On prison populations

[rz350]

I always see articles about how Brutal North Korea, China, Myanmar, ect, are. Imprisoning their population for the most minor of crimes. (this is not about death penalty, only about incarceration)

So why is that the United States has the world's highest prison population, and the worlds second highest per capita incarceration rate. (only behind Rwanda, which is a result of the 1994 genocide)

We in Canada have 1/7th the per captia imprisonment rate of the USA, with European nations between 9/10ths and 6/10ths of our rate.

Does this not seem just slightly unfair on the USA's part, for a western world democracy, they out doing 2nd world dictators in terms of prison populations.

Now this isn't an anti USA thread, its just one issue (and in fact, my only issue) with the United State's freedom and civil liberty's

I think its excessive and heavy handed on their part, what does the rest of the forum think?






(That mis-spelled title was driving me nuts. pc)

 

[Canadian.Trucker]

Do you have any links or numbers to support this?  Not saying you're wrong, but I personally would like to see the numbers representative of each country.

 

[rz350]

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs2/r188.pdf from the British Government.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison some wiki numbers which are slightly conflicting. (and higher)

But if we use the British government numbers, the USA is highest in the world. With Canada still being much ower (still nearly 1/7th)

BUt there are the numbers for you.

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

Simple,.....cause we don't keep nearly enough criminals locked up and/or executed.

Need proof...check out the convictions on this guy and weep for the children.
http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/48170.0.html

 

[rz350]

So then Belarus Russia and Kazahistan are also the good guys? ;D

Or is the British common wealth 1st members like New zealand and Australia (all who have prison pops like Canada or lower) the good guys?

I my self think the Commonwealth and the Europeans are right on the issue. Like the guy in the states who got 10 years in gail cause he was 18 and his girlfriend was 17?

Come on. as far as Prison goes, the US is just as bad as any tinpot eastern European dictator.

Edit for clarity

 

[Canadian.Trucker]

Call me crazy and maybe I have a few conspiracy theories floating around in my head.  However, am I to believe that China keeps a record of all the personnel they detain?  Same for Russia?  Granted Russia is not as bad as it once was, but I wonder if there aren't some secret prisoners being kept.  Same goes for China.  With a population as large as China, I would think they would have more as the numbers including in the document also applied to those awaiting trial.  I wonder if China reports everyone that is within their prisons.  It wouldn't surprise me seeing as how many people have been incarcerated without charge or on minor charges simply because they might disrupt the "peace" of the government's position.

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

So then Belarus Russia and Kazahistan are also the good guys? ;D
Or is the British common wealth 1st members like New zealand and Australia (all who have prison pops like Canada or lower) the good guys?
I my self think the Commonwealth and the Europeans are right on the issue. Like the guy in the states who got 10 years in gail cause he was 18 and his girlfriend was 17?

Come on. as far as Prison goes, the US is just as bad as any tinpot eastern European dictator.

Edit for clarity

On a Moderator note, your last line above just put you on the radar screen here.

You want to have a discussion and then you toss the old anti-US-gee- I wish my penis was bigger-whinefest and think its cool?
Guess again.

Now that the Mod part is done please tell me your experience in prison populations. I'll start, 17 years working and counting, not to mention 21 days the other way......

 

[Pieman]

rz350, I don't know anything about this topic but I would suggest you don't just look at the number of people in prison. Also look at the number of people awaiting trail,  on parole, sentences to community service, other forms of punishment, rehabilitation etc. I suspect you would be able to get a better picture of the difference between each country and their system if you look at the whole picture.

 

[rz350]

Then is it such a large discrepancy between Canada, Australia, Britain, France, Germany, Scandinavia, Italy, ect (all traditionally good guys with good human rights records and the like) and the USA, who falls more towards the bad guy side of the spectrum, on this one point.

Are you saying all the traditional good guys are missing the point, and the USA, along with the usual host of bad guys, are on the money? It could be possible, but I like to think that Canada (and the other good guys) are usually on the money. So from this, it leads me to believe the US might be a bit heavy handed when it comes to sentences and imprisonment. As seem rather out of step with the rest of the free world on this issue. Maybe the USA should step back in line with countries it most closely resembles (you know, the rest of the ones with freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, due process, ect the things that make us, and America good places)

On a Moderator note, your last line above just put you on the radar screen here.

You want to have a discussion and then you toss the old anti-US-gee- I wish my penis was bigger-whinefest and think its cool?
Guess again.

I'm not American, I'm Canadian, I will always love my country more then America, and I love my country for being Fair, Just and free. That being said, I am not anti American, and I am sorry if I my comment came off that way. But I do disagree with one of their policies, and to me, their policy seems to line up with alot of places that also need improvement in terms of human rights.

If this is against board rules, just tell me and I'l leave it be. I love this fourm and don't want to be kicked off.

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

"Human rights" to me means keeping scum away from my family....maybe the American politicians just care more about their families than the vote-counters we have had.

Please tell me your experience with this again?

 

[Pieman]

So from this, it leads me to believe the US might be a bit heavy handed when it comes to sentences and imprisonment.

This is in line with the point I was trying to make. I believe you are drawing a conclusion based on a very narrow scope of the prison system. If you are really interested in this, spend some time researching it, draw your conclusions, and then come back with a way of improving it. Saying something is "bad", whether you are correct or not, does nothing.

 

[rz350]

"Human rights" to me means keeping scum away from my family....maybe the American politicians just care more about their families than the vote-counters we have had.

Please tell me your experience with this again?

My experience is that living in Canada, I feel, and am quite safe. So are people in America, but they are not safer the Canadians. So I guess locking up more people doesn't keep more scum away from their families then what we do.

This thread isn't about being a LEO either, its a grander scale discussion on judicial policy, not the nuts and bolts of being a LEO (which is also very complex and hard I am sure, but they are different discussions. Akin to discussing What caused Nazism vs how to defeat a column of Panzers.)

BTW, the numbres include pre trial populations. This is about prison populations, not number of convitcions, which are things like house arrest, curfew and community service, this is just for people held in a penal institution.

 

[ArmyRick]

rz350, I think you need to live in the real world.

Our justice system is weak, I have several relatives who worked on the police side and the court side. beleive me its a joke in Canada. If we had a justice system that punished people for their wrongs on a more appropriate basis, there would be alot more people in the digger.

The USA has people rotting in the slammer because thats where they put sh*theads. In Canada, go ahead and commit a crime because the social left will find a way to explain how its not your fault. There is a new Canadian theme, accept no responsibility for your actions.

 

[Pieman]

This is about prison populations, not number of convitcions, which are things like house arrest, curfew and community service, this is just for people held in a penal institution

Okay, I still fail to follow your logic: USA has lots of people in prison. More than most countries. Therefore their system is "bad" because they put more people in prison.

Is their systems success of repeat offenders better or worse?
How much do curtual and economic pressures influence the crime rate in each country? Each reigon of the country? (If they are very different, then it is not so easy to compare)
Are the victums of the crime they commit more or less satisfied with the outcome of punishment than in other countries?
etc. etc.

My experience is that living in Canada, I feel, and am quite safe. So are people in America, but they are not safer the Canadians.

Is the difference in crime rates directly related to the justice system, or economic and cultural influences? Again, I think you are looking at the problem in too narrow a scope.

 

[HDE]

rz350

Without knowing how people incarcerated in various countries are treated it seems difficult to know how to measure the "brutality" between countries.  The Yanks take a pretty hard line on drug arrests, including marijuana, so they probably have all sorts of small time dealers included in their prison populatio.    Do large numbers of guys serving moderate sentences in reasonably sane facilities constitute brutality?  Do a little research on conditions encountered by those actually in the various systems and report back.

 

[Koenigsegg]

Like has been said before, different nations and regions have different ways of dealing with crime.  In many nations, especially the Arab nations, if one were to steal something, their hand would be cut off.  If they were to kill someone, they would be hung, after being beaten (in some cases with a live electrical cable).  In the more Western nations we use Prisons, and other systems (community service, repayment) to sort people out.  What process would you consider more brutal, or severe?  The first one I would say.  However, the latter works as well.
American police are very good and there are a lot of them, so on average more people are caught for crimes than in other nations.  (from a non-police point of view, so if their are any members of a police force here, prove me wrong if I am wrong).  In Canada, as has been done before, you can be 17 years old, walk up to an immigrant boy who just got off the boat in BC and bash him in the head with a billiards ball in a sock.  This would kill him.  In this case, the offender got 1 day in prison, and nothing else besides a slap on the wrist...which in Canada, could very well result in a lawsuit, as police brutality :

I would rather the high number of people in prison in the USA than the amount of people getting off easy in Canada.

 

[rz350]

So then the rest of western world (Europe) are also too soft?

After reading this thread, which was informative and well written, are both sides somewhat flawed? Maybe us in Canada, and the Europeans are too soft on violence, well the Yankee's are too harsh on moral crimes (drugs, prostitution, ect) That's what I've come to after this thread, and with that, I bid everyone thank you for your input, cause you made me think about a few things, and that's always a good thing.

 

[Old Guy]

Check out the following site: http://www.prisonstudies.org/

Scroll down a ways and check out the report on prison population rates worldwide.  Please pay close attention to the limitations noted on the first page.

I think the high numbers for the US are caused by several factors:

1.  Easy accessability to accurate data.  Such data is not readily available in all countries and the definition of what is a "prisoner" varies widely.
2.  The high number of drug related criminals. (~55% in Federal prisons, ~ 20% in State prisons and jails)  The war on drugs, rightly or wrongly, has caused a large increase in prison population.
3.  Arrested persons awaiting trial are the responsiblity of the same authority that runs the prisons.  This puts those people in the count as "prisoners".  Customs vary around the world.  In the US, prisons are generally run by the same governmental entity that arrests people for suspected crimes. 

Check out the incarceration rates in countries in the same geographic areas.  Rates vary wildly -- which leads me to believe that the data itself must be taken with some caution.  Haiti, for instance, is a lawless country, yet has a very low incarceration rate.  Bermudas is quite high, relatively speaking.  I'll bet there's a reason for that which isn't reflected in the data, as presented.

Another complex subject.  Sheesh.

Jim

 

[zipperhead_cop]

So then the rest of western world (Europe) are also too soft?

Yes.  And even the system in the states is pretty easy to manipulate.

After reading this thread, which was informative and well written, are both sides somewhat flawed? Maybe us in Canada, and the Europeans are too soft on violence, well the Yankee's are too harsh on moral crimes (drugs, prostitution, ect) That's what I've come to after this thread, and with that, I bid everyone thank you for your input, cause you made me think about a few things, and that's always a good thing.

The US is not too harsh.  If we would take such deliberate steps towards criminals, we could put a real crimp in crime.  But no.  YOU people kept voting the Lieberals back in, and they set up all their socialist friends as judges and now we have the disaster that is the legal system.  You will rarely find a LEO who refers to the "justice" system. 
A big part of the problem is that there are not enough jails.  I will take Bruce's lead on this, but I would bet that we could easily double all of the correction facilities across Canada and still need more. 
And please spare us the "I'm talking about things on a higher plane, not nicky picky street stuff" attitude.  It is people with their arrogance and superior edumacation that have caused the system to degenerate to the donkey show that it is now. 
Canada isn't past the point of no return, but we are close.  I give it 10-15 more years of treating criminals like cherished celebrities and our country will be a degenerate craphole in the major urban areas.

 

[rz350]

Yes, I do vote Liberal, I use my guaranteed right to vote for any party or candidate I want. I vote for the one which best reflects my personal views, as do most Canadians. So therefore I suppose for the last 25 years, most Canadians have supported the views? (and right now, the Conservatives are a minority)

I guess we all have our own opinions, and my self favour Canada and European law enforcement and justice over American style any day.

But you of course have your opinions, and can vote how ever you want. I guess in the end, democracy and the Canadian people will decide eh?