New England Patriots Forums - PatsFans.com Patriots Fan Messageboard
Page 1 of 5 1 2345
Show 40 post(s) from this thread on one page

New England Patriots Forums - PatsFans.com Patriots Fan Messageboard (http://www.patsfans.com/new-england-patriots/messageboard/)
-   Political Discussion (http://www.patsfans.com/new-england-patriots/messageboard/12/political-discussion.html)
-   -   US prison population has quadrupled since 1980 from 500k to 2.3 million (http://www.patsfans.com/new-england-patriots/messageboard/12/673812-us-prison-population-has-quadrupled-since-1980-500k-2-3-million.html)

Holy Diver 09-30-2010 11:43 AM
US prison population has quadrupled since 1980 from 500k to 2.3 million
 
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/09/o...nt-jail-study/

One in 28 US kids has a parent in prison: study

In all, 2.7 million US children have parents behind bars, and "two-thirds of these children’s parents were incarcerated for non-violent offenses," the study notes.

What happened in 1980?

khayos 09-30-2010 11:46 AM
Re: US prison population has quadrupled since 1980 from 500k to 2.3 million
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Holy Diver (Post 2254694)
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/09/o...nt-jail-study/

One in 28 US kids has a parent in prison: study

In all, 2.7 million US children have parents behind bars, and "two-thirds of these children’s parents were incarcerated for non-violent offenses," the study notes.

What happened in 1980?
Pretty sure that's when crack started going bigtime...

Leave No Doubt 09-30-2010 11:55 AM
Re: US prison population has quadrupled since 1980 from 500k to 2.3 million
 
There's also a racial divide:
Quote:
Not surprisingly, the statistics show large disparities when broken down by race. Among black children, fully one in nine, or 11.4 percent, have a parent in jail. For Hispanics, the number is one in 28, and for white children it's one in 57.

The study also finds that the US now has a prison population larger than the 35 largest European countries combined.
Cocaine is what happened in the 80's. It morphed into crack just so everybody could afford it, no poor black person left behind and all that. To combat all this we needed a War On Drugs.

And we've been in the Incarceration Record Books ever since.

wistahpatsfan 09-30-2010 11:59 AM
Re: US prison population has quadrupled since 1980 from 500k to 2.3 million
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Holy Diver (Post 2254694)

What happened in 1980?
Leme guess.Ronald Reagan's Failed War on Drugs (...and cocaine is crack, just in the hands of a poor person). Of course. along with that came sentencing guidelines with mandatory sentence minimums and the "three strikes and out" garbage.

Along with all this was the explosion of the security and prison industries and private prison management. The incentives to make money on the inprisonment of poor Americans is too good to end. Crime also gives politicians (especially elected judges) something to run on when they're not busy baeting on gays, Mexicans, and poor people.

Bad boys, bad boys...Whatcha gonna do...

http://www.spartantailgate.com/forum...5-riotgear.jpg

The Brandon Five 09-30-2010 12:09 PM
Re: US prison population has quadrupled since 1980 from 500k to 2.3 million
 
The war on drugs is a disaster on almost every level. Mexico has a civil war on its hands thanks to the illegal drug trade.

Real World 09-30-2010 01:03 PM
Re: US prison population has quadrupled since 1980 from 500k to 2.3 million
 
I've always been on the legalize, regulate, and tax drugs side of the issue. I voted YES on the ballot question last year, that made possesion of a joint only a finable offense. I think revisiting the issue on a national level would be wise.

One thing to consider is that the figure is a total, whereas a percentage would be more relative. There are 70-80 million more people in the country now, than there were 30 years ago. That point wouldn't come close to explaining the vast increase though. I'd like to go over the study's findings to see what the rate of acceleration was, and what it is attributable to.

Real World 09-30-2010 01:07 PM
Re: US prison population has quadrupled since 1980 from 500k to 2.3 million
 
Some interesting stuff inside that study's PDF.

Quote:
• One in 87 working-aged white men is in prison or jail, compared with 1 in 36
Hispanic men and 1 in 12 African American men.

• More young (20 to 34-year-old) African American men without a high school
diploma or GED are currently behind bars (37 percent) than employed (26
percent).

From the no **** sherlock page of the study.

Quote:
INCARCERATION NEGATIVELY AFFECTS FORMER INMATES’
ECONOMIC PROSPECTS.

• Serving time reduces hourly wages for men by approximately 11 percent, annual
employment by 9 weeks and annual earnings by 40 percent.
• By age 48, the typical former inmate will have earned $179,000 less than if he had
never been incarcerated.
• Incarceration depresses the total earnings of white males by 2 percent, of Hispanic
males by 6 percent, and of black males by 9 percent.

FORMER INMATES EXPERIENCE LESS UPWARD ECONOMIC
MOBILITY THAN THOSE WHO ARE NEVER INCARCERATED.

• Of the former inmates who were in the lowest fifth of the male earnings distribution
in 1986, two-thirds remained on the bottom rung in 2006, twice the number of
those who were not incarcerated.
• Only 2 percent of previously incarcerated men who started in the bottom fifth of the
earnings distribution made it to the top fifth 20 years later, compared to 15 percent
of men who started at the bottom but were never incarcerated.

Mrs.PatsFanInVa 09-30-2010 01:17 PM
Re: US prison population has quadrupled since 1980 from 500k to 2.3 million
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Real World (Post 2254799)
I've always been on the legalize, regulate, and tax drugs side of the issue. I voted YES on the ballot question last year, that made possesion of a joint only a finable offense. I think revisiting the issue on a national level would be wise.
That could be valid, if we knew for certain that many of those currently incarcerated are being held on drug charges. But we don't, do we? It would seem reasonable to me that the number is, while not insignificant, also not the entire problem. For one thing, first offenses, and personal use offenses, don't usually end up with anything other than a fine and probation. Most people don't even end up serving half of their actual sentence even when they DO get jail time.

Quote:
One thing to consider is that the figure is a total, whereas a percentage would be more relative. There are 70-80 million more people in the country now, than there were 30 years ago. That point wouldn't come close to explaining the vast increase though. I'd like to go over the study's findings to see what the rate of acceleration was, and what it is attributable to.
It's a very interesting story/poll but it's in a vacuum. We have no idea of what people are getting arrested for or why the numbers have climbed so high.

It's especially interesting in light of the fact that crime statistics are down all over the USA.

Maybe because everyone's in jail already?

If that's the correlation, do we really want to change things?

Real World 09-30-2010 01:19 PM
Re: US prison population has quadrupled since 1980 from 500k to 2.3 million
 
It's an interesting study, but it more or less deals with the economic implications of the incarcerated, versus the non. It doesn't really explain why the incarceration rates have increased so much.

Real World 09-30-2010 01:24 PM
Re: US prison population has quadrupled since 1980 from 500k to 2.3 million
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mrs.PatsFanInVa (Post 2254825)
That could be valid, if we knew for certain that many of those currently incarcerated are being held on drug charges. But we don't, do we? It would seem reasonable to me that the number is, while not insignificant, also not the entire problem. For one thing, first offenses, and personal use offenses, don't usually end up with anything other than a fine and probation. Most people don't even end up serving half of their actual sentence even when they DO get jail time.



It's a very interesting story/poll but it's in a vacuum. We have no idea of what people are getting arrested for or why the numbers have climbed so high.

It's especially interesting in light of the fact that crime statistics are down all over the USA.

Maybe because everyone's in jail already?

If that's the correlation, do we really want to change things?
I completely agree with you, as I mentioned something similar just now in a post I made. We know the total number has skyrocketed since 1980, but we don't really know why. I went through the study, and it doesn't really get into that question. It basically explains what those rates are racially, and educationally, while then explaining the the earnings disaparity of those incarcerated, versus those not. I know a lot of people in jail, are repeat offenders too. How many of those in jail fall under that characteristic? There are lots of questions here, that aren't answered by the study.


All times are GMT -5. The time now is 03:52 AM.
Page 1 of 5 1 2345
Show 40 post(s) from this thread on one page

Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.7
Copyright ©2000 - 2013, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
Search Engine Optimization by vBSEO 3.6.0 PL2

© Copyright 2000-2012. PatsFans.com Is a Partner of USA TODAY Sports Digital Properties.
The opinions posted in this forum do not necessarily reflect the opinions of our staff at PatsFans.com or USA Today.
We are not affiliated with the New England Patriots™ or the NFL™. The Photo Used In the header was taken by Ian Logue.

This site is owned and operated by I&K Internet Design Enterprises, LLC


1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360 361 362 363 364 365 366 367 368 369 370 371 372 373 374 375 376 377 378 379 380 381 382 383 384 385 386 387 388 389 390 391 392 393 394 395 396 397 398 399 400 401 402 403 404 405 406 407 408 409 410 411 412 413 414 415 416 417 418 419 420 421 422 423 424 425 426 427 428 429 430 431 432 433 434 435 436 437 438 439 440 441 442 443 444 445 446 447 448 449 450 451 452 453 454 455 456 457 458 459 460 461 462 463 464 465 466 467 468 469 470 471 472 473 474 475 476 477 478 479 480 481 482 483 484 485 486 487 488 489 490 491 492 493 494 495 496 497 498 499 500 501 502 503 504 505 506 507 508 509 510 511 512 513 514 515 516 517 518 519 520 521 522 523 524 525 526 527 528 529 530 531 532 533 534 535 536 537 538 539 540 541 542 543 544 545 546 547 548 549 550 551 552 553 554 555 556 557 558 559 560 561 562 563