Monday, July 9, 2007

Anger Grows at US Jail Population



BBC News



The jail population in the United States is expected to reach 2 million on Tuesday, prompting a wave of protests across America.



An explosion in inmate numbers in recent years means that although the US makes up 5% of the total global population, it now accounts for 25% of the world's prisoners.
About 1.3 million of the current jail population have been imprisoned for non-violent crimes, usually drug offences.

Studies have shown that in cities such as Baltimore and Washington at least half of all young black men are either in prison, on parole or on probation.

Jenny Gainsborough, of the research organisation, Sentencing Project, said she hoped Tuesday's protests would highlight the need for reform to stop the upward spiral in the prison population.
"We just want people to be aware of the huge numbers of people who are being locked up and the contrast between the US and other western industrialised democracies.
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It's so easy to go to jail in America, you can go to jail when you least expect it and for the things you least expect, my neighbor went to jail for protecting the fish that comes to feed on his seawall from predators (the two legged kind) that come from other places and kill anything that moves, when his grandson came to feed the fish there was nothing but skeletons , death and destruction.

Next time the predator came he confronted him, my neighboor went to jail. Since when in the Unites States of America do perpetrators have more rights than citizens, how did this come about ? is it something recent or is this a pattern that continues to deteriorates along with our border security ? Protection from predators is non existent , predators who sometimes leave ample trail of paperwork of their thievery, yet are un touched and even un investigated by the same authorities we pay to protect us.

It is time that we asked ourselves these questions that deserve answers :

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