Some numbers, without commentary:
(source: the BBC
In England and Wales 143 people out of every 100,000 are in jail.
In South Africa the figure is 344.
Russia has 581.
In Japan it’s just 60.
In the USA it’s 724.
No numbers for Taiwan, but in China it’s 118.
I’ll add some commentary:
It was higher for England before, but you shipped them all of to an island. Now Australia is 100% criminals with the exception of recent immigrants, and none of them are in jail.
What does it say when the US has more criminals than a country like Russia? That the prison system has been privatised, is one of the biggest money spinners in the US and that the tax payers are forking out?
[quote=“Tyc00n”]I’ll add some commentary:
It was higher for England before, but you shipped them all of to an island. Now Australia is 100% criminals with the exception of recent immigrants, and none of them are in jail.[/quote] Interesting thought. Lots of good blokes down under.
[quote]What does it say when the US has more criminals than a country like Russia? That the prison system has been privatised, is one of the biggest money spinners in the US and that the tax payers are forking out?[/quote]I suppose you could say that but perhaps it would be somewhat with disregard of the racism issues the in US.
bobepine
[quote=“Loretta”]Some numbers, without commentary:
(source: the BBC
No numbers for Taiwan, but in China it’s 118.[/quote]
that is the official numbers… equates to 1.5m people… hmmm
[quote=“Loretta”]Some numbers, without commentary:
(source: the BBC
In England and Wales 143 people out of every 100,000 are in jail.
In South Africa the figure is 344.
Russia has 581.
In Japan it’s just 60.
In the USA it’s 724.
No numbers for Taiwan, but in China it’s 118.[/quote]
In Canada it’s only 107. 
Yes, but the recent immigrants are in “detention centres” and classed as illegal immigrants. That’s almost like jail (or a concentration camp). Even after they’ve been found to be legit refugees by the UN. Well, those that aren’t British backpackers, that is.
Yes, but the recent immigrants are in “detention centres” and classed as illegal immigrants. That’s almost like jail (or a concentration camp). Even after they’ve been found to be legit refugees by the UN. Well, those that aren’t British backpackers, that is.[/quote]
Good point! And as for those dirty British backpackers downunder… why they’re almost as bad as the snotnosed Australian backpackers in the UK
Draconian drug laws are responsible for around 80% of the people locked up in the U.S. Mandatory minimum sentencing.
[quote=“bobepine”][quote=“Tyc00n”]I’ll add some commentary:
It was higher for England before, but you shipped them all of to an island. Now Australia is 100% criminals with the exception of recent immigrants, and none of them are in jail.[/quote] Interesting thought. Lots of good blokes down under.
[quote]What does it say when the US has more criminals than a country like Russia? That the prison system has been privatised, is one of the biggest money spinners in the US and that the tax payers are forking out?[/quote]I suppose you could say that but perhaps it would be somewhat with disregard of the racism issues the in US.
bobepine[/quote]
I’d say that it would be easier to get a gun in Russia than America…and they have plenty of racial issues… I remember a Georgian guy in Taiwan (not the US State, but the ex-russian state). He offered to take me bear hunting and showed me pictures of his Druganov Sniper rifle. When I asked him what he did over there, he replied in a thick russian accent “I am a problem solver” 
Hang 'em high
Looks like the Brits have figured out the best way to reduce the crime rate.
[quote]
‘Let burglars off with caution’, police told
08:08am 3rd April 2006
Burglars will be allowed to escape without punishment under new instructions sent to all police forces. Police have been told they can let them off the threat of a court appearance and instead allow them to go with a caution.
The same leniency will be shown to criminals responsible for more than 60 other different offences, ranging from arson through vandalism to sex with underage girls.
New rules sent to police chiefs by the Home Office set out how seriously various crimes should be regarded, and when offenders who admit to them should be sent home with a caution.
Some serious offences - including burglary of a shop or office, threatening to kill, actual bodily harm, and possession of Class A drugs such as heroin or cocaine - may now be dealt with by caution if police decide that would be the best approach.[/quote]
And it gets even better.
More here:
Right…instead of going to prison in Canada they come to Taiwan and end up in prison here. 
Interesting; that makes me want to ask how many foreigners there are in the jails here. Are such figures public? And what happens to foreigners when they’re released? Are they automatically deported? I would normally assume so, except that one time about 10 years ago I was in line at a Subway (Fuxing N. Rd?), and a laowai came in to order a sub, and the staff asked why they hadn’t seen him lately, and he said he had been in prison (leading to a very awkward silence). This seemed to imply he’d been released from jail but allowed to stay. :eh:
Bingo. You decide how many criminals you will have in a society by the things you make illegal. If drugs were decriminalized in the U.S, the numbers would be more than halved overnight.
[quote=“bobepine”][quote]What does it say when the US has more criminals than a country like Russia? That the prison system has been privatised, is one of the biggest money spinners in the US and that the tax payers are forking out?[/quote]I suppose you could say that but perhaps it would be somewhat with disregard of the racism issues the in US.
bobepine[/quote]
No doubt race issues play a part.
I wonder what would happen to those figures if drugs were legalised in the USA in the Dutch coffee shop style.
We had a big debate about that on a previous thread ironman… I’m all for looking for some kind of alternative solution to the prison system which clearly doesn’t work. IMHO Its only an disincentive to people who have never commited a crime before.
In Australia (or somewhere, maybe its the US), they are now trialing a GPS tracking system and allowing crims to be “free”. Also in Japan, they are hooking school kids up to GPS as well… the Japs love control.
What do you think is the reason for this? Racism on behalf of the justice system, do white people just commit less crime (or get away with it?), or does the whole system in America simply work against minority groups?
I don’t know… I’ve never been to America so if someone can shed some light on this I’d be interested.
Is it an issue of what you decide is illegal, or how good your police are, or how strict your sentencing policy is?
I like this idea:
[quote]One of the Patrician’s greatest contributions to the reliable operation of Ankh-Morpork had been, very early in his administration, the legalising of the ancient Guild of Thieves. Crime was always with us, he reasoned, and therefore, if you were going to have crime, it at least should be organised crime.
And so the Guild had been encouraged to come out of the shadows and build a big Guildhouse, take their place at civic banquets, and set up their training college with day-release courses and City and Guilds certificates and everything. In exchange for the winding down of the Watch, they agreed, while trying to keep their faces straight, to keep crime levels to a level to be determined annually. That way, everyone could plan ahead, said Lord Vetinari, and part of the uncertainty had been removed from the chaos that is life.
And then, a little while later, the Patrician summoned the leading thieves again and said, oh, by the way, there was something else. What was it, now? Oh, yes . . .
I know who you are, he said. I know where you live. I know what kind of horse you ride. I know where your wife has her hair done. I know where your lovely children, how old are they now, my, doesn’t time fly, I know where they play. So you won’t forget about what we agreed, will you? And he smiled.
So did they, after a fashion.
And in fact it had turned out very satisfactorily from everyone’s point of view. It took the head thieves a very little time to grow paunches and start having coats-of-arms made and meet in a proper building rather than smoky dens, which no-one had liked much. A complicated arrangement of receipts and vouchers saw to it that, while everyone was eligible for the attentions of the Guild, no-one had too much, and this was very acceptable–at least to those citizens who were rich enough to afford the quite reasonable premiums the Guild charged for an uninterrupted life. There was a strange foreign word for this: inn-sewer-ants. No-one knew exactly what it had originally meant, but Ankh-Morpork had made it its own.
The Watch hadn’t liked it, but the plain fact was that the thieves were far better at controlling crime than the Watch had ever been. After all, the Watch had to work twice as hard to cut crime just a little, whereas all the Guild had to do was to work less.[/quote]
