Los Angeles Times:
After decades of pursuing lock-'em-up policies, states are scrambling to reduce their prison populations in the face of tight budgets, making fundamental changes to their criminal justice systems as they try to save money.
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1.5 Million USA political prisoners, caught up in the War on Hippies, known as the war on drugs.
Before that is was so Dupont could sell nylon to the Navy, which still has a waiver allowing them to use hemp, and then to keep the blacks down. Legalize freedom.
The government as a victim is ludicrous. When someone, say, smokes weed or uses whatever controlled substance, it is a victimless crime. The Drug War will continue since there is a need for Wall Street and the money center banks to launder drug money.
Incidentally, the 2008 Presidential candidate who promised to issue pardons for all federal incarcerated non-violent drug offenders was Ron Paul. No one else would touch it. We certainly won't see it with Obama.
We are the #1 prison state in the world! No other country comes close to the amount of people we have incarcerated. As we close in on 3 million the China is a distant second at 1.5 million. So either Americans are the most criminal in the world or we are locking up our own people in record numbers for non-crimes.
Being "tough on crime" has backfired! Instead of keeping people in prison, like rapists, child molesters and murders, we give life sentences to people who sell a product that people demand. Police and prosecutors look better the more they arrest and convict. Police used to show up and "keep the peace" now they taser and arrest everyone. This must change this!
All nonviolent, 1st time offenders should be released.
All those convicted of drug possession and drug sales should be released.
Prostitution and solicitation also.
Any so called "crime" where there is no victim (A victim being someone who was harmed physically or financially).
All DUI, DWI, BUI, BWI, Driving on a suspended, Pretty much all traffic infractions where there is no injuries to others (no real victims).
If they have not injured or harmed anyone then LET THEM OUT!!
If they are non-violent LET THEM OUT!!
Oh no! What are all our privately run, for profit jails going to do in Cali? Maybe we could trick one of the now unnecessary prisons as the George Bush Family Museum and stock it with live exhibits..
So in prosperous economic times, it's okay to imprison people for minor crimes.
The concept of crime and punishment thus has nothing to do with morality. It's just a function of state budgets.
Unbelievable!
Ya........
I think you are correct. The people who were locked up for non violent drug offenses should never have been in jail to begin with, especially if it was a marijuana offense. I am glad they will be released early, but the timing is awful. They will be released in one of the worst job markets we have seen. If they get arrested again they will use it as an excuse that it was the right thing to do to lock them up on their original offense, because they are career criminals. The state's budgets would not be in the mess they are in if marijuana were legalized. They flooded the system at a high cost, to the tax payers, with people who should never have been in the system. When the only objective of our government and corporations is greed, the outcome will never be good.
free at last free at last thank god almighty we are free at last.
www.critic
fighting the prison system for over a decade
One of the Presidential candidates had promised to issue pardons to all non-violent drug law offenders if he were to have been elected. I don't suppose Obama will even consider that option. Each bed represent too much money in the prison industrial complex.
Politicians back on the streets. Ugh!
Just let the pathetic pot-heads go, that will solve all their problems.
Yeah, and prison does them so much good. My guess is we could supply every addict and user with drugs more cheaply than the cost of confinement.
It probably would help if states started sending down directives to it's over-ambitioud police officers to start turning a blind eye to victimless crimes that overwhelm the system. It can be jusified as using discretion.
Fiscal Conservatives- weak on crime.
But then again, we already know that.
A blessing in disguise.
There are many poor men ( and some working men with insurance but with "pre-existing conditions" ) who'll break a law, throw a brick thru a cop's windshield for instance, and go to prison for a year just to get their knee surgery or dental work or cancer taken care of for free.
Prove it. And if its true, why bring it up here?
When prisoners become units from which profit is derived, there is a tendency to see them as commodities
http://www
Our prisons and their ridiculously high populations are merely a reflection of our society. The real problem here, my dear fellow homo sapiens, is that we as a species are not surly rational. We tend to rely on our emotions to do our thinking for us. Emotions can in fact be a reasonable solution if we have not filled our heads with bigotry, religious tom foolery or other poisonous beliefs. However, this nation, given it's historical background as a frontier nation founded by the descendents of religious zealots, mixed in with the criminal off casts and other ambitious misfits from Europe seems to overflow with poisonous beliefs. This in mind, we need to circumvent the heuristic of emotion based reasoning and try to obtain the ideal of rational thought. This can only be done through a viral introduction of critical thinking techniques. I say, get our there, learn to think critically and spread the notion. This is our only hope.
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First Posted: 09- 5-09 09:45 AM | Updated: 09- 5-09 09:50 AM