the same thing about the prison system.

On the other hand, (pure speculation), I wonder if temporarily reducing the effects of poverty can have a long term effect by increasing the ability of impoverished parents to help their children get a good education and reducing the need for parents to work two to three jobs to make ends meet using time that might be better spent being good influences on their children.

Re:Prison population

[invid]

There is a bump in this 2014 graph between 20 and 25 that is comparable to the baby boom.

Re:Prison population

[dave420]

You are assuming minorities are criminal because they're minorities, and not because of anything else. If you look past peoples' ethnicities, you'd notice that the poor are far more represented in prison populations than rich people, and US minorities are far more likely to be poor than white folks. Finland's low prison population has more to do with its better social protection and smaller wealth gap than the racial make-up of its populace.

So yes, the US has screwed over its poor people, and this is the consequence - more of them feel the need (whether rightly or wrongly) to break the law to get by.

The longer people like you scream "minorities! brown people! scum!" the longer these problems will go unfixed. Of course it's easy to just point the finger at some obvious visual difference (especially one that resonates with racists and other less thoughtful people, such as yourself) than it is to delve deeper and realise that some fundamental aspects of US society are responsible for this ridiculous crime level. Throw in the pathetic war on drugs and now you have a much better - but still incomplete - understanding of the reasons behind the US's embarrassing level of incarceration compared to first world countries.

You really haven't got the grip of the "correlation does not imply causation" thing, have you? Or is it just when brown people crop up that your logic goes out the window?

Re: Prison population

[Fwipp]

Because it's not about reducing kids born to unmarried mothers, it's about not forcing kids to be born to mothers that don't feel they can adequately provide for their children (or just plain don't want them).

It's about being born into poverty, not about whether the mom wears a ring.

Re:Prison population

[mlts]

I have a strange idea. If overcrowding is not a concern, why not have the jail construction bonds go through and have it go to the usual private contractors.

A jail or prison consists of a school, dorm, library, kitchen, cafeteria, chapel, gym, infirmary, and so on. Why not just call a facility corrections related (because it does help prevent crime), and build a multipurpose building? A school, perhaps. Maybe a public library? An indoor playground for an urban area? Keep the contracts, but build things that are useful to the populace and lump them in under "corrections".

Re:Prison population

[Paradise Pete]

I guess it's time to toss out conventional wisdom.

At least that's what conventional wisdom would tell you. But now I'm not so sure.

Re:Prison population

[allcoolnameswheretak]

They are too busy playing GTA on the XBOX.

Re:Prison population

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty sure no one ever served a jail sentence for "arresting someone for smoking weed".

Re:Prison population

[danlip]

That sounds like you are claiming that black and hispanic populations are fundamentally more criminal, regardless of all other factors.

Finland has lower crime because they have less poverty, and they have less poverty because of their policies, not some Finish magic. We could do the same thing, we just choose not to.

Also the drop in US crime could be due to any number of factors. It may have nothing at all to do with tough-on-crime policies. Lead pollution correlates well with crime rates (and yes, correlation is not causation, but it often indicates causation).

Re:Prison population

[jafac]

When a black-mark can remain on your record forever, there's huge consequences.

I know a guy who was an engineer, FPGA specialist. Has 4 patents. Worked for 15 years, and his company imploded. I tried to get him a job where I work, but because he had a dishonorable discharge from the navy, no dice. (apparently, when he was 19, before he went to college, he failed to return from shore-leave for 24-hours, because he went on a bender, passed-out, and was basically kept incognito by a bunch of "bad people" with whom he had been drinking. Got in trouble for that, and it resulted in the dishonorable.) Bad judgement, for sure, but it was a small mistake. He went on to college, and go in at his first job through a professor. But now he's been unemployed basically since 2004.

Re:Prison population

[The Ickle Jones]

You know, that might actually be a good thing to criminalize...

Re:Prison population

[Khashishi]

Is crime dropping because of "tough on crime" or is it dropping because we phased out leaded gasoline?

Re: Prison population

[The Ickle Jones]

Well, religious nutters would have you believe that marriage is magic. All these problems are actually caused by the lack of true marriages.

Re:Prison population

[ShanghaiBill]

Or could that be due to other factors?

Indeed. Crime rates fell in states that implemented harsh prison sentences, but it also fell in states that did not. It fell slightly more in the "lock-em-up" states, but not near enough to justify the costs.

Other factors:
1. Reduction of environmental lead. This is more strongly correlated with falling crime than any other factor.
2. Abortion. The case for this was laid out well in Freakonomics.
3. Better security, and less stuff to steal. Today, cameras are everywhere, alarm systems are much more common, and most people don't have as much to steal. People carry credit cards instead of cash, modern electronics has very little resale value, and nobody uses real silver silverware anymore.
4. Video games. Young men in their prime crime years spend billions of hours playing video games, leaving far less time on the street getting in trouble.

Re:Prison population

[sconeu]

I was referring to their blatant purchase of Congress.

But your comment WAS funny as all hell.

Re:Prison population

[Insanity Defense]

So it's Leaded Gasoline's fault that I download pirated movies? That's a relief.

No. It is the fault of leaded gasoline that your parents named you Anonymous Coward.

Re: Prison population

[Anonymous Coward]

You can ridicule it all you want. But even after you take out all the other socioeconomic variables, married folks have kids who outperform their peers in school, contribute more to society, have less medical issues including ADHD and are far less likely to end up in jail.

Call it whatever you like, but all the evidence points to marriage as the cure for a lot of societal ills.

Re:Prison population

[jopsen]

Am I the only one who thought the prison population was at an all time high?

Don't worry it's still troubling high... You still have more people incarcerated than various not-so-popular dictators have had...
So don't worry, America is still evil, he he :)

On-topic, it's a shame the falling prison population isn't the headline... But instead the headline is empty prisons for sale...

Re:Prison population

[UnknownSoldier]

> A jail or prison consists of a school, dorm, library, ...

Some would say school is a jail of individual, creative thought. (A Mathematician's Lament by Paul Lockhart)

It was was probably inspired by Cargo Cult Science by Feynman.

Re: Prison population

[The Ickle Jones]

Call it whatever you like, but all the evidence points to marriage as the cure for a lot of societal ills.

Perhaps people who better take care of their kids tend to get married for whatever reason. Marriage is just a title, so there is no logical reason that would have anything to do with it. Correlation != causation, even if I believe your soft science studies.

Re:Prison population

[schlachter]

I read that in until the late 1800's in the USA, people didn't go to prison to serve time. They went there to await their trail and if found guilty, to await their punishment, such as hard labor or hanging. Jail time itself was not the punishment until the Eastern State Penitentiary was founded in the late 1800's with the Puritan notion of rehabilitation through time spent in isolation and introspection.

Re:Prison population

[Talderas]

It's 18% who are good at math you dolt! 2+8 to zero out the ones place then 9+1 to get it to 100%

Re: Prison population

[schlachter]

I was with you until the last sentence on poverty. That's a small subset of the wider net you cast.

Re:Prison population

[lgw]

Insightful list, but you forgot 5. "Crack cocaine". That's a huge factor. The death toll from that drug was vast, much of the peak in crime was due to it, and many people who were otherwise using criminal activities to make ends meet were killed by it. I saw a lot of that first-hand in the 80s, when I delivered pizza for a living. Pizza drivers were a good target for supporting one's drug habit in the early stages.

Re:Prison population

[davester666]

Don't forget actually giving kids real monetary fines that their parents have to pay...

Re:Prison population

[pr0fessor]

In Kansas battery is a misdemeanor, threaten to kick someone's a$$ after they punch you in the face and your friends are holding you so you can't hit him back is felony criminal threat. That law was created with things like bomb threats and terrorists in mind but has been twisted to be used in other ways.

Re:Prison population

[LduN]

it's because instead of throwing you in jail, they just take all your cash, pepperspray and beat you, then they send you on your merry way to the ER with multiple compound fractures.

Re: Prison population

[Fwipp]

Yeah, I probably simplified too much there. Honestly, I almost posted anon; I didn't think it was a particularly good comment of mine.

Re: Prison population

[ShanghaiBill]

Heroin deaths per capita today are twice what they were at the height of the heroin "epidemic" in the 70s.

"Per-capita use" is a poor way to estimate the crime generated by a drug. You also have to consider the price of the drug, and today heroin is very cheap. So junkies don't have to commit many crimes to support their habit. The reason for the drop in heroin prices was the US invasion of Afghanistan, which ended the Taliban's efforts to suppress production of the drug, which they considered un-Islamic.

Re:Prison population

[jratcliffe]

84.222% of made up statistics have excessive numbers of significant figures.

Re:Prison population

[s.petry]

I ran some numbers and you are 98.43215% correct.

Re:Prison population

[Noah Haders]

you know, I'm not convinced by this theory? I've seen a number of cool charts that plot lead pollution against crime, but you could make cool charts about anything if you could pick your subset adequately. it's like the anti vaxxer stuff.

Re:Prison population

[Noah Haders]

The USAian blacks / whites / rich / poor / Spanish / jews / muslims should be working together to shove a big giant dick into China and Russia

i've never read a more compelling call for racial harmony. MLK, you've been served.

Re:Prison population

[mjm1231]

Because "white" isn't an ethnicity, it's the lack of one. You are probably confused because you think color = race.

Re: Prison population

[Ixpath]

The nice thing about Steven Levitt's abortion theory is that it was actually something a lot of people wanted to hear. It didn't matter that his results turned out to be an artifact of an excel spreadsheet error, his career was already made. The whole episode actually convinced me not to go to grad school for econ as it proved correctness was less important than being a well connected undergrad at an ivy league school saying things rich people want to hear.

Re:Prison population

[Rich0]

Makes you wonder if you'll start to see bubbles of high crime around airports with a high level of general aviation (which tends to use fuels with a very high concentration of lead compared to what was used in cars - ironically called "low lead" aviation gas).

Of course, there could be other factors. Such areas may have lower land values, and that could be a factor that impacts crime rates more strongly.

Re:Prison population

[pnutjam]

Let's see if Finland is so liberal on crime when we up their black and hispanic populations to 30% (like in the U.S.)
Rasicst much...?

I would propose we gut the funding for Finlands schools, shunt any higher income kids with some of the exceptionally smart to excellent schools and let the rest fall into disrepair. We should also lock up a significant number of fathers and some mothers so kids can be raised by single parents or foster care. Finally, we should saddle youth with significant debts that make it difficult for them to progress their lives up the financial ladder. Maybe charging them for education and healthcare would do the trick.

We could also consider adding a back door system of bribery to their political system to allow wealthy people to make their own laws and regulations, or at least polarize people and win over most of the stupids to some sort of self defeating political movement.

Re:Prison population

[Ichijo]

e

Felonies are also ridiculously easy to get. In the '80s, if two people were caught racing in their cars, it would be a $111 fine. Now, here in Texas, that is a felony.

Rather than a prison sentence followed by automatic eligibility to be re-licensed to be a hazard on the streets again, I think a far more appropriate punishment would be to permanently revoke the person's license until he or she can prove, through a battery of physical and psychological tests, that he or she is no longer a hazard on the road. (This is what they do in Germany.)

But in the USA, for some reason it seems to be considered more humane to make someone a felon and lock them away than to ban them from driving.

Great for private prison profit margins... all paid for on the US taxpayers nickel.

This is why the goals of prisons need to be aligned better with the goals of society. Instead of putting someone away for x years, if private prisons bid against each other on a fixed price to rehabilitate each prisoner, coupled with penalties each time a released prisoner re-offends, private prisons would do their best to rehabilitate each prisoner as quickly, completely, and inexpensively as possible. Isn't this what we all really want?

Re:Prison population

[a_nonamiss]

I think the odds of this statement being true are approximately 3720-to-1.

Re:Prison population

[a_nonamiss]

The spike in crime directly correlates with abortion. It also correlates with the rise and fall of vinyl records. Clearly vinyl records contributed to high crime rates.

Re:Prison population

[mu51c10rd]

And 26% of people will immediately post correcting them.

Re:Prison population

[TapeCutter]

Lead pollution and abortion may well have some influence, however the reason the US has more prisoners that any other nation is its absurd practice of locking up people for possessing a banned substances. You guys have the highest incarceration rate in the world, higher than oppressive hell holes like Sudan or Saudi Arabia and 7X that of China. In fact in raw numbers the US has almost as many drug war prisoners as the EU has prisoners for ALL crimes.

It a good thing to see the US is finally starting to moderate that socially destructive policy, I hope the numbers continue to drop.

Re:Prison population

[hey!]

Check out this graph.

The nuimbers of prisoners has not declined significantly since 2009. This doesn't mean the bubble hasn't burst, the nature of the bubble resists bursting. People can leave the housing market, but prisoners can't leave the prison market.

Still, anyone who invested big-time in prisons back in 2008 or so on the basis of 30 years of exponential prison population growth was just stupid. We were approaching 1% of the Amercian population incarcerated, how much higher did they expect that to go?

I have no sympathy with a town that bet its financial future on prisons while its schools rate minimally acceptable.

Re:Prison population

[TapeCutter]

Depends what you mean by "welfare", many people on the right of US politics would argue that spending tax money on health and education is welfare. Good governments don't create jobs they create new markets and opportunities via regulation. A wise government equips their people with the tools to recognise and exploit those opportunities in a way that benefits society as a whole.

Re: Prison population

[Zynder]

Did you know that Scotland's wool industry is also suffering in this horrible economy? It seems the #1 purchaser of wool, the kilt industry, has had a terrible drop in sales because they are having a difficult time finding men, TRUE Scotsmen, that want to wear their kilts! Crazy I know!

Re:Prison population

[riverat1]

... It's all well-and-good for Finland to look down on us for it, but Finland doesn't have to deal with a MUCH larger minority and impoverished population who are way more prone to crime than your average European suburbanite. Let's see how Finland behaves when we ship over the 20% of our population of children living in poverty. Let's see if Finland is so liberal on crime when we up their black and hispanic populations to 30% (like in the U.S.) of their total population instead of the 0.5% it currently is.

Or we could do like Finland does and make sure none of our citizens live in such abject poverty that a life of crime appears attractive. We could make sure that children's brains aren't stunted by growing up without enough food to eat or with poor nutrition. The Finns care far more about social welfare than we do in the US.

Re:Prison population

[Zynder]

You forgot to click the "Post Anonymously" check box before you hit Submit. It's easy to do.

Re:Prison population

[doccus]

Well, that's it seems like witrh overcrowding in the ones being still used. That's so the neocons can point to it and say crime is at an all time high, as well. I bet there isn't a single US conservative that knows, or even believes , if you showed them the figures, that crime has dropped significantly.

Re:Prison population

[doccus]

"Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses? If they'd rather die than go to those places then let them and decrease the surplus population" (par). When these words were first written it was to demonstrate the most evil example of humanity. Never in Dicken's wildest imagination could he heave anticipated this would become UN official policy (aka agenda 21)

Re:Prison population

[Reziac]

I note an amazing correlation between the rise in prison population and the 'war on drugs'. I wonder what the graph would look like minus all drug-related sentences.

About half the prisons in California, land of three strikes and tough-on-crime, are private for-profit entities. Draw your own conclusions.

Re: Prison population

[schlachter]

Haha. Let it be known hence forth that Fwipp, poster of Slashdot comments, has posted a comment that was not complete in its message.

I like how you still want to post the lesser comments, but just not take credit for them! :P

Re:Prison population

[cornelius1729]

See also the Donahue-Levitt hypotheses that legalized abortion reduces the number of ne'er-do-wells and hence the amount of violent crime. http://pricetheory.uchicago.ed...

Re:Prison population

[beastofburdon]

Sadly, I suspect you are right.

Re:Prison population

[beastofburdon]

I would like to see a study done on this idea. I for nothing else, than to shove it in the face of the assholes who are always claiming that video games make people violent.

Re:Prison population

[romons]

Yep, I also thought this. Strange how a few years of inattentiveness can affect your world.

Won't anyone think of the corporations?

[Overzeetop]

Sure it's good to have fewer people behind bars...if you happen to be people. But corporations run many jails now, and depend on your tax dollars to simply put food on the table for their corporate families. If there are no inmates, who will make money feeding them $0.86 meals, or use 19th century methods of medical care to maximize profits, or make payments on their newly built facilities? It's still a young industry. Won't you think of the corporate children?

I say it's time we stand up and put more people behind bars. For you. For Me. For the corporations. Because when corporations suffer, we all feel the hurt.*

*not really, but it seems like a good slogan

Re:Won't anyone think of the corporations?

[zidium]

Sorry, but that's just too over the top for me.

Mod up if you get it ;-)

Re:Won't anyone think of the corporations?

[JackieBrown]

Part of capitalism is letting businesses fail as well as succeed.

This is part of the circle along with all the unemployment that this will bring (based on my anecdotal experiences, guards will have a harder time trying to be rehabilitated to work well with people and "customers" - particularly the kind of customer that can report them without having to risk getting beaten to a pulp for being a snitch.)

Re:Won't anyone think of the corporations?

[SYSS Mouse]

should i make up a reason and make you an example one of them?

Re:Won't anyone think of the corporations?

[cellocgw]

So what you're really saying is "Criminals are the job creators" ? :-) :-)

Re:Won't anyone think of the corporations?

[skovnymfe]

I guess crime really doesn't pay after all. Unless you're already rich.

Re:Won't anyone think of the corporations?

[Nemyst]

Part of capitalism is letting businesses fail as well as succeed.

Yeah, like banks and car manufacturers. Wait, did I get that wrong somehow?

Re:Won't anyone think of the corporations?

[NatasRevol]

Your lack of humor is a good enough example.

Re:Won't anyone think of the corporations?

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

I saw a quote on Ars:

I'll believe that corporations are people once we have one assassinated by a Predator drone.

a variation on the:

I'll believe that corporations are people once we see one poorly tried and executed in Texas.

Re:Won't anyone think of the corporations?

[Jaysyn]

My favorite variation is: "I'll believe corporations are people when one comes home from Afghanistan in a body bag."

Re:Won't anyone think of the corporations?

[some old guy]

Shoes for industry!

Re:Won't anyone think of the corporations?

[Tablizer]

guards will have a harder time trying to be rehabilitated to work well with people and "customers"

Or, become a Linux admin :-)

Re:Won't anyone think of the corporations?

[captjc]

They can just get into the education sector. You already have a captive clientele, School nurses are even cheaper than prison doctors, and cheap meals are still cheap meals. Plus you have ample facilities for punishment and detention, A yard for "recess," and if you don't want to deal with public schooling, plenty of room for boarding students as a private school.

Schools are practically part-time prisons as it is, might as well go that extra few steps and use actual former prisons.

I am joking, but sadly that case could easily be made.

Re:Won't anyone think of the corporations?

[Zynder]

It sure does! Prisoners who do hard labor do get paid for it. It's basically scrip and certainly below minimum wage, but to quote C&C:Red Alert "At least I have job!"

Re:Won't anyone think of the corporations?

[Zynder]

Those minority-woman-owned businesses better get outta Texas FAST!

Re:Won't anyone think of the corporations?

[Zynder]

You mean joking about the school-is-prison thing right? Cause your other idea of repurposing empty prisons sounds fine to me!

Three laws a day

[rfengr]

Doesn't a person break, on average, about 3 laws a day, mostly federal? Time to fill them back up! I'm sure the prison-industrial complex can lobby for that.

Re:Three laws a day

[Tanuki64]

Not necessary. First I would put more women in prison. The ratio imprisoned man/woman should at least be 50:50. You know, gender equality and such.

Re:Three laws a day

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly this is because of the misogynistic focus in popular culture.
It is natural that the many TV-shows and movies that glorifies males in prison have led to this situation.

To solve this injustice it must become mandatory that every channel does at least one re-run of "Prisoner: Cell Block H" every year.

Re:Three laws a day

[Kokuyo]

Now that is the kind of forward thinking we need!

Re:Three laws a day

[Anonymous Coward]

Not just three laws, but 3 felonies a day

And the obligatory quote:

The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.

Plus the people who deserve it aren't locked up

[Anonymous Coward]

...and they'd demand swimming pools and a wine cellar.

Yikes!

[MagickalMyst]

Considering that the American prison system is now privatized this is quite scary, because "Prison, Inc." makes money by incarcerating people. If there is a shortage of prisoners...

Well, you do the math.

Re:Yikes!

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Kids for Cash 2: Welcome to the Adult World?

No Brainer

[invid]

Zombie Apocalypse Shelters.

Re:No Brainer

[pr0nbot]

"No Brainer" was a nice touch for a zombie suggestion :)

Re:No Brainer

[Translation Error]

Abandoned, run down prisons with lots of cells and spaces that can be repurposed? Sounds more like places to create a zombie apocalypse.

Re:No Brainer

[NatasRevol]

Sounds more like a cheap way to make your own castle.

Re:No Brainer

[penguinoid]

Hotels! You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave...

Re:No Brainer

[Herkum01]

I would say Walking Dead spin-offs galore!

Re:No Brainer

[Zynder]

That would, sadly, only be effective in California.

Call Italy!

[aglider]

We are having the opposite problem: too many people in too few prisons.

Re:Call Italy!

[istartedi]

If they know how to cook, send 'em on over. Turn US prisons into authentic Italian restaurants with resident staff. Non-violent offenders only of course. I don't want to find a finger in my linguine.

Re:Call Italy!

[Zynder]

You didn't find a finger in your linguine, capisce?

Data centers?

[swb]

Since everything from office buildings to warehouses to shopping malls have been converted to data centers, why not prisons? They already offer a ton of security and the cells would be kind of perfect for those customers that buy those little fenced off spaces of multiple racks. The water lines for the sinks might be repurposable for some knd of cooling loop.

The other conversion option is a secure place for containing Ebola, or perhaps as safe havens FROM Ebola..

Re:Data centers?

[CastrTroy]

Probably need to do too much work to make them wired and well ventilated. As far as I'm aware, there isn't much electricity in jail cells, maybe enough for a few lights, but nowhere near enough for racks full of servers. And ventilation is pretty sparse. If the roofs were high enough, I guess you could retrofit them with raised floors and put all that stuff in. You have to be careful who you sell it to though, it might end up in the wrong hands.

Re:Data centers?

[jabuzz]

Just use chilled doors on the racks have lower air con costs anyway and not have all that issue with trying to blow air around efficiently. Basically hot air exhausts through the back of the servers and immediately hits a gigantic radiator which has chilled water flowing through it and out the back of the rack comes cool air. Works a treat.

Re:Data centers?

[ripvlan]

Yes, Thank you!!

I was looking for the /. angle - being all techie and what not. That was going to be my post today but you beat me to it.

Secure data centers. Lock'em up and throw away the key.

Re:Data centers?

[drinkypoo]

If you used raised floors then you would have the problem that the cell doors don't match up with the floors. So you're going to have to run all that stuff along the ceiling on cable ladders. And it's going to have to run through the hallways because going through the walls will be a PITA. Finally, prisons are typically not located next to communications facilities or to office buildings, so they're not really optimal locations for data centers anyway.

Re:Data centers?

[normaldotcom]

The city I work in (Jackson, MI) has an old prison that was converted to apartments. The accommodations are actually quite nice, although some windows still have bars on the outside.

http://wmuk.org/post/old-priso...

Re:Data centers?

[CastrTroy]

Datacenters are mostly remotely managed now anyway. You have a few people working there to make sure it's secure and to switch out a hard drive if you need to, but there's really no reason for a datacenter to be located where most of your employees are, unless you are doing research and development and are constantly adding and removing machines and changing the hardware configuration. Servers can even be completely powered down and powered back up over the network.

Re:Data centers?

[dyslexicbunny]

Why couldn't we use them as temporary apartments for the homeless? All the infrastructure is there to meet their needs, just replace the cell bars with a wall/door to add privacy. They now have an address in applying for employment. Showers, laundry, and dining facilities. Common areas could help with job training and education. The medical wing could make efforts to help diagnose mental illness and help people with addiction.

The only thing this requires is effort.

Re:Data centers?

[cbhacking]

Effort... and money. Never forget the importance of the almighty buck. There's been a little bit of progress in this area - some cities have finally realized that it costs society less to provide for the people on the very bottom than it does to leave them without any (legal) means of support - but by and large if you suggest something like this then all too many people (you know who you are) will scream "HANDOUTS! WELFARE QUEENS!" even though their *own* standard of living will increase if those people are taken care of.

Honestly, it's not that hard to figure out: when every day is a struggle just to survive and you can't provide a phone number or address, getting a real job is nearly impossible. That's assuming that, by some minor miracle, you are healthy enough, educated enough, and have enough free time to job hunt. The cost of basic education, shelter, and healthcare for those people is *way* less than the benefits gained by giving them the opportunity to be productive members of society instead of a perpetual drain on public resources.

This particular idea, of having these former prisons serve as temporary housing and support for the homeless, has another benefit: those who want to employ unskilled labor for something longer than a summer job have somewhere to go and somebody central to talk to. Provide employers with a chance to find employees that have some stability in their living situation, and I bet a lot of them would take it.

Re:Data centers?

[bluegutang]

Because many prisons are in the middle of nowhere, without public transportation or access to jobs? That's an obstacle.

great news.

[Connie_Lingus]

as a "casualty" of the US's insane and poorly thought out War on Drugs...I find this news wonderful.

the idea that people like me, whom got caught up in the drug game due to low self-esteem, need to goto state prisons and waste away with child-rapists, murderers, and "lifers" is not only totally ridiculous, but utterly dangerous.

i spent 22.5 months in Florida prison's, all because I got caught with some MDMA and weed at a rave in Orlando, FL in 2001.

i am basically serving a life-sentence for this crime, as corporate BG checks prevents me for getting hired.

hopefully, now others won't be subjected to the things I've been through.

Re:great news.

[JaredOfEuropa]

I've wondered about that: to what extent should a criminal past continue to haunt you, or in other words: should prospective employers (or even the public) have the right to look into your background? If an employer happens to know that you did something wrong in the past, I think they ought to be free to not hire you, but that's not the same as making such information freely available to employers.

Here in the Netherlands, employers can't directly check your criminal records (they are not even allowed to ask in job interviews), but they can request that you submit a so-called "statement of conduct" (in some professions like child care, having such a statement is mandatory by law). Such statements are issued by the police on request, and the nice thing about them is that it doesn't detail your criminal past, but instead answers a specific question about the job or license you are applying for: "does anything in this person's record indicate that they shouldn't get a job in a day care center / get a gun license / hold a job with a lot of financial responsibilities?" So a child molester is not barred from a job as CFO, an embezzler can still get a gun license, and a burglar can work in day care, because the statement of conduct in each of these cases will come back as "no objection". To me this seems like a much more reasonable balance between the rights of employers wanting to know whom they are dealing with, and those of criminals who have served their time.

Even better of course would be for the US to drop the stupid "war on drugs". Interestingly, it looks like the USA is now leading on legalizing soft drugs, whereas the Netherlands (known for its liberal attitude towards drugs) is actually cracking down. (remember: soft drugs were never legal here, merely tolerated).

Re:great news.

[LWATCDR]

In the US criminal records are public records the exception is for juveniles. Once you are an adult you are expected to follow rules.
What I do not get is this statement. "i spent 22.5 months in Florida prison's, all because I got caught with some MDMA and weed at a rave in Orlando, FL in 2001."
If it was that guys first conviction and he did not have "a lot" of MDMA and weed aka amounts that make it look like you are dealing. Up to 20 grams is only a misdemeanor. MDMA is another story but unless he refused a plea deal or resisted arrest he should not have gotten anything but some community service and probation.

Re:great news.

[misexistentialist]

Worst of both worlds, government can blacklist you from employment without having to give a reason, employers unable to screen out deadbeats.

Re:great news.

[Afty0r]

Wow that's pretty harsh. Do you mind if I ask (as a non-USian) what amounts you had on you? Such drugs are illegal where I live, but being caught with small amounts usually results in a minor punishment, and no "record for life".

Re:great news.

[Code Herder]

I agree with you, in Canada it's basically the same. We're not allowed to do background checks unless it's a job require like daycare, higher level accounting positions, etc. For example if I hire an engineer, QA guy or sound artist it would be right along there with asking a women if she intends to be pregnant soon ( which hilariously enough I understand is legal in many states ).

Re:great news.

[adam525]

Actually, a lot of people don't get what they "should get" when dealing with the courts. If he didn't have legal counsel (that he paid for) I could see him doing a couple of years on a first time drug charge. I went to school with a guy that got sentenced to a LONG time in federal prison for selling cocaine. He got out "early" after spending about 5 years behind bars.

If you ever have the misfortune of getting mixed up in the system, good luck to you. Maybe you have been in trouble and have gotten lucky. I went to court on two VERY ridiculous charges. I paid for a lawyer. He kept putting the case off until the DA finally agreed to drop the charges. It all depends on what mood you catch them in. It was proven to me when my charges were dropped. My lawyer didn't tell me what he was doing, but I figured it out. I wound up showing up to court about 6 or 7 times on the same charge. The first several times, the DA didn't agree to drop the charges. Finally, one random day, he said "OK" and the charges were dropped. Before that he had offered something dumb like community service. My lawyer just kept saying "I wouldn't take it". So I kept going back to court and one day the DA just agreed to drop the charges. The first charge cost me $250.00. The second one cost me $1500.00.

If I would have walked in there with a public defender, I would have gotten (probably) 80 hours of community service and a charge on my record that would have kept me from EVER getting a decent job. I have a family. My son is GOING TO EAT whether I get his food through legitimate means or not. If that would have been put on my record, I would probably be in prison or headed there today for some BS charge (and it was BS, trust me on that) that I shouldn't have been charged with in the first place.

Some people deserve to be in jail for the things they do. A lot of people are sitting in prison right now who don't deserve to be there by a long stretch.

Re:great news.

[JaredOfEuropa]

The declaration is issued to you, not directly to your employer. If they give a negative recommendation, there are procedures for appeal and they will have to give a valid reason there, i.e. an actual criminal record that is relevant to the job or permit you are after. So no, they cannot blacklist you for no reason.

Re:great news.

[Anonymous Coward]

There is exactly one truly valid question for an employer to ask pertaining to any form of judicial sentence: "Are you currently under any kind of non-financial judicial sentence as a result of a criminal conviction that remains fully or partially unserved? Yes [_] No [_]"

That allows employers to screen out people that are potentially going to interrupt their employment with a prison or house-arrest sentence, but does not penalize any former criminals for their history after they've "paid their debt to society". Those with a simple financial sentence (restitution, reparations, etc.) would not have to declare this, as the employment would not be interrupted by serving that sentence.

This should be employment equality law, along with preventing employers from considering an individual's criminal background when hiring their employees. This should also be accompanied by legal indemnity for employers from any employees that break the law in a way that does not involve the company directly.

The only exceptions to this should be for employment that requires a clean criminal history. The obvious example here is Law Enforcement Officer. Other, less obvious examples are for crimes against former employers. If someone is convicted of embezzlement, then an employer should be able to weigh that in their decision to hire or not hire that person as an accountant. But if the guy is trying to get employment as a marketing manager, that criminal history would be off-limits to the employer.

Re:great news.

[NatasRevol]

2001 & South Florida.

The height of the war on drugs, prosecutors trying to get re-election by increased statistics.

Re:great news.

[Anonymous Coward]

Plea deals being orders of magnitude smaller than what you'd risk in a real trial is another thing that amazes foreigners. It seems like the courts are saying they are eating such enormous amounts of money and time that an inadequate sentence is better than this expense. Or that fair trials is just an afterthought that comes once they're done with their budget.

Re:great news.

[LWATCDR]

Orlando is not in south Florida it is in central Florida.

Re:great news.

[LWATCDR]

It is simple.
If you know you are guilty they will offer you a chance to take a deal, save the courts a lot of time and effort, and rewards the guilty party for choosing to be honest. Yes it is honest for a reward but still being honest.
If you are caught and you know that you are actually guilty of breaking the law but try to get out of it they will make you an example.

Re:great news.

[queazocotal]

Plea bargains are a great idea.
If the false conviction rate is zero.

Re:great news.

[TJ_Phazerhacki]

I'm sorry for your situation, but corporate BG checks are pretty much a joke after 10 years.As long as you aren't applying for jobs that have an application-form process, unless you were convicted of fraud or something involving theft, it won't even be a blip during the interview process. While there are very specific jobs you are disqualified from holding (you can't be Bonded, and you can't carry a Gun) it won't even come to light until they've already decided if they want to hire you.

Re:great news.

[Shados]

Just be a software engineer in one of the tech hubs. Problem -> solved.

Its still going to sting, because SOME companies have automatic policies, but I used to work with a guy who, we eventually found out (there was no BG check at that company) was a convicted felon, and if you googled his name, the FIRST thing that came up was a picture of his mug shot and a lot of details on what he did (it was pretty bad).

He eventually got fired (for completely unrelated reasons...ie: he was terrible), and got a job 2 weeks later FOR A BANK (again as a software engineer). He's still there as far as I can tell.

Companies in the booming tech areas are desperate.

Re:great news.

[EmperorArthur]

Under US Federal law it doesn't matter. If parent had any amount of drugs it's a felony, and in many areas comes with a mandatory minimum sentence. If parent has over an arbitrary amount of a drug then it's considered "possession with intent to distribute," which is a felony that can result in jail times longer than if parent had killed someone

Also, statistically, if someone arrested is not white then expect a harsher sentence in the US.

Re:great news.

[rock_climbing_guy]

Care to tell us how you make a living then? I'm just curious. I do consulting, and I was surprised to find that corporate customers demand BG checks even for short-term consultants who aren't even on the payroll.

Did you eventually find a potential employer who didn't check? I know of at least one in my area. If not, how do you make a living then. Just curious.

Re:great news.

[cbhacking]

My approach would be more along the lines of "convictions only stay on your record for a limited time". This solves the "basically serving a life sentence" problem that is so common in the US. Say you get arrested on a minor charge, convicted to spend three months in prison... and upon release if you go a year without any further convictions, your record is considered clean and you can legally claim you were never convicted at all. There might be some *specific* scenarios where the probationary term would need to be effectively your whole life, or where some things would always be present in your background (child molester trying to get a daycare job even forty years later, for example), but otherwise have the crimes simply disappear from your public record.

With that said, the system in the Netherlands does sound quite reasonable, and I'm not sure there's any need to reinvent the wheel. My approach is based more on the idea of demonstrating rehabilitation (the 1-year period in the example would probably vary depending on the sentence and possibly also on prison behavior, much as how the time behind bars itself is variable) than on strictly categorizing offenses, but either way is a lot better than what the US has right now.

Re:great news.

[sound vision]

I'm not sure what the state laws in Florida are like regarding marijuana, but the relevant federal law (which anyone can be charged under) is the Controlled Substances Act. Under this act, marijuana is classified as a Schedule I substance, and possession of any amount is a felony punishable by much more than 22 months. By contrast, drugs like opium, PCP, methamphetamine, and cocaine are in the less-restrictive Schedule II.
Additionally, police are allowed to inflate the weight of seized drugs by adding in the weight of the container and anything else that may happen to be in it. For example, if 5 grams of weed were being carried in a container along with some lighters, rolling papers, and a metal herb grinder totaling 100 grams, that can be charged as possession of 100 grams of the drug. This is actually a common practice, and its legality was upheld by a federal court of appeals in the 90s.
Indeed, there are more than a few examples of people who are currently serving life sentences for first-time non-violent weed-only offenses, never mind 22 months. Some of these cases are detailed at http://lifeforpot.org/ .

Great News

[rmdingler]

Perhaps some of them could be repurposed as emergency management shelters.

Hurricanes, flooding, and the occasional viral outbreak would be much easier to weather if some known infrastructure was already in place.

Well, that's good news!

[Anonymous Coward]

Congrats, USA!

After many a harsh critique of many things coming over the pond (TTIP, I'm looking at you) -- this is a chance to a warm and heartfelt: "well done -- continue on that path!".

Status quo ante can be restored easily.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

The main reason for the drop in prison population is because so many criminals in Wall Street went scot free after the 2009 crisis. Just make up the short fall in prison population by jailing the top people of large financial firms. They have long ago gone from "too big to fail" and "too big to jail" to "too big to be free".

Ahem.

[Anonymous Coward]

I notice that the author couldn't resist putting some spin on the story - the part about relaxed drug enforcement.
However -
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/table-1

The government tells us that ALL crime is down. For example, from 2001-2011, the violent crime rate went down 21.9%.
Everything dropped - property crimes, rape, the whole lot.

Re:Ahem.

[haruchai]

Look at that table again - the most significant declines for most categories of crime was between 1992 and 2001. It even more dramatic when you consider the growth in population.
So the cops have to explain why they're now equipped like they're tank battalions.

Re:Ahem.

[cdrudge]

Obviously the reason why crime is down is because they are equipped like tank battalions. We must equip them with more in order to keep lowering the crime rates. You don't want to see crime rates increase, do you? And if rates do happen to go up, obviously we didn't equip them well enough so they deserve EVEN MORE!

Re:Ahem.

[drinkypoo]

I notice that the author couldn't resist putting some spin on the story - the part about relaxed drug enforcement.

We know from studying history (e.g. prohibition of alcohol) that making drugs illegal leads to increases in many types of crime, both violent and not. I'm not saying it's the only factor, but why should we be surprised to see less drug law enforcement lead to less crime? Indeed, that is the expected result, again, unless you ignore history

Re:Ahem.

[jopsen]

Agree... The cops needs predator drones to terminate long highway car chases... We'll all me much safer :)

Re:Ahem.

[Zynder]

And so many actually believe that :(

Re:Obvious solution

[ooshna]

You'd need a lot more prisons

IP

[Thanshin]

They are just making space.

When someone said "everybody is infringing IP several times per day", most people took it as meaning "IP laws are wrong".

When the MPAA and RIAA reacheed the same conclusion, they understood that if everybody was infringing IP, the only solution was to put everybody in jail.

Prisons are now in your hand

[gatkinso]

Sold by Apple and Samsung.

Who cares where the body is if they have captured the mind?

States from Michigan to New Jersey

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that geographical or alphabetical?

Ha!

[sycodon]

A place to keep everyone infected with Ebola. :-)

Re:Ha!

[228e2]

Whats the total now, 2? -_-

What America does best: Outsourcing

[DickBreath]

Can't we just outsource prisons?

Send poor people to serve time in some third world hell hole. Send rich people to serve time in some vacation paradise.

AHA! Now I understand!

[sribe]

I was having a hard time figuring out why the Republican candidate for Colorado governor was promising to roll back marijuana legalization. I mean why would a politician go against a law that got 55% approval on the ballot?

(Note. The above is sarcasm. He's not such a cheap sell-out. He's just an ass-backward troglodyte throwback.)

Re:AHA! Now I understand!

[bluefoxlucid]

I was trying to figure out why Eric Holder is mentioned. I assume because it's true; but I must question, because Eric Holder promised to resign so that he may be remembered as an AG who championed rights and undid Government corruption, which drew a raucous of laughter from the crowd as they cried out in exuberant hysteria that he will be remembered as the most racist, corrupt, party-line-pandering Attorney General in America's documented history. I am, understandably, on the lookout for propaganda, especially the propaganda of truth to distract from other, more damning truth.

Prison

[ledow]

Sounds like returning to the norm, from a foreigner's perspective.

"The incarceration rate in the United States of America is the highest in the world."

Something like EIGHT TIMES what it is in Europe, from what this page says:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U...

Land of the free, indeed...

Re:Prison

[bluefoxlucid]

You are free to work in the salt mines of Arizona for the next 40 years...? Seems just compensation for a 23-year-old caught by a 17-year-old girl behind a tree; she did see his penis, after all.

Re:Prison

[SEE]

But incarceration rate per population doesn't tell you if the population is being over-incarcerated unless you know the crimes-worthy-of-incarceration rate. If America's rate of crime-worthy-of-incarceration is several times the European, then it's perfectly natural the US has a several-times-higher incarceration rate.

Now, there are all sorts of difficulties in calculating such a rate. But it doesn't seem too unreasonable to guess that, however it's calculated, the general rate of crime-worthy-of-incarceration would correlate with the homicide rate. So, let's use the homicide rate as a normalizer. How many incarcerated persons does a country have per annual intentional homicide? Using the Wikipedia numbers for prisoners and annual intentional homicides, we get:

Australia: 121
Belgium: 68
Bulgaria: 73
Canada: 74
Croatia: 90
Czech Republic: 163
Denmark: 91
Estonia: 46
Finland: 36
France: 103
Germany: 98
Greece: 71
Hungary: 142
Iceland: 157
Ireland: 74
Israel: 138
Italy: 111
Japan: 170
Latvia: 56
Lithuania: 48
Luxembourg: 164
Netherlands: 91
New Zealand: 203
Norway: 33
Poland: 175
Portugal: 115
Romania: 96
Slovakia: 134
Slovenia: 94
South Korea: 109
Spain: 180
Sweden: 86
Switzerland: 145
Taiwan: 91
UK: 147
US: 147

Thus, the US incarceration rate differential is within the normal variation seen in developed countries, after you account for the fact that the US has a lot more violent crime than other developed countries (as seen in its much higher homicide rate).

Programmer Cubicle Alternative

[emmjayell]

Good for the programmers. 8x10 cubicle with it's own bathroom. Wired for high speed cablemodem. Has a door that closes so nobody can sneak up behind you while you are working.
Good for the managers. Control smoke breaks and general working hours from a master control system. Video surveillance is taken to a whole new level.

Re:Programmer Cubicle Alternative

[Richy_T]

Man, that would be a dream compared to this cubicle farm. Sign me up!

Re:Programmer Cubicle Alternative

[Art Challenor]

I was thinking "Airbnb" but offices are cool also.

Re:You don't know, do you?

[JackieBrown]

I'd say envy is your prison

Good places to keep Illegal Aliens...

[Anonymous Coward]

These would make good places to keep illegal aliens until they are deported since as well all know that letting them go and expecting to report to court doesn't work.

"There's a prisoner shortage,"

[koan]

Wow and really bad and a really scary way to put it, I envision authorities dreaming up ways to fill jails.

Re:"There's a prisoner shortage,"

[Erikderzweite]

In some states where corporation run the prisons it is already the case. For example Management & Training Corp. had a contract with Arizona's government that the latter should keep the prisons at 97 percent full or pay fines. Such provision is actually common in a majority of America's private prison contracts.

More here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

Re:"There's a prisoner shortage,"

[the eric conspiracy]

There are still quite a few unemployed and underemployed. Just offer them jobs as Prisoner Simulation Engineers and you will kill two stones with one bird.

Re:"There's a prisoner shortage,"

[jopsen]

Wow and really bad and a really scary way to put it, I envision authorities dreaming up ways to fill jails.

Nor authorities... Companies running prisons...
But yeah, "prisoner shortage" is a phrase you'll only hear in America :)

Re:"There's a prisoner shortage,"

[ZombieBraintrust]

There were two judges in 2008 who were caught taking kickbacks to send kids to juvenile detention centers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K...

Re:Say what?

[MightyYar]

I think what has changed is the definition of crime and the idea that punishment should match the crime.

Punishments have not gotten weaker, instead there are fewer crimes being committed. I'm sure people will make all sorts of claims why... the Freakonomics guys claim it was abortion, others say the end of the crack epidemic, and others point to the crackdown on crime and harsh sentences enacted during the late 80s and 90s. Whatever the reasons, the jails are not filling up because there are fewer criminals - not because we've changed attitudes.

Jails are easily repurposed

[Anonymous Coward]

They are bare bones buildings designed to accommodate people in the most basic conditions. They provide shelter, sanitation, feeding infrastructure, physical security, basic medical facilities, and even infrastructure to do productive work.

Any American jail would be luxurious compared to living on the street. Open up empty jails to the homeless populations and food banks. Use the facilities to teach homeless people skills to do a job.

Re:Jails are easily repurposed

[Richy_T]

The root cause of many being homeless is not not having a home.

Re:Jails are easily repurposed

[PPH]

Please educate our city government on this point. They are busy extracting fees and concessions from developers for the purpose of building homes for the homeless.

Re:Jails are easily repurposed

[Khashishi]

That's actually what they do with the jails in many places.

In a nutshell

[mr.mctibbs]

"There's a prisoner shortage"

Framing it this way is typical of a mindset that is depressingly endemic in our culture. We do not have a shortage of prisoners, we have an excess of prisons.

Re:2nd generation leaded gasoline babies

[Overzeetop]

You've clearly missed the TEA party revolution. "Angry young men with impacted reasoning abilities" is one of their recruiting slogans.

Well that's not true

[slashmydots]

"but can't be easily sold or repurposed"
Bullshit! You know what you have to do to turn it into an airsoft and paintball facility? Put up a sign and a cash register.

Re:Well that's not true

[odigity]

"but can't be easily sold or repurposed"

Bullshit! You know what you have to do to turn it into an airsoft and paintball facility? Put up a sign and a cash register.

Bureaucrats are not entrepreneurial. They have less creativity and drive than an eight year old running a lemonade stand. Don't get your hopes up.

We can use all that prison space!

[reboot246]

Just arrest and convict all those thousands of politicians (Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, etc. - they're all crooked).

2,266,800

[J'raxis]

1.6M? The U.S. prison population is 2,266,800 according to Wikipedia. It's been over 2M for years, and was 2,418,352 in 2008.

Re:2,266,800

[Kiwikwi]

1.6M? The U.S. prison population is 2,266,800 according to Wikipedia. It's been over 2M for years, and was 2,418,352 in 2008.

In the U.S., the word "prison" is more specific than you think. Look at the third figure from the top at your own link.

In 2010, the U.S. prison population was ~1,518,000 (state and federal prisons). The U.S. jail population was ~749,000. The sum of those is 2,267,000; then comes another ~90,000 in juvenile detention (see the table below the figure). Add all these (and a bunch of smaller numbers, such as holding facilities for immigrants, and military facilities), you get the number of incarcerated people, which is the number you mention.

But yes, AFAIK the U.S. still incarcerates more people than any other country in the world, both as a fraction of the population, and in absolute numbers. There's a long way down to the next on the list.

Re:2,266,800

[jopsen]

What is the difference between being in prison and jail? Just curious...

Re:2,266,800

[NoImNotNineVolt]

While I appreciate the explanation of discrepancy, I'd just like to add:

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

Re:2,266,800

[ZombieBraintrust]

A jail is for arrested people. Prisons are for convicted people. There is alot of overlap because of lack of space in prisons or in jails. You may be held in a prison if they lack space in the jail and vice versa.

Re:2,266,800

[painandgreed]

What is the difference between being in prison and jail? Just curious...

Jails are usually local and run by the city or county. If you get arrested, you go to jail. If you have to stay in because you are awaiting trial and can't afford bail, you stay in the jail. If you are convicted and receive a short sentence (usually for anything less than a year) or waiting to go to the prison, you are in jail. Prisons are run by the states or the federal government and hold people convicted of either state or federal laws respectively for sentences generally longer than a year.

Re:2,266,800

[HeckRuler]

Jail is where they throw you while you're under arrest.
Prison is where they send you after you're convicted.

Some sentences are served out in jails if they're small/short enough. Drunks get thrown in jail.

Re:2,266,800

[Garfong]

If I remember correctly, prisons are punitive (i.e. post-conviction), jail is not (e.g. people who have arrested but not yet processed, pre-trial but not on bail, etc.)

In a nutshell

[Anonymous Coward]

In a series of market research interviews with Psychiatrists, the mismatch between many patients and too few doctors came up repeatedly. One psych memorably remarked, "In an ideal world, there would be a lot more psychiatrists." His utopian world might be the same one that includes a lot more prisoners.

A very long way to go

[Lawrence_Bird]

Reference this document from the BOP. You should fully expect cries from not just the corps running many of the prisons but also the guard unions.

Re:A very long way to go

[bluefoxlucid]

From blowjobs.gov?

An idea for repurposing prisons

[jenningsthecat]

The story before this one is about the best use of data centre space; the juxtaposition made me wonder if prisons might make good data centres. I know adding the wiring and cooling to a building not designed for it might be a challenge, but at least a lot of the security requirements are already present. Just a thought...

lead makes you crazy

[ZombieBraintrust]

Crime went down in that period because they remove lead from gasoline in the 90's. Lead in the air was driving people slightly crazy leading to more crime. This was especially pronounced in cities where the air was much dirtier than the countryside. Crime went down everywhere where lead was removed. Had nothing to do with how the police fought crime.

Re:lead makes you crazy

[Zynder]

Wiki says you're not entirely correct.

"TEL was phased out starting in the U.S. in the mid-1970s"
"Leaded-fuel bans for road vehicles came into effect as follows:"
"USA: January 1st 1996 California: 1992"

Re:Say what?

[Anonymous Coward]

"People have figured out that it costs a lot more to keep people locked up than to prevent the crime or "rehabilitate" the criminal."

No, you're sadly wrong...

http://www.civitas.org.uk/pubs/prisonValue.php

"maybe the gun nutz among them will claim crime has dropped because more people are walking around with guns."

Wrong again:

http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/gun-control-myths-realities

re: criminal past

[King_TJ]

Absolutely 100% agree with you about the U.S. needing to give up on the "war on drugs" thing. That failed policy has cost untold billions of taxpayer dollars and made criminals out of insane numbers of citizens -- all with essentially no upside.

The system you speak of in the Netherlands sounds pretty reasonable too, and I could see the U.S. potentially adopting something similar. But I'm also not sure I'm that opposed to the present system, at least in theory, that's used in our country? I think the fact is, employers can and do hire people with criminal records all the time. Just because you have one doesn't mean you're branded unemployable (though some believe that initially).

I'm sure it makes it more challenging to get a good job ... but in a sense, I think they have to view it as starting over. Just like someone new to the job market can't expect to walk in and get hired making a 6 figure salary at a Fortune 500 firm -- an ex-convict has to work his/her way back up the ladder from one of the lower rungs. What employers really want to see is evidence the person really has changed their ways and illustrates good work habits and honesty.

I know several places I've worked in the past definitely hired people with former criminal records for such jobs as truck/delivery drivers or movers. Others get into such things as car sales, where their pay is based mostly on commission and things are micro-managed enough that they don't have a lot of opportunity to commit crimes without leaving behind paper trails or video evidence.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Statistics and..

[s.petry]

California had a massive reduction in prison population due to courts deeming that holding people under severely crowded conditions was unconstitutional. I'm too lazy to do the math and figure out what percentage of the alleged 20% this accounts for. Law enforcement being allowed to legally seize property without any charges has further reduced "criminals" but again to what level? That one we don't know, because there is little to zero accountability by agencies practicing this illegal act (and there are numerous agencies doing this).

Not to take away the point regarding "Crime Conundrum", but rather pointing out that I have a feeling that the claim of reduction is at least partially a statistics game to make someone look good.

Re:Statistics and..

[danlip]

And California's prisons are still overcrowded, despite the reduction. As are many other states

Re:Statistics and..

[kartaron]

The early release and refusal to place new inmates in California is huge. According to federal statistics, California dropped 50k internments per year and are releasing early 13k per month. Just their decline alone accounts for 72% of total US reductions. Depending on the length of sentences, they may well have sent home the entire 200k 'drop' in prisoners. And other major state prison systems admit their lowering of prison sentences for drug crimes is the reason for their drops.

And the california plan seems to be raising some crimes there

"By contrast, we find robust evidence that realignment is related to increased property crime. In terms of overall property crime, we estimate an additional one to two property crimes per year on average for each offender who is not incarcerated as a result of realignment. In particular, we see substantial increases in the number of motor vehicle thefts, which went up by 14.8 percent between 2011 and 2012. (Magnus Lofstrom and Steven Raphael, Public Safety Realignment and Crime Rates in California, Public Policy Institute of California, Dec., 2013 at p. 2.)"

http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub...

http://www.latimes.com/local/c...

http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub...

Re:Statistics and..

[internerdj]

I'm not finding very good data but it looks like California is possibly responsible for as much as half of the drop in prison population assuming the numbers that I'm finding are actually using the same definition for prison.

Re:Statistics and..

[kevmeister]

In California we are still releasing felons after little or no jail time due to lack of space. It sometimes is almost funny.

Recently Dorris Payne, an international jewel thief, was sentenced to four years for a $40,000 theft from a jewelry store in Palm Desert, California, a crime committed while on probation for a prior theft in Los Angeles. She was released by the sheriff after about a month as a "low -risk" offender (her thefts had never involved weapons) when there was no room available in the county jail. She was in the jail instead of prison because the prisons were so overcrowded that the governor ordered that most "low-risk" convicts be held in county facilities. Not that the county jails had room for them, either.

She was re-arrested for probation violation a few weeks later, but was released in a few days as there was still no room and probation violation does not change her "low-risk" status.

So she committed a crime, was released from LA, committed another in Palm Desert and is still not locked up. Seems like the system is neither protecting the public nor discouraging the criminal from continuing her life of crime.

Did I mention that Dorris Payne is 83? I don't see her as likely to become a model citizen in the future.

Clearly, California has no surplus of jail cells!

Re:Statistics and..

[s.petry]

Very informative, thanks for doing the work I was too lazy to do. Seems like I need to change my original statement from but rather pointing out that I have a feeling that the claim of reduction is at least partially a statistics game to make someone look good. TO but rather pointing out that I have a feeling that the claim of reduction mostly a statistics game to make someone look good, and kartaron provided factual information to back that belief.

Re:Statistics and..

[Talderas]

They do not incarcerate 50,000 convictions that they otherwise would have and that there is 1-2 additional property crimes each year for each conviction not incarcerated. So that means there's between 50,000-100,000 additional property crimes each year?

Re:Statistics and..

[Darinbob]

The problem here is not that they're letting low-risk criminals free (big deal, she stole something), but that we still are incarcerating tons of people for even lesser crimes. Possession of drugs, selling small quantities of drugs, being a member of a gang, etc. They get locked up. Unless white of course.

When prisoners are released the concern of officials is how it looks to the voters; let a minority kid go who had some crack and it looks like they're being soft on crime, but let an old lady go and it's fine because no one is scared of jewel thieves.

The prison system does not work current, and has probably never worked in the history of mankind. There is no attempt at rehabilitation whatsover, these are just holding patterns with an "out of sight, out of mind" policy. The prison guards have strong unions that advocate for more prisons and more prisoners.

Re:Statistics and..

[RobertLTux]

Do you think any of your local %Centers of Faith% could pull a sort of "Each One Reach One" type of thing??

I would think that somebody should be able to provide a bunk and meds for him. Sometimes these crazy types just need somebody sane with connections to help them.

Re:Statistics and..

[a_nonamiss]

Unfortunately, there is no profit motive for mental health treatment. It's either government funded, very occasionally funded by religious and other charitable organizations, or unfunded. Underfunded mental health systems lead demonstrably to higher crime rates.

Re:Statistics and..

[Gob Gob]

California had a massive reduction in prison population due to courts deeming that holding people under severely crowded conditions was unconstitutional.

Why don't they rotate them? Prisoners coul spend 3 out of 4 weeks inside meaning that for every 4 prisoners the prison could incareate one more ~ 120% occupancy without over crowding

Prisoners could choose to undertake rehabilitation activities (employment, volunteering, education, etc) in that could help them take time off their sentance (and for discresions they could have time added).

It always seems dumb to put criminals in a box full of other crinimals (of potetnatlly greater expereince or ambission) and call it rehabilitation. Effective leading two lives side by side will give the person the ability to reconcile the cost/benefits of a life of crime

Re:Statistics and..

[s.petry]

You would still have to house, guard, and keep tabs on "prisoners" when they were out doing non-prison related things. The answer to all of your points is "cost".

Funding could come from the currently corrupt systems by cleaning up the corruption and excessive bureaucratic build up, but we both know that won't happen any time soon.

Re:You don't know, do you?

[timeOday]

It's only envy if you want to keep the pyramid scheme, but with yourself at the top.

Re:Say what?

[Richy_T]

Or perhaps they saw that when the politicians declared they were going to "get tough on crime", they totally missed the kinds of crime people were concerned about and ended up jailing a lot of people who weren't particularly doing much harm (and were largely black).

repurposing

[magarity]

Is it really that hard to re-purpose a jail? Replace the bars on the cells with a wall and door, and presto, efficiency apartments complete with toilet.

this article is nonsense

[madmatty]

This is nonsense because the jails and prisons in california are still over crowded to the point of them releasing inmates early (such as the woman who can't stop jumping onto planes for hawaii) If this were a fact then the private prison industry wouldn't br growing at the jaw dropping rate it is as we speak.

great news.

[Anonymous Coward]

The USAian corporate lords thank you for your service. We control the drug trade and put people like you in jail, while ignoring the pushers. We are not making enough money though, and think it would be a good idea to legalize drugs. That way we can profit directly instead of doing so in round about manner through prison sentences and kick backs from our pushers. This will be good news for people such as yourself who had to face jail time to feed the system. It will be bad news for your children who will be hooked on legal smack.

Think of this; legal drugs kill more people than the illegal kind. The end of prohibition saw a decrease in gang related deaths, but an overall increase in deaths due to drinking. The British forced the Chinese to keep the opium trade legal in China against the interest of the Chinese citizens.

I can't tell the difference from the crime lords and my government officials.

Re:You don't know, do you?

[CanHasDIY]

We teach our children that making money is more important than being happy, ie 'that degree is useless' or 'don't go into that field, you won't get paid much.' Our economy is based on wealth (gotta have money to make money), and our media is obsessed with how great the rich have it (next on Cribs, some athlete's ridiculously huge mansion and garage worth more than the GDP of a small nation).

The schools, the media outlets, hell even the sports teams are owned by the same cabal of very, very wealthy people.

So, if there's a 'wealth envy' issue in America, it's cultural, and the rich have no one to blame but themselves.

Oh Crap

[Anonymous Coward]

No one tell my company. This is the exact setup they've been looking for to take the next step from cube hell.

unconvicted banksters from 2008

[peter303]

Almost no one important went to jail. Plenty of scam mortgage brokers that era too. The current Attorney General had other priorities like civil rights.

Yes, prison is tough on guards, too

[Paul Fernhout]

http://www.denverpost.com/news...
"They harden themselves to survive inside prison, guards said in recent interviews. Then they find they can't snap out of it at the end of the day. Some seethe to themselves. Others commit suicide. Depression, alcoholism, domestic violence and heart attacks are common. And entire communities suffer. ... Prison work "bleeds over into your private life. You go into restaurants, you sit with your back to the wall. You want to see all the entrances and exits, and you notice if somebody is carrying something bulky. You can't turn these skills off," said Matthew von Hobe, 50, a former manager at the four-prison federal complex in Florence. He knows of two colleagues who committed suicide."

So, like you imply, looks like a tough road to rehabilitation for many prison guards...

Good to see so many comments mentioning the lead connection to violent crime. There are nutritional connections too.
"Omega-3, junk food and the link between violence and what we eat: Research with British and US offenders suggests nutritional deficiencies may play a key role in aggressive behaviour"
http://www.theguardian.com/pol...

The problem is, of course, the prison is one of the main social safety nets in the USA, and also that putting people in prison boosts the employment rate (jobs for guards, prisoners off the unemployment roles). We need to rethink our economy, like with a basic income that a person does not get while incarcerated?

Also related to show how bad it could get:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K...
"The "kids for cash" scandal unfolded in 2008 over judicial kickbacks at the Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Two judges, President Judge Mark Ciavarella and Senior Judge Michael Conahan, were accused of accepting money from Robert Mericle, builder of two private, for-profit juvenile facilities, in return for contracting with the facilities and imposing harsh sentences on juveniles brought before their courts to increase the number of inmates in the detention centers."

Here is am excerpt from a related satire by me regarding expanding prisons for copyright violators that I sent to the US DOJ a dozen years ago in response to a slashdot article, but sadly sometimes it seems people may be taking it more as a blueprint than a cautionary tale: :-(
http://www.pdfernhout.net/micr...
"""
My fellow Americans. There has been some recent talk of free law by the General Public Lawyers (the GPL) who we all know hold un-American views. I speak to you today from the Oval Office in the White House to assure you how much better off you are now that all law is proprietary. ...
First off, we all know our current set of laws requires a micropayment each time a U.S. law is discussed, referenced, or applied by any person anywhere in the world. This financial incentive has produced a large amount of new law over the last decade. This body of law is all based on a core legal code owned by that fine example of American corporate capitalism at its best, the MicroSlaw Corporation.
MicroSlaw's core code defines a legal operating standard or OS we can all rely on. While I know some GPL supporters may be painting a rosy view of free law to the general public, it is obvious that any so called free alternative to MicroSlaw's legal code fails at the start because it would require great costs for learning about new so-called free laws, plus additional costs to switch all legal forms and court procedures to the new so called free standard. So free laws are really more expensive, especially as we are talking here about free as in cost, not free as in freedom.
In any case, why wou

California

[internerdj]

Hasn't California been under a federal order to reduce its prison population because the overcrowding situation was considered at a level to be cruel and unusual?

Re:California

[ZombieBraintrust]

They reduced some of their prison population by moving them from state prisons to federal prisons. They also moved prisonors to county jails.

Re:Lead

[haruchai]

Damned bleeding-heart environmentalists screwing up good old traditions!!

Re:You don't know, do you?

[JackieBrown]

No, that's greed, not envy.

Eric Holder

[dr.newton]

I just like that a guy named Holder wants to let people go.

Plenty of room for the politicians

[wiredlogic]

Now we have plenty of room to house the corrupt politicians that are dragging our country into the ground.

finally...

[whitroth]

Yeah, under Bush the W, the US prison population surpassed that of the Soviet Union's prisons at their worst under Stalin.

But now that populations are falling, I'd say the first things to go are the UNCONSTITUTIONAL PRIVATIZED PRISONS (aka slave labor shops).

          mark

Re:You don't know, do you?

[NoImNotNineVolt]

The billions of dollars which make up assets of the 0.01%

Trillions of dollars which make up assets of the 0.000125%.

The aggregate wealth of the 400 richest Americans (Forbes 400) is $2.2T, and they account for only 1/80th as many people as you expected.

Yes, it really is that bad. Hard to fathom, but numbers don't lie.

Re:You don't know, do you?

[NoImNotNineVolt]

When even those who are critical of the uber-wealthy are still five orders of magnitude too conservative with their estimates of how badly wealth is distributed, it seems that all hope is lost.

California

[amxcoder]

I don't know about other states, but I wonder how much of California's "reduction" comes from letting violent offenders out on the street earlier than their sentencing. The last couple years California decided due to prison overcrowding to start releasing inmates early. While promising to only release 'non-violent' offenders, some reports that I've read pretty much give the indication that they didn't really pay too close of attention to who they let out early, because it was shown that rapist and murders and other repeat offenders were among those released. There were reports of literally bus loads of convicted inmates being dropped off and let free, and I believe many of them were given temporary housing to get back on their feet when released early.

I remember a couple years ago, one of the early releases got out, and within a few weeks of hitting the streets was a prime suspect in a rape, not far from the area that he was released.

Now, it's possible also, that some of the declining prison population is due to reduction in arrest and prosecution for minor offenses, most notably drug laws, where many states are now either not enforcing laws for possession of marajuana, or it's available through 'medical perscription', or like colorado, completely legalized. I'm sure that helps actually keep some of the actual 'non-violent' offenders from ever getting into the system in the first place (like it should).

Abortion and lead

[mspohr]

From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...

"A 2007 study by Jessica Reyes at Amherst College stated: "By the year 2020, when the effects of the Clean Air Act and Roe v. Wade would be complete, violent crime could be as much as 70% lower than it would be if lead had remained in gasoline, and as much as 35-45% lower than it would be if abortion had never been legalized. At the same time, history suggests that other unknown factors would have increased crime by perhaps 3-5% per year."[9]"

Three felonies a day

[ub3r n3u7r4l1st]

yup even normal acts are felonies now a days.

http://www.threefeloniesaday.c...

"If you can't do the time, don't do the crime."

Yeah right.

Ob

[Hognoxious]

After rising rapidly for decades, the number of people behind bars peaked at 1.62 Million in 2009

Bollocks. The US alone has around that number, and nobody really knows about China.

schools or...

[Bootsy]

Turn 'em in to schools, or data centers... or how about storage units? They seem to be in demand

Reagan II

[Gliscameria]

This all sounds great, at least until we elect Reagan II next election with control of the house and senate and ramp that prison industry back up. My only hope would be that some libertarian would actually be a libertarian and not some "State's rights" or corporate shill to get elected, because I don't see the dems surviving much longer.

Honesty not the best policy

[Etherwalk]

It is simple.
If you know you are guilty they will offer you a chance to take a deal, save the courts a lot of time and effort, and rewards the guilty party for choosing to be honest. Yes it is honest for a reward but still being honest.
If you are caught and you know that you are actually guilty of breaking the law but try to get out of it they will make you an example.

That's a nice theory, but the system is actually designed to hurt honest criminals.

If it weren't, you wouldn't be able to use apologies as evidence of the crime.

Will no one think of the CEOs?

[Stormthirst]

Who will think of the poor CEOs of the private prisons? How will they possibly make the mortgage repayments on the third house or their yacht in the Bahamas?

Re:You don't know, do you?

[timeOday]

I think envying somebody is wanting to be them... wanting neither yourself nor anybody else to do what they are doing is not envious.

future walking dead safe havens when ebola mutates

[vpness]

we should keep all these empty jails scattered around, so the few that survive the plague have a place to defend against the biters. And give us a place from which to create needless drama.

Don't care about crime???

[samantha]

Bullshit. We don't care about thinks that never have been called "crimes" in the first place. If it doesn't involve any form of initiation of force against another person or their property or of negligent harm to another person then it is not a crime in a sane society. As much of 80% of prison population is is for such non-crime. Many of the longer term prisoners are there for committing a non-crime 3 times back in the three strikes and you are out days. Let people out of cages that committed no real crimes and never put anyone in for such again.

Boo Hoo there are not enough prisons. Tear them down and celebrate while doing so. At up to $40,000 per prisoner per year we are saving a lot having less prisoners.

best news i have ever heard.

[MossStan]

for all of the entirety of this complete and full second. nice.

Re: criminal past

[sjames]

I have no idea how old you are, but look back. How similar are you to yourself 20 years ago? Are there things you did in your high school years that you would never do now? Perhaps things that would cause you to blow a gasket if your kids did them now?

Would you care to have potential employers make assumptions about your work ethic based on how you kept 'forgetting' to clean your room when you were six?

If you declare bankruptcy you carry a black mark for seven years. Perhaps arrests and convictions should also go away in seven years. Certainly they should in 20 years.

corporate welfare

[cas2000]

as soon as they all get sold off for a fraction of their value, watch in amazement at the passing of new tough-on-crime laws that mandate 20 year sentences for jaywalking and other serious crimes.

Finland is white, dude

[Anonymous Coward]

Finland is white, dude. You point doesn't stand on its own.

All about the Makers n Takers!

[Zynder]

Yep! Romney loves this plan! See before incarceration, those people were the Takers, but now that they're on the inside, they're the Makers-- makers of fine license plates, clocks, paper towels, and fine over-the-phone tech support.

Re:You don't know, do you?

[Zynder]

Oh yeah! I know right? People who say money doesn't buy happiness just haven't ever had enough money!

Re:Obvious solution

[Zynder]

Well aren't the conspiracy nutjobs always going on about all the empty ones in places like Illinois?

I dunno, mabey shift the resources into housing

[davydagger]

Mabey either shift the resources back into housing the homeless, mabey we can close the prisons, save some money and give it back to the tax payers.

We could probably rent the grounds to paintballers, airsofties and the military for tacticle manuevers, as all three groups would probably go apeshit nuts to do this.

We might turn this into parks, perhaps save one or two as a muesem to epic failure of mass incarceration of non-violent offenders.

Turn the cells into cubicles

[lsatenstein]

This is an opportunity to convert a building, with cafeteria, gymn, etc, into a building housing software development people. Remove the bars, remove the toilets and restructure the builiding a bit, and there you are. Perhaps the prisons that are not sellable as a prison can be sold for land value.