USA has 5% of the worlds population and 25% of its prisoners

Politics International Politics
41

Here’s some more for Fred. Please don’t just discard it as the view of the opposition, but try to actually read it and consider the points.

[quote]How much does the drug war cost American taxpayers?

$40 billion per year and climbing. In 2000, the National Drug Control budget exceeds $18 billion and the states will spend upwards of $20 billion more. This is a dramatic increase since 1980, when federal spending was roughly $1 billion and state spending just a few times that. Between FY1991 and FY2000 more than $140 billion has been spent at the federal level to curtail drug abuse, yet drugs remain cheap, easy to obtain and with higher purity levels than before the war on drugs was initiated.

What competes with the drug war for budget money?

Education. Because prisons and universities generally occupy the portion of a state’s budget that is neither mandated by federal requirements nor driven by population, they often must “fight it out” for funding. As state governments sink millions into corrections to house America’s exploding population of incarcerated drug law violators - now nearly 500,000 nationally - education loses.

From 1987 to 1998 state spending on corrections increased by 30% while spending on higher education decreased by 18.2%.

State prison budgets are growing twice as fast as spending on public colleges and universities.

By the government’s own standards, are we winning the drug war?

No. Despite the exponential growth in spending on the drug war, illicit drugs are cheaper and purer than they were two decades ago, and continue to be readily available. In addition, according to White House estimates, 57% of Americans in need of drug treatment do not receive it, in spite of its proven cost effectiveness in reducing drug use.

[b]What has been proven to be the most cost effective method of decreasing drug abuse and related societal costs?

Treatment[/b].

A study by the RAND Drug Policy Research Center found that treatment is 10 times more cost effective than interdiction in reducing the use of cocaine in the United States.

The same study found that every additional dollar invested in substance abuse treatment saves taxpayers more than $7 in societal costs, and that additional domestic law enforcement costs 15 times as much as treatment to achieve the same reduction in societal costs[/quote]
drugpolicy.org/library/facts … onomic.cfm

From the July 2000 report, “Poor Prescription: The Costs of Imprisoning Drug Offenders in the United States.”
cjcj.org/drug/exsumm.html

42

[quote]
3. Is prison an effective way of dealing with crime? Given lower crime figures? I would say yes.[/quote]

You would be wrong. The US did have a spike in crime during the late 80’s and early 90’s and you are right that crime has fallen. However, the numbers show that the reason for that is not police on the streets or increased incarceration rates, but legal abortion.

43

[quote=“Mother Theresa”]Here’s some more for Fred. Please don’t just discard it as the view of the opposition, but try to actually read it and consider the points.

[quote]How much does the drug war cost American taxpayers?

$40 billion per year and climbing. In 2000, the National Drug Control budget exceeds $18 billion and the states will spend upwards of $20 billion more. This is a dramatic increase since 1980, when federal spending was roughly $1 billion and state spending just a few times that. Between FY1991 and FY2000 more than $140 billion has been spent at the federal level to curtail drug abuse, yet drugs remain cheap, easy to obtain and with higher purity levels than before the war on drugs was initiated.

What competes with the drug war for budget money?

Education. Because prisons and universities generally occupy the portion of a state’s budget that is neither mandated by federal requirements nor driven by population, they often must “fight it out” for funding. As state governments sink millions into corrections to house America’s exploding population of incarcerated drug law violators - now nearly 500,000 nationally - education loses.

From 1987 to 1998 state spending on corrections increased by 30% while spending on higher education decreased by 18.2%.

State prison budgets are growing twice as fast as spending on public colleges and universities.

By the government’s own standards, are we winning the drug war?

No. Despite the exponential growth in spending on the drug war, illicit drugs are cheaper and purer than they were two decades ago, and continue to be readily available. In addition, according to White House estimates, 57% of Americans in need of drug treatment do not receive it, in spite of its proven cost effectiveness in reducing drug use.

[b]What has been proven to be the most cost effective method of decreasing drug abuse and related societal costs?

Treatment[/b].

A study by the RAND Drug Policy Research Center found that treatment is 10 times more cost effective than interdiction in reducing the use of cocaine in the United States.

The same study found that every additional dollar invested in substance abuse treatment saves taxpayers more than $7 in societal costs, and that additional domestic law enforcement costs 15 times as much as treatment to achieve the same reduction in societal costs[/quote]
drugpolicy.org/library/facts … onomic.cfm

From the July 2000 report, “Poor Prescription: The Costs of Imprisoning Drug Offenders in the United States.”
cjcj.org/drug/exsumm.html[/quote]

That’s all very lovely but we were talking about prisons not drug-enforcement and rehabilitation policies, right?

Anyway, I am confused regarding your 23.7 percent statistic. See below…

cjcj.org/pubs/one_million/on … nexec.html

It is as you will see from your same source. It is from 2002. It bemoans the 1.8 million prison population noting that over half are there for nonviolent offenses. BUT how do 114,071 drug offenders make up 23.7 percent of the prison population? I struggle and struggle with my calculator but I get the same 6.3 percent over and over and over again. Can you please help? Many thanks.

Fred

I will respond to the following other points from your earlier post later:

  1. Blacks on death row
  2. Unfair sentencing
  3. Increased incarceration has not led to safer streets
44

They’re all part of the same package – the criminal justice system and the governmental response to dealing with those who use illegal drugs, and other “criminals”.

This thread concerns the fact that the US incarcerates more people per capita than any other country on earth. Many are critical of that fact, believe the US criminal justice system is flawed, imprisons many who should not be imprisoned (largely due to inefficient drug laws/policies) and for periods longer than they should be (largely due to rigid, improper sentencing guidelines).

As pointed out, a large percentage of those rotting in US prisons are there for drug offenses. The government spends $40 billion per year to arrest and imprison those druggies, there has been no reduction in the use of drugs, and the growth rate for such government spending and building of prisons keeps climbing at an ever increasing rate. Obviously the system and policies are flawed.

Drug treatment and rehabilitation have been proven to be far more effective means of dealing with illegal drug use. As noted above, “every additional dollar invested in substance abuse treatment saves taxpayers more than $7 in societal costs, and that additional domestic law enforcement costs 15 times as much as treatment to achieve the same reduction in societal costs.”

(Increasing government spending on other more humane programs such as child-care, education and vocational training would surely pay for itself also, as compared to increased social costs such as crime, poverty, drug-use, welfare and incarceration, but that’s another issue).

So, rather than simply closing your eyes and repeating your mantras – if they weren’t guilty they wouldn’t have been arrested; do the crime, serve the time; not my problem anyway, just a bunch of ignorant losers – maybe you (and more importantly US lawmakers and policy shapers) should look at the situation as a whole and consider whether changes could be made and more efficient and effective methods may be available for dealing with those who use illegal drugs, and other criminals, so the incarceration and addictions rate could slow down, money could be freed up for better uses, druggies could become more productive members of society, etc. It’s not just some liberal pipe dream; it’s common sense.

45

I am not repeating any mantra. I did not even say that I disagreed with you regarding rehabilitation as a more effective force.

I am challenging your 23.7 percent statistic. I am also challenging your assertion that so many people are in prison for casual drug use. We now see the same source that you cited offering a number that puts the number of those in prison for drug offenses at 6.3 percent. I am asking you to clear up the discrepancy. Of those 6.3 percent, how many are in there as you have said for “casual drug use?” I see no breakdown. I am assuming that many of those would also be truly dealers right? smugglers? so that 6.3 percent would be the HIGHEST number.

Also, to my understanding there are very clear rules about amounts so a certain amount would be needed to characterize the person as a dealer and not user. Back to you, as your last post is completely irrelevant to our discussion. Step up to the plate and provide something rather than padding your discussions with irrelevant information that no one is discussing. I have never argued against rehabilitation nor have I questioned its effectiveness or the cost of keeping people in prison.

46

I’m kind of wondering how many of those “casual users” were actually dealers that plead down. But I doubt that info is readily available.

47

Back to the other assertions.

I have googled the subject and come up with a number of sites that I have verified against the US Dept of Justice web site on criminal statistics.

I show that Blacks account for roughly 12 percent to 13 percent of the population gradual increases over the years from 1995 to present or at least 2005 (last year of statistics) to being closer to the higher of these.

During that, Blacks have accounted for anywhere from between 60 percent and 65 percent of the prison population or those that crimes have been attributed to.

During the same time, Blacks have accounted for merely 40 percent to 43 percent of death-row prisoners.

So we can take the Blacks are more likely to be on death row argument out of this I think. Please refer to www.doj.gov

Now, back to one of your original disagreements. You suggest that Blacks are more likely to be incarcerated than Whites for similar offenses. Well, how about it? What do you have on that? I would be happy to examine it or do I need to be the one to get this information first? to back up my views?

As to the crime rate dropping because of higher incarceration rates, I see no definitive statistics but I will keep looking if forced to. What I do show is an indirect (possibly) direct rate between higher incarcerations occuring at the same time that major decreases in crime were noted. There has been a lot of disagreement about the reasons why crime has declined but they are at least indirectly related not necessarily causally, right? And perhaps higher incarceration rates are responsible. Seems just as plausible that this is the case and not higher abortion rates as one poster suggested? And also, I thought this was what Bennett got into a lot of hot water for, namely, suggesting that abortions have been effective in getting rid of undesirables? Bennett’s assertion was that it was mostly Black babies being aborted though he did not say this was desirable, he said quite the opposite but his assertion did seem to suggest that more Blacks would result in higher crime rates. Is that view shared by the original poster here? Would you like to comment a bit more on that? Here’s some rope. Go hang yourself. That said, I detest political correctness of any kind so if you have something worth looking at please present it. I accepted much of the information presented in the Bell Curve as factually and statistically relevant so I imagine that I would not have a problem if a poster was able to effectively buttress any claims regarding such here and now. I mean we all have the DOJ statistics to look at, the question is now whether those statistics are skewed because of racism, poverty, unequal job and education prospects, cultural factors or what? So? Let’s have it.

48

Ok, since you want to play games with numbers, here’s the most official, authoritative source available: various prison stats from the US DOJ.

Most serious offense of jail inmates in 2002
[Percent of jail inmates]

  1. Violent offenses 25.4 %
  2. Property offenses 24.4 %
  3. Drug offenses 24.7 %
    –a. Possession 10.8%
    –b. Trafficking 12.1%
    –c. Other drug 1.8%
  4. Public-order offenses 24.9

About 13% of mentally ill inmates and 22% of other inmates in State prison were incarcerated for a drug offense.

In 1997 parents in State prison were more likely to be serving a sentence for drug offenses (24%) than nonparents (17%). Mothers were more likely than fathers to be sentenced for drug offenses (35% compared to 23% of fathers).

In Federal prison, drug offenses (67%) were the most common type of crime for which parents were serving time in 1997.

Prisoners sentenced for drug offenses constitute the largest group of Federal inmates (55%) in 2001, down from 60% in 1995. On September 30, 2001, Federal prisons held 78,501 sentenced drug offenders, compared to 52,782 at year end 1995.

In Federal prison, where the majority of inmates are incarcerated for a drug offense, 40% of those identified as mentally ill and 64% of other Federal inmates were in prison for a drug-related crime.
ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/dcf/correct.htm

So there you have it. In state jails, the most serious offense for 24.7% of all prisoners is drugs. Of those, 10.8% are in for possession, 12% for trafficking (dealing) and 1.8% presumably for manufacturing. In federal prisons, 55% of all prisoners are in for drug offenses.

That’s a lot of people locked up for drugs, isn’t it? Almost a quarter of all state prisoners and more than half of all federal prisoners. More than 10% of all state prisoners are in for mere possession of drugs.

And. . . I get the feeling you have no sympathy for the dealers. But, keep in mind that most of them are petty, two-bit street dealers who are selling largely to supply their own habit. Helping to treat their addictions (and those of their customers) and providing them with education, job training and the like would surely go a long way to reducing their numbers.

I have no idea what you are saying. Yes, with small amounts they generally assume it’s for personal use and larger amounts they legally presume it’s for trafficking, even if there’s no evidence of that. But what’s the point you’re trying to make?

Good. Now that you can see what a large percentage of people are imprisoned for drugs, and you recognize that drug treatment is much more efficient and inexpensive than imprisonment is as response to drug use and you can see even the White House admits that 57% of Americans in need of drug treatment do not receive it, doesn’t it seem clear that perhaps the US government is wrongly imprisoning too many for drug offenses and should instead direct some of the $40 billion per year that it spends on such efforts to treatment, where it is so badly needed?

Just a thought. :idunno:

49

Let’s create a separate thread for the rehabilitation of drug addicts subject and stick to the crime one at hand here. Fair?

I notice that the site that you have linked to refers to jails, state prions and national prisons. My question then becomes one of this: are those in jail perhaps there for short periods say 24 to 48 hours? Are they being arrested and sent to jail for driving while high or being in fights while high?

Second, I noticed this under the federal prisons…

[quote]Federal prisoners
Prisoners sentenced for drug offenses constitute the largest group of Federal inmates (55%) in 2001, down from 60% in 1995. On September 30, 2001, Federal prisons held 78,501 sentenced drug offenders, compared to 52,782 at year end 1995.

Source: BJS, Prisoners in 2002, NCJ 200248, July 2003.

In 1997, 16% of incarcerated Federal drug offenders reported being an importer, grower, or manufacturer of illicit drugs; 25% reported that they distributed drugs to street-level dealers.
Source: BJS, Federal Drug Offenders, 1999 with Trends 1984-99, NCJ 187285, August 2001.

In Federal prison, where the majority of inmates are incarcerated for a drug offense, 40% of those identified as mentally ill and 64% of other Federal inmates were in prison for a drug-related crime.

Source: BJS, Mental Health and Treatment of Inmates and Probationers, NCJ 174463, July 1999. [/quote]

So at least 41 percent of those offenders are there for a legitimate reason right? What are the other drug offenses? merely possession? or does this include crimes that are committed while under the influence of drugs? How are these statistics generated? I am very confused as to all the different categories in question here. Any help that you could provide in clearing up these discrepancies including what accounts for possession would be most appreciated.

50

Yes, I noted that even you cited this so for state prisons the figure is 10.8 percent while nationally for the entire total, it would appear to be 6.3 percent. Would you agree?

51

[quote=“fred smith”]I noticed this under the federal prisons…

So at least 41 percent of those offenders are there for a legitimate reason right? [/quote]

I guess. . . if you consider federal prison a legitimate response to growing a few pot plants or smoking a little dope. Some don’t.

drug-rehabs.org/content.php? … ate=Hawaii

marijuananews.com/marijuanan … hs_in_.htm

[quote]Under the laws of fifteen states, you can get a life sentence for a nonviolent marijuana offense. And the average sentence for a convicted murder in this country is about six years. In the state of California, the average prison sentence for a convicted killer is about 3.3 years. So that enormous discrepancy between how violent crimes tend to be treated and how some nonviolent drug crimes are treated points to a very irrational impulse in this country to punish when it comes to marijuana. . .

in Montana you can get a life sentence for a first offense for growing one marijuana plant. . . Under federal law, you can get the death sentence for a first-time marijuana offense even if there’s no violence involved. . .

I wrote about a woman who was given the choice of testifying against her husband and receiving a brief prison sentence or refusing to testifying against her husband and going to prison for 11 years for a relatively small amount of marijuana. She chose to go to prison.

Another drug case–a woman was asked to testify against her own mother and refused to testify against her mother and was sent to prison for ten years as a result. Now these are extreme measures to get rid of drug use when other countries have used drug treatment and public health policies and have done a much better job at reducing drug use. . .

the sentences for marijuana crimes are disproportionate to the actual harms that are being caused by the drug. The most widely abused and most deadly drugs in the United States unquestionably are alcohol and tobacco and if you were to turn on MTV you can see beer ads. Essentially eighth graders drink alcohol three times more often than they smoke pot and the difference between how we treat alcohol and how we treat marijuana is completely a culturally and not a logically based policy. . .

In terms of the arrests, there are about 600,000 marijuana arrests every year and the vast majority of those are for small-time possession. But there is a higher proportion of minorities who are arrested and if you were to look at who’s actually being imprisoned for marijuana, by and large, the poor and working class people. Middle class and upper-middle class offenders who are busted, generally, privately enroll in drug treatment and are given very light sentences. Certainly the children of high government officials tend to be treated much more leniently by the courts then do the children of carpenters and factory workers. . .

in the state of Nevada, any amount of marijuana is considered a felony and you can [get] a felony conviction for a single joint, [which] can have a lot of ramifications for your life, in terms of professional licenses losing your voting rights, etc. . . .

Oklahoma is one of the toughest states in terms of their marijuana laws and the enforcement of their marijuana laws. There’s a gentlemen named Larry Jackson in Oklahoma who received life without parole for .005 tenths of a gram of marijuana essentially a few flakes of marijuana in a roach. There’s another man in Oklahoma, named James Montgomery, a paraplegic who was arrested with two ounces of marijuana in the pouch on the back of his wheelchair. He smoked the marijuana to help him with muscles spasms. It was his first arrest. He was tried and convicted and given the sentence of life plus 15 years. . . [/quote]

pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline … osser.html

52

$60,000 worth of marijuana and you want that let off leniently? Does that not count as dealing? I am just curious. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am very sympathetic here but what do you say to nations in East Asia who have given this the death penalty? Why have they done so and do usage and dealing rates remain low?

Then, there is the whole thing about legalization of marijuana, etc. That should be on a separate thread here. I think that we have gotten off the main subject.

Also, while you have cited all the egregious examples of judicial abuse, can you provide figures on the norm? Surely, not all prisoners are sent away for “one joint?” and under appeal did this sentence stick?

53

I don’t know what he was charged with, but (1) understand that the government greatly exaggerates the number of plants (including tiny seedlings as plants, many of which will die or are male and will be intentionally killed by the grower) and their value, to score big publicity and increased dept funding and (2) he had 65 plants, which in light of hte above is not a great deal and (3) I definitely feel the 7 yr and 8 month sentence he received is excessive, given that marijuana is used by a large percentage of the population, has no serious adverse health effects (other than slight lethargy and an irritated throat), and no violence was involved. Rapists and murderers serve shorter sentences.

I say they are totally barbaric, inhumane and hypocritical (the latter for punishing harmless marijuana users while looking the other way re tobacco, bing lang and alcohol). Why the lower rates here? Different cultures. The US went through a sex and drugs rebellion and kids are free to act as they wish. Asians are uptight, naive prudes who live at home with mommy and daddy.

54

I sympathize but I have to address the original points of this thread.

I do not see that drug possession is filling up our prisons. Again, to the best of my knowledge, we are quibbling over 6.3 percent or 10.8 percent right?

I have posted figures to show that Blacks do not make up a disproportionate number of death row inmates when examining total prison populations.

Do Blacks commit crimes at rates higher than other ethnic groups? IF the DOJ statistics are anything to go by, yes, and in vastly greater amounts. This cannot be disputed BUT if you think there are extenuating circumstances let’s have them.

And finally, I have shown that there is at the very minimum an indirect correlation between prison incarceration rates and lower crime. Surely, incarceration of violent criminals is to be considered more believeable than higher abortion rates, but back to you on that.

Er, did you still want to condemn me for talking about something that I clearly know nothing about? haha

Seriously, though, start two new threads on drug crime and the other on crime and rehabilitation. I will try to participate.

55

[quote]And finally, I have shown that there is at the very minimum an indirect correlation between prison incarceration rates and lower crime. Surely, incarceration of violent criminals is to be considered more believeable than higher abortion rates, but back to you on that.
[/quote]

Here is a good article that supports both points of view. It is not one or the other but both. He gives the four reasons as: Increased Police Numbers, Increased Incarceration Rates, Less Crack, and Legal Abortion for the decline in crime rates

http://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/LevittUnderstandingWhyCrime2004.pdf

It is by Steven D. Levitt.

56

Among American criminologist there are two factors which are viewed as the fundamental and most reliable indicators of what the crime rate will be at any point in time in modern America:
Number of males between ages of 15 to 25
Unemployment rate

Those two things are all you really need to know. Now, turning to the sentencing issue; which has been the topic in my appellate court class for the past few weeks. What is driving the huge expansion of the prison population is what is called the Sentencing Revolution. It took place in the US during the Ronnie Ray-Gun years (1980s Get Tough on Crime and all that Regan horseshit).

What the Sentencing Revolution brought was what is called structured sentencing. Structured sentencing is a sentencing program that minimizes the judges room to move. Structured sentencing was a reaction to erratic and too lenient sentencing. Erratic meaning the same case would get wildly different sentences if sentenced by different judges; too lenient means too little prison time. Because lack of uniformity and excessive leniency are the two major problems with Taiwanese sentencing, I have recommended to the Judicial Yuan that they go with a structured sentencing system for Taiwan. In particular I have recommended the US Federal Sentencing Guidelines.

The US Federal Sentencing Guidelines are perhaps the best known example of structured sentencing. They were a mandatory strict formula. The US Federal sentencing worksheets look like a tax form. It is fill in the boxes and get the one answer. That number is how long the dirt bag goes to jail, no ifs, ands, or buts.

The US Federal Sentencing Guidelines also eliminated parole and made most cases ineligible for probation. End result, Federal Prison population slowly swells over the past 15 years or so.

Many states, including my wonderful home state of California, adopted other forms of structured sentencing. For example in California there were added in the 1980s and 1990s (often by voter referendum) mandatory sentences for various things (for example use a gun, mandatory consecutive 2 years to the underlying sentence). And of course that most wonderful of California inventions ; the Three Strikes, You’re Out, mandatory life scheme.

Also in a touching bit of populist policy the California voters in Prop 8 redefined the purpose of the California sentencing system as being, in order of importance:
Protecting society
Punishing the defendant
Encouraging the defendant to lead a law abiding life (aka rehabilitation, now in a distant third place)

Result in California; prison population fucking explodes. And crime rates continue to follow the old rule of:
Number of males between ages of 15 to 25
Unemployment rate

Take care,
Brian

57

Thanks for pointing that out, Brian. What you failed to mention – lest Fred Smith interpret what you describe as nothing but good news – is that many judges, scholars and others are thoroughly disgusted with what you describe, claim it is unconstitutional, inhumane and just plain wrong.

[quote]The announcement this week by U.S. District Judge John S. Martin of the Southern District of New York that he would leave the bench because he was fed up with Congressional meddling in federal sentencing decisions highlights growing judicial resentment at the blurring of the separation of powers. . .

Congress has continued to move in recent years to increase the injustice by forcing judges to accept mandatory minimum sentence but to strictly obey federal sentencing guidelines. While judges were departing from the sentencing guidelines only in about 18 percent of cases, conservatives in Congress this year attacking even that level of discretion. The House and Senate passed legislation dictating to federal judges what sentences must be imposed. That legislation was criticized by jurists and legal scholars as a dramatic erosion of the lines of separation between the branches of government; and as a power grab by Congress.

Even conservative jurists such as Chief Justice William Rehnquist complained, but the legislation passed and was signed April 30 by President Bush. That’s when Martin says he made his decision to quit. . .

Martin argued that adherence to strict sentencing guidelines has led to the packing of federal prisons with people – such as low-level drug dealers – who simply should not be serving sentences of 30, 40, 50 or more years.

“Sentences should be just. We shouldn’t be putting everybody in jail for the rest of their life,” the 68-year-old judge complained. . .

Appointed to the federal judiciary in 1990 by former President George Herbert Walker Bush, Martin is one of many jurists from across the political spectrum who have objected to Congressional-mandated minumum sentences and to pressure to obey sentencing guidelines. A 1996 survey of more that 700 federal jurists by the Federal Judicial Center found that almost 70 percent of those questioned objected to mandatory sentencing. . . [/quote]

thenation.com/blogs/thebeat?pid=780

58

And let me add, to keep things simple I did not mention this earlier, but in the U.S. Supreme Court case of “Booker”, the US Federal Sentencing guidelines were declared unconstitutional.

And in the US Supreme Court case of “Cunningham” (which has been argued and will most like be decided in early Feb.) large parts of the California “determinate sentencing” system will probably be declared unconstitutional. That outcome is a “Brian guess” but my guess is made based on the types of questions the Supreme Court Justices, in particular Stouter and Roberts, were asking.

I actually think over the next decade there will be a swing back towards, what I guess we will call, “un-structured sentencing”.

The only sure solution to crime is:
keep unemployment low and
kill on sight, all males between the ages of 15-25

Crime would come to a screaming halt. As a 48 year old male, I have no problems with this solution.

take care,
Judge Dredd

59

[quote]The only sure solution to crime is:
keep unemployment low and
kill on sight, all males between the ages of 15-25

Crime would come to a screaming halt. As a 48 year old male, I have no problems with this solution.

take care,
Judge Dredd[/quote]

:laughing:

60

As to the issue of what impact the War on Drugs (a nonsense program which has now largely been replaced by an equal bit of idiocy called the War on Terror) has had on prison population. My reading of the numbers for California, for 2005 ; as presented here:
corr.ca.gov/ReportsResearch/ … Sd2005.pdf

Show an extremely tight race among the 48,609 new inmates who stepped through the doors of California prison system in 2005. It is a dead heat with:
29.9% in for crimes against the person (i.e. murder, rape, robbery, assault)
28.7% in for property crimes (stealing shit, breaking into houses)
28.8% in for drug offenses

And reflecting the demographics of modern Spanish Southwest California, the new 2005 inmates into California prison system are
45.4% Hispanic
27.8 % White
21.5% Black

Let me give you all some advice about crime stats in the US. Piece of advice number one: do not use Federal or nation wide stats. Because of how different states code stats Federal and nationwide stats are generally useless and or inaccurate. Pick some state you are familiar with and use that states statistics.

I have not stated my position. My position is drugs should be legalized and taxed. The War on Drugs is a bunch of hypocrisy and horseshit. The whole thing back in the 1920s got started as the War on Black Jazz Musicians Who Blow Dope and then morphed itself in the 1960s into the War on Hippies Who Toke Up on Dope and then in the 1980s into the War on Blacks and Mexicans Who Sell Dope to Whites.

Now having said that, in my professional opinion the growth in prison population in California is largely a result of “directed sentencing systems”.

Yours in reefer madness,
Attorney Brian