This clip is from QI, a British panel show, hosted by Stephen Fry.Fry asks the participants “where one percent of Americans can be found.” You and I know the answer is ‘prison’. But the contestants did not. Watch then – as they learn and draw their conclusions.
LOOKING FOR LIFE BEYOND CABLE NEWS AND FINDING THAT RESISTANCE IS FUTILE
You can have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, or democracy. But you cannot have both.
- Louis BrandeisTension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are.
- Chinese ProverbWell, look who came to dinner!
- 294,943 hits
Recent Comments
Categories
Blogroll
- A Feather Adrift
- A Frank Angle
- An Apostate's Chapel
- Arborist at Dead Wild Roses
- Beneath the Tin Foil Hat
- Bruce the Economist
- desertscope
- Don in Mass
- elyse at fifty four and a half
- eurobrat
- Gingerfightback
- Grumpy Lion
- I TRIED BEING TASTEFUL
- james at Political Dog 101
- Jim Wheeler at Still Skeptical
- Jonolan at Reflections from A Murky Pond
- Kansas Mediocrity
- Katrina at SStorm073's Blog
- Mary Lee's breath of fresh air
- Out of Central Asia Now
- Pino at Tar Heel Red
- Reflections of A Rational Republican
- Republic of Gilead
- Say It Ain't So Already!
- Shortbus Wonderkid
- Sleepygirl at The Blossoming Echo
- SOG City Oracle
- Steve at Cry & Howl
- Talk and Politics
- The Conservative Lie
- The D.I.D. Zone
- The Erstwhile Conservative
- The Fifth Column
- The Oligarch Kings
- The Rantings of Vern Kaine
- Umersultan: the keys to power
- Under the Mountain Bunker
- Vern Kain
OLD STUFF
- June 2015 (1)
- September 2014 (12)
- August 2014 (2)
- July 2014 (9)
- June 2014 (25)
- May 2014 (11)
- April 2014 (8)
- March 2014 (2)
- February 2014 (13)
- January 2014 (16)
- December 2013 (17)
- November 2013 (21)
- October 2013 (49)
- September 2013 (27)
- August 2013 (24)
- July 2013 (24)
- June 2013 (39)
- May 2013 (37)
- April 2013 (34)
- March 2013 (30)
- February 2013 (14)
- January 2013 (35)
- December 2012 (36)
- November 2012 (37)
- October 2012 (56)
- September 2012 (57)
- August 2012 (69)
- July 2012 (46)
- June 2012 (52)
- May 2012 (62)
- April 2012 (53)
- March 2012 (64)
- February 2012 (60)
- January 2012 (59)
- December 2011 (60)
- November 2011 (81)
- October 2011 (82)
- September 2011 (71)
- August 2011 (53)
- July 2011 (77)
- June 2011 (64)
- May 2011 (93)
- April 2011 (77)
- March 2011 (89)
- February 2011 (82)
- January 2011 (80)
- December 2010 (67)
- November 2010 (61)
- October 2010 (62)
- September 2010 (60)
- August 2010 (73)
- July 2010 (65)
- June 2010 (59)
- May 2010 (71)
- April 2010 (74)
- March 2010 (75)
- February 2010 (84)
- January 2010 (130)
- December 2009 (98)
- November 2009 (91)
- October 2009 (99)
- September 2009 (93)
Whatever Works
It’s actually approx. 0.7% but that’s close enough for jazz. I can’t see where it’s a problem though. Criminals belong in prison and the more we put in there the less are on the street.
As approx. 50% of the inmates are violent offenders, I’d say that we’re better off with them quarantined for as long as possible, especially given that there’s an 67% or so recidivism rate among criminals.
LikeLike
It’s a problem and it reflects on who we are and how many people we’re willing to just throw away.
Ultimately, it’s not good for the country and it’s morally wrong to think prison is the answer to every social transgression.
LikeLike
OK, Moe; let’s say we let all the nonviolent offenders out. We’d still be 3rd in the world for incarceration rates.
The problem isn’t imprisoning people. The problem is too many of them are criminals in the first place.
LikeLike
And that forces us to face our own society and ask why. Because we are definitely doing something wrong. We might start with those laws that make crime so profitable and violent – I get pretty libertarian about victimless crimes and how we make things criminal that really only need to be regulated – like drugs, prostitution etc. .
LikeLike
No, Moe; it doesn’t force us to do so, at least not in an honest and meaningful way. Look at your own statement. In it you say that we’re doing something wrong and strongly implying that we made them into criminals by failing them somehow – when they’re the ones that failed America and themselves.
Also, we can’t look at crime without looking at the cultural demographics of criminals and the impact of some subcultures upon their members’ proclivities towards crimes, especially violent crime. And we can’t do that without the ethnoguiltists and racial grievance-mongers screaming, “Racist!” Indeed, just bringing that up will likely goad one or more of the people here to do just that.
LikeLike
Ms. Holland,
I am surprised that you would list prostitution as a victimless crime. As most prostitution is controlled by men and is for the benefit of men, and most women involved are victims of pimps or poverty, I don’t follow your reasoning.
You are on more solid ground concerning drugs. At the state level pot is legal in some places. Comparing crime statistics in the next 10 years between the states that allow production and consumption with the rest, should help settle it.
LikeLike
Alan,
On prostitution – we don’t actually have good numbers for generating accurate statistics on the percentages of prostitutes controlled by pimps in the manner you’re alluding to. Additionally, that business model would be ended by legalization of the trade.
On drug use – the drug trade involves 100s of thousands of victims annually worldwide and legalizing drugs in the US won’t significantly curb those numbers unless the supplying nations also legalize the drug trade. Even then, “corporate warfare” is a “bit more feral” in those countries, so the death toll and other victimization won’t drop to baseline noise levels.
LikeLike
jonolan – I think the point of decriminalization first has be to be about hitting the bankbooks of the underground criminal syndicates that run the drug trade. Addressing drug use among Americans is a different matter altogether. First one, then maybe the other.
LikeLike
From the Wikipedia page on “Incarceration in the United States”:
And (emphasis added),
The only other country that comes close to our rate of imprisonment is . . . Russia, which has 75% as many as we do. And just one more point, again from Wiki: in 2007, the average annual cost of incarcerating each year was $30,600, a cost that is accelerating because the cons are getting old.
I agree with Moe. We need to legalize (and tax) some drugs, and eliminate some victimless crimes. And, we need to return discretion to judges instead of mandatory sentencing laws.
LikeLike
Jim – thanks for all that. the 12x increase in drug offenders blows me away. Also, I failed to mention all those insidious mandatory sentencing laws. And recidivism. And of course, one of the very worst ideas in our history – creating a privatized prison industry motivated by profit to lobby legislators for even tougher sentencing laws.
My teeth hurt.
LikeLike
A few small points – Jim’s numbers are for federal prisons. Violent criminals make up approx. 50% of the total – state & federal – prison population. Remember, there are few solely federal crimes that are violent so most of those stay within the states’ jurisdictions.
Even Jim’s source cites that only 22% of those in federal and state prisons were convicted on drug charges and doesn’t state whether or not they were also convicted on other, possibly violent, charges.
LikeLike
No, you have misread it, John. It says,
The phrase “in jails” refers to all jails, both local and federal. Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States#Violent_and_nonviolent_crime
It’s under “Violent and Nonviolent Crime”, about 20% down the page.
As far as the number on drug charges, 22% is correct, but that is cited as a 12-fold increase since 1980! The trend is clear.
LikeLike
One – the same wiki also states that 49% of sentenced state inmates were held for violent offenses.
Two – it also states that 60% of the increase in incarceration is for violent offenses.
Three – It’s, like so many, a lousy wiki, filled with conflicting statistics entered by many different people with conflicting agendas. I prefer to get such data from the DOJ or or other sites.
LikeLike