The United States has less than 5 percent of the world’s population. But it has almost a quarter of the world’s prisoners.This follows up on the report in February that Michigan is one of four states in the country that spends more on prisons than higher education.
My first reaction is to wonder why Americans are not outraged about this? But then I realize, it's because the majority of Americans want it this way. We elect politicians who are "tough on crime" and god help a candidate who dares challenge the status quo. These same politicians go on to enact absurd pieces of legislation that mandate prison sentences and eliminate the ability of judges to take mitigating circumstances into account. White collar criminals do minimal time, if any, making the prison population invisible to the majority of the population.
In California, the Prison Guard union is one of the most powerful sources of political funding - and they make no bones about their goal of more prisoners and longer sentences. We "outsource" prisons making private companies (and their lobbyests) into still another voice for more jail time.
What we don't have, is enough organizations standing up and saying that this system is ineffective, racist, discriminatory and hateful. Instead we have (white collar criminal) George Bush harping about how much he loves "freedom".
When the rest of the world looks at the U.S., this is just another piece of evidence that we are really a warlike, violent country that has no right to lecture others about their treatment of human rights.
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