The United States: 5% of the World’s Population, 25% of its Prisoners

This article is from May, but wow what a crazy statistic.  I guess there was just no room for Corzine…From The Economist:

Excessive incarceration is an American problem. The country has about 5% of the world’s population but almost 25% of its prisoners, with the world’s largest number of inmates and highest per capita rate of incarceration. California eagerly participated in this trend of locking up ever more people. During Mr Brown’s previous stint as governor in the 1970s the state switched to more inflexible sentencing. It then spent another two decades adding “tough-on-crime” laws that kept extending sentences even for minor crimes.

The resulting prison-building boom, and rapacious bargaining by the prison-guards union, meant that state penitentiaries became the fastest-growing major cost in the state budget. California’s 33 prisons and associated camps therefore bear no small responsibility for the state’s recurring budget crises, and the resultant crunch on school and university funding.

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Where Food Stamps Go to Die

Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices. No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible. Common sense is not so common. I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: “O Lord make my enemies ridiculous.” And God granted it. … Read more