Date: 2025-01-11 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00003530 | |||||||||
Country ... USA | |||||||||
Burgess COMMENTARY | |||||||||
The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world at 760 people per 100,000. Between 1999-2010 the use of private prisons increased by 40 percent at the state level and by 784 percent in the federal prison system. This rapid expansion of the private prison industry is the subject of much debate in the US, and has been termed the 'Prison-Industrial Complex.' In this episode of The Stream, we talk to Paul Ashton, a researcher with Justice Policy Institute; Charlie DeTar, co-founder of Between The Bars, a blogging platform for people in prison; and Harris Kenny, a policy analyst with Reason Foundation. What do you think? Does the US prison system need to be reformed? Send us your thoughts and comments on Facebook or Twitter using hashtag #AJStream. Right-wing conservative and television evangelist Pat Robertson surprised many when he voiced his support for marijuana decriminalisation. In this video, he says America's criminal codes and its 'War on Drugs' campaign is costly and imprisoning too many people. He says: 'We here in America make up 5 per cent of the world's population, but we make up 25 per cent of jailed prisoners.... We have now over 3,000 - the number must be might higher than that - but over 3,000 federal crimes, and every time the liberals pass a bill - I don't care what it involves - they stick criminal sanctions on it. They don't feel there is any way people are going to keep a law unless they can put them in jail... So we have the jails filled with people who are white collar criminals... I just think it's shocking how many of these young people wind up in prison and they get turned into hardcore criminals because they have posession of a very small amount of a controlled substance. I mean the whole thing is crazy! '
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