Prison population/non violent drug offenders

[BigRedBuster]

LINK

 

An interesting read that actually shines some light on the actual statistics instead of towing a political view.

[NUance]

But politicians at the state level often focus on drug offenders, as well, even though they make up only about 16 percent of people in state prisons. That's because they know the public is more sympathetic toward low-level drug offenders than to other types of criminals.

In 2013 there were about 308,000 people serving state or federal sentences for drug crimes, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics — about 20 percent of the total US prison population.

 

 

Good article. (Vox articles are always good.) But I have a hard time reconciling that with the info I glean from elsewhere. When I read about arrests in the local paper it seems like about 70% of them are drug related.

 

Maybe a lot of the drug convictions aren't nonviolent due to other charges like resisting arrest or finding stolen stuff in the guy's possession.

[BigRedBuster]

I think you hit on it and the article goes into it also.

 

20% of the prison population is in for some type of drug offense. The issue is that most of those were also committing a violent crime at the same time which puts them in a category of a violent drug offender.

 

So, sure, you can do something different with the non-violent drug offenders but that's not going to drop our incarceration rates very much.

 

A bigger issue are the violent crimes committed because of drugs. Like the article stated, many of these are because someone is addicted to the drug. So, do you send them to treatment and not incarcerate them even though they committed a violent crime?

My quick answer says...lock the MFers up. They were violent doing something they chose to do (drugs). But, before they are ever released, we probably should be doing some type of treatment so they have a better chance at success on the outside.

[QMany]

What is the myth exactly? To me, that is still a staggering amount of individuals incarcerated for non-violent drug offenses. When you consider they are locked up with other criminals, recidivism, institutionalization, etc., I have to think there are better alternatives for a few hundred thousand individuals.

[QMany]

20% of the prison population is in for some type of drug offense. The issue is that most of those were also committing a violent crime at the same time which puts them in a category of a violent drug offender.

 

The government's prison statistics count people based on the most serious crime for which they're serving a sentence. So by definition, none of the 308,000 drug prisoners in the US are currently in prison for committing a violent crime.

[BigRedBuster]

What is the myth exactly? To me, that is still a staggering amount of individuals incarcerated for non-violent drug offenses. When you consider they are locked up with other criminals, recidivism, institutionalization, etc., I have to think there are better alternatives for a few hundred thousand individuals.

As pointed out in the article.

 

The myth is that we can solve our prison over population by not locking up non-violent drug offenders. Now, we might all agree we need to do that. But, that's not going to all of a sudden solve our over population problem.

[BigRedBuster]

What is the myth exactly? To me, that is still a staggering amount of individuals incarcerated for non-violent drug offenses. When you consider they are locked up with other criminals, recidivism, institutionalization, etc., I have to think there are better alternatives for a few hundred thousand individuals.

Only 20 percent of prisoners in the United States are serving time for drug offenses. The number of prisoners that politicians are willing to consider "low-level, nonviolent" drug offenders is far smaller.

 

[QMany]

 

What is the myth exactly? To me, that is still a staggering amount of individuals incarcerated for non-violent drug offenses. When you consider they are locked up with other criminals, recidivism, institutionalization, etc., I have to think there are better alternatives for a few hundred thousand individuals.

As pointed out in the article.

 

The myth is that we can solve our prison over population by not locking up non-violent drug offenders. Now, we might all agree we need to do that. But, that's not going to all of a sudden solve our over population problem.

Oh, I don't believe that will solve all of our problems. I don't know anyone that alleges it will solve all of our problems. That seems like a strawman argument. I do believe non-violent drug offenders is a good place to start productive reform.

[QMany]

 

Only 20 percent of prisoners in the United States are serving time for drug offenses. The number of prisoners that politicians are willing to consider "low-level, nonviolent" drug offenders is far smaller.

 

 

LINK

 

An interesting read that actually shines some light on the actual statistics instead of towing a political view.

[BigRedBuster]

 

 

What is the myth exactly? To me, that is still a staggering amount of individuals incarcerated for non-violent drug offenses. When you consider they are locked up with other criminals, recidivism, institutionalization, etc., I have to think there are better alternatives for a few hundred thousand individuals.

As pointed out in the article.

 

The myth is that we can solve our prison over population by not locking up non-violent drug offenders. Now, we might all agree we need to do that. But, that's not going to all of a sudden solve our over population problem.

Oh, I don't believe that will solve all of our problems. I don't know anyone that alleges it will solve all of our problems. That seems like a strawman argument. I do believe non-violent drug offenders is a good place to start productive reform.

 

I'm not sure what "strawman argument" you are talking about.

 

I'm not arguing anything. I presented an article for discussion.

[Husker_x]

 

 

 

What is the myth exactly? To me, that is still a staggering amount of individuals incarcerated for non-violent drug offenses. When you consider they are locked up with other criminals, recidivism, institutionalization, etc., I have to think there are better alternatives for a few hundred thousand individuals.

As pointed out in the article.

 

The myth is that we can solve our prison over population by not locking up non-violent drug offenders. Now, we might all agree we need to do that. But, that's not going to all of a sudden solve our over population problem.

Oh, I don't believe that will solve all of our problems. I don't know anyone that alleges it will solve all of our problems. That seems like a strawman argument. I do believe non-violent drug offenders is a good place to start productive reform.

 

I'm not sure what "strawman argument" you are talking about.

 

I'm not arguing anything. I presented an article for discussion.

 

 

You're not presenting a straw man. The straw man is that anyone thinks not locking up nonviolent drug offenders will solve all the problems. It won't. Certainly no informed person I'm aware of on the left thinks that. Until you solve poverty, the problem of crime remains. It's also impossible to divorce the issue of the failed drug war from violent crime and incarceration. They're interconnected. The drug trade is violent precisely because it is an illegal black market where there is no legal recourse for anyone involved.

 

That being said, 20% of our prison population is comprised of nonviolent "offenders." That's not an insignificant percent or an insignificant amount of people. It's a moral abomination and a stain on a country that lauds itself as a "beacon of freedom."

[BigRedBuster]

 

 

 

You're not presenting a straw man. The straw man is that anyone thinks not locking up nonviolent drug offenders will solve all the problems. It won't. Certainly no informed person I'm aware of on the left thinks that. Until you solve poverty, the problem of crime remains. It's also impossible to divorce the issue of the failed drug war from violent crime and incarceration. They're interconnected. The drug trade is violent precisely because it is an illegal black market where there is no legal recourse for anyone involved.

 

That being said, 20% of our prison population is comprised of nonviolent "offenders." That's not an insignificant percent or an insignificant amount of people. It's a moral abomination and a stain on a country that lauds itself as a "beacon of freedom."

 

As to the bolded part. This is a quote from the article.

 

Only 20 percent of prisoners in the United States are serving time for drug offenses. The number of prisoners that politicians are willing to consider "low-level, nonviolent" drug offenders is far smaller.

 

The non-violent offenders are less than 20%.

 

As to the RED hi lighted part.

 

LINK

 

Now, most of the top 5 (at least) talks about drug crimes and how there needs to not be mandatory sentencing for these crimes. Not much of what I read talked about violent crimes. So, I'm assuming he is talking about non-violent crimes. This is Eric Holder's top 10 list of how to reduce the over populated prisons.

 

Now, this article seems to contradict the one I posted above. It would be interesting to know what the actual truth is.

 

You mentioned poverty related to crime. I'm not necessarily questioning you. However, one political side would try to have everyone believe that poverty in America is horrible and getting worse every day. To that, I found this article very interesting and it's from a pretty left leaning site.

 

LINK

 

So, poverty is getting worse and violent crime is getting better.

 

Another part of this that leaves me scratching my head. If violent crime is going down, and non-violent offenders aren't the majority of the prison population, then why do we have an explosion in prison population?

 

Let me throw out a theory that I have no data to prove.

 

Back in the 80s and 90s, there was a big movement in the government to become tougher on crime. It was talked about during the Reagan years, Bush 1 years and Clinton took it even a step farther and put legislation through to increase the police force by 100,000 cops to try to reign in violent crime.

 

Well...it appears to me it has worked. So....is the violent crime rate going down because we are locking up a large portion of the right people who would be out committing more violent crimes? I know that goes against most popular political speak today. But, is it true? So, if we reduce sentences and let more people out of prison to reduce prison populations, are we going to see a rise in crime rate again? If so, what is going to be the solution then?

[BigRedBuster]

After the last post, I got to thinking. Is our over population in prison partly due to timing?

Meaning, look at the graph on violent crimes. We peaked during the 80s and 90s and is coming down ever since. So, I would assume there might be a lot of people in prison from that period of time. Do we have an aging prison population? Do most people actually deserve to be in prison due to crimes they committed a long time ago and we need to allow those older prisoners to die off (of old age) and our population will start coming down. That's assuming our decrease in violent crimes continues.

[Husker_x]

 

 

 

 

You're not presenting a straw man. The straw man is that anyone thinks not locking up nonviolent drug offenders will solve all the problems. It won't. Certainly no informed person I'm aware of on the left thinks that. Until you solve poverty, the problem of crime remains. It's also impossible to divorce the issue of the failed drug war from violent crime and incarceration. They're interconnected. The drug trade is violent precisely because it is an illegal black market where there is no legal recourse for anyone involved.

 

That being said, 20% of our prison population is comprised of nonviolent "offenders." That's not an insignificant percent or an insignificant amount of people. It's a moral abomination and a stain on a country that lauds itself as a "beacon of freedom."

 

As to the bolded part. This is a quote from the article.

 

Only 20 percent of prisoners in the United States are serving time for drug offenses. The number of prisoners that politicians are willing to consider "low-level, nonviolent" drug offenders is far smaller.

 

The non-violent offenders are less than 20%.

 

As to the RED hi lighted part.

 

LINK

 

Now, most of the top 5 (at least) talks about drug crimes and how there needs to not be mandatory sentencing for these crimes. Not much of what I read talked about violent crimes. So, I'm assuming he is talking about non-violent crimes. This is Eric Holder's top 10 list of how to reduce the over populated prisons.

 

Now, this article seems to contradict the one I posted above. It would be interesting to know what the actual truth is.

 

You mentioned poverty related to crime. I'm not necessarily questioning you. However, one political side would try to have everyone believe that poverty in America is horrible and getting worse every day. To that, I found this article very interesting and it's from a pretty left leaning site.

 

LINK

 

So, poverty is getting worse and violent crime is getting better.

 

Another part of this that leaves me scratching my head. If violent crime is going down, and non-violent offenders aren't the majority of the prison population, then why do we have an explosion in prison population?

 

Let me throw out a theory that I have no data to prove.

 

Back in the 80s and 90s, there was a big movement in the government to become tougher on crime. It was talked about during the Reagan years, Bush 1 years and Clinton took it even a step farther and put legislation through to increase the police force by 100,000 cops to try to reign in violent crime.

 

Well...it appears to me it has worked. So....is the violent crime rate going down because we are locking up a large portion of the right people who would be out committing more violent crimes? I know that goes against most popular political speak today. But, is it true? So, if we reduce sentences and let more people out of prison to reduce prison populations, are we going to see a rise in crime rate again? If so, what is going to be the solution then?

 

 

Sorry, this discussion is changing in scope faster than I can figure out what the point is. I'll try and hit the refresh button here with my main thoughts.

 

1. If the total number of nonviolent drug offenders behind bars was 1%, it would still be a moral abomination. It would still be true that by not arresting those people, it would cost less not just for the state, but for society as a whole (try to get a job with a conviction on your record). Letting them out after you've already sent them to prison is anther story. It seems very few people who go through the penal experience come out any less apt to commit crime. In fact the opposite may be true.

 

2. Poverty is one of, but certainly not the only, reason people turn to crime. We've had a few epidemics of white collar crime, including one in the years leading up to the Great Recession. These tend to not get much media attention. But generally speaking, if you have a comfortable salary and a home, a car, money to spend on leisure activities, and a reasonable expectation that your future financial situation is secure, you have less reason to get involved with crime at all. On the other hand, if you can't get work either because you can't afford advanced education/training, there are no decent-paying career opportunities anywhere nearby (e.g. inner cities), or you're already a convict (for whatever reason), your incentive to make money through criminal activity increases.

 

3. Which means your likelihood of being involved in violent crime increases. If we weren't so busy pretending that the "War on Drugs"––which isn't a war, because like Ellis Carver in The Wire quips, "Wars end"––was somehow essential to our national survival, and we regulated the drug trade like we do any other business, the incentives and rationale for violent behavior in the drug trade practically disappears. I haven't heard too many stories about marijuana dispensary owners doing drive by shootings on other marijuana dispensary owners.

 

4. Context is important, and I think that's what your post was going for. Yeah, the United States is not Honduras. I don't know the stats off the top of my head because this is pretty far afield from my area, but I would imagine between gang violence and domestic violence, you'd have a pretty big chunk of the numbers.

[rawhide]

 

 

What is the myth exactly? To me, that is still a staggering amount of individuals incarcerated for non-violent drug offenses. When you consider they are locked up with other criminals, recidivism, institutionalization, etc., I have to think there are better alternatives for a few hundred thousand individuals.

As pointed out in the article.

 

The myth is that we can solve our prison over population by not locking up non-violent drug offenders. Now, we might all agree we need to do that. But, that's not going to all of a sudden solve our over population problem.

Oh, I don't believe that will solve all of our problems. I don't know anyone that alleges it will solve all of our problems. That seems like a strawman argument. I do believe non-violent drug offenders is a good place to start productive reform.

 

Kali Prop 47

 

http://www.capoliticalreview.com/capoliticalnewsandviews/brandau-vehicle-burglaries-spike-47-in-north-fresno/

 

one point of view