Texas Teen Faces 8 Years in Jail for an Insensitive Joke on Facebook

A very disturbing pattern is becoming evident all across the nation.  For a country that has 5% of the world’s population yet 25% of the entire planet’s prisoners, we sure do seem to eager to bump that figure up even higher. My guess is the trend has a lot to do with the private prison system in the country, which means higher levels of incarceration equals higher profits.  I think it also has to do with a troubling move toward criminalizing speech and an attack on the First Amendment generally.  This particular case occurred in Austin, Texas and nineteen year old Justin Carter now faces eight years in jail for an insensitive joke on Facebook. Thanks to the site Texas Prison Bid’ness, we can gain some perspective on the private prison industry in the Lone Star State:

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Now, here’s the story from KHOU in Houston:

Justin Carter was 18 back in February when an online video game “League of Legends” took an ugly turn on Facebook. 

Jack Carter says his son Justin and a friend got into an argument with someone on Facebook about the game and the teenager wrote a comment he now regrets. 

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