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They Hate Us For Our Prisons
There was a time when US schoolchildren, a few short years before they were loaded up with $60,000 a year in unrepayable federal debt (used mostly to purchase various iTrinkets) to pay for community college, were taught that all those people outside the continental US hate its residents "for our freedoms." It must then come as quite a shock for all these kids to learn that what they really meant is that "they hate us for our prisons."
From Max Raskin, Bloomberg:
The U.S. has the world’s highest incarceration rate, with Department of Justice data showing more than 2.2 million people are behind bars, equal to a city the size of Houston.
The CHART OF THE DAY shows that, with a rate of 730 people per 100,000, the U.S. jails a higher proportion of its citizens than any other country, according to data from the International Centre for Prison Studies, an independent research center associated with England’s University of Essex.
“The model is, if you build it they will come,” said Daniel D’Amico, a professor of economics at Loyola University New Orleans. “Because we have all these prisons and all of these other resources funneled into our criminal justice system, we have this ability to enforce things that would otherwise be unenforceable.”
“That includes the drug war, but it’s also including everything from the Martha Stewart types to immigration policies,” D’Amico said. “The scope of things that are now criminal in corporate law is exponentially higher than it was merely twenty years ago.”
Well, how about no longer "building it" then? But for that to happen two things would need to change: either a member of the ruling Wall Street financial oligarchy would finally have to be thrown in maximum "pound me in the ass" security prison (to quote Matt Taibbi), something which as has been patently demonstrated, can never happen in the US; or, prisons are no longer the equivalent of a fully inclusive, taxpayer funded room and board vacation, where a certain subsegment of society can rest indefinitely for the most meaningless of transgressions.
Since neither of these two events will occur, it is probably safe to replace the the bald eagle on the Great Seal with a photo of Alcatraz and be done with it.
h/t Carl
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USSA Bitchezz
Where is Snake Plissken when we need him?
Snake Plissken: I shut down the third world, you win they lose. I shut down America, they win, you lose. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CDIQtwIwAA&url=http...
I thought he was dead...
He gets that a lot.
and taller
Anyone else here find their tweets don't appear in followers' feeds?
My tweets in reply aren't seen by anyone.
Searching "All" for phrases and hashtags in my tweets returns nothing.
https://twitter.com/twaitiblog
I follow @ZeroHedge, @Wikileaks and @lemetropole so I guess I had it coming to me.
And now I am told "Twitter is over capacity" with a fail whale picture. Is it just me?
Add no interest seniors on home detention who don't eat as well but then don't worry about dropping the soap, and we really lead the world
"Twitter is over capacity"
Am I the only one who finds that amusing? Like people who panic because they can't log into Facebook?
LOL try searching in "All" for a phrase in one of my recent tweets "Herald Sun duped" - no results. Now search "All" for a phrase from same period, any phrase eg "New front in the culture wars". Many results. My tweets are being excluded from search results. Why is that?
Our prisons are first rate it is our inmates that are the world's worst.
I'll agree our prisons are first rate, hell, the 3 hots & cot, cable tv, free medical, dental, optical ... they sure as hell hate us for our prisons. Our prisoners live better than 90% of the worlds population!
Disagree on the prisoners. Just a bunch of dope smokin' drunks, with a handfull of hardasses.
The Mexico bar needs to incorporate at least 30% of the US bar since we are doing the bulk of their incarceration for them
True, the US not only has to imprison the dregs of our society, we have to import large numbers of the dregs of the rest of the world. Bet we have an inmate from every member state of the UN in our prisons.
Fuck it. I'm moving to Iceland.
The Kiwi's must be growing some pretty magic weed to be number 5 right behind Mexico
au contraire, meathead.
How 'bout SNAP, EBT, and fraudulent mortgages.
dang
- Ned
the list is incomplete. i doubt russia imprisons fewer than iceland
it's only for the G 69 countries
although it's hard to hear anyone speak, it's always quite muffled
This seems like an awfully selective list. Where's Russia? China? Singapore?
That makes it better..... "Sure we are bad but look at those other guys."
I think you miss the point.
Per capita. Also, China and Singapore are much keener on executions........
They probably don't allow the BIG criminals to hide behind corporate masks, which... when corporations can be executed, THEN is when it could be considered them to be "persons."
While this study is from 06 the per capita stats are probably still pretty close. We are still number one with Russia being number two. We have about seven times the number of prisoners per capita than the EU.
http://www.nccdglobal.org/sites/default/files/publication_pdf/factsheet-us-incarceration.pdf
Not members of the OECD for one thing.
Both Russia and China lag the US per capita as well, however.
Well our prison made shit ain't gonna make itself!
pods
Somebody's gotta make license plates to replace the ones that went up in flames on Chevy Volts across America.
License plates? Not even close. Federal Prison Industries (UNICOR) had close to $1 billion in revenues last year. Inmates earn from US$0.23 per hour up to a maximum of US$1.15 per hour.
"UNICOR has 109 factories in federal prisons, producing about 175 different types of products and services, including clothing and textiles, electronics, fleet management and vehicular components, industrial products, office furniture, recycling activities; and services including data entry and encoding."
Dickensian workhouses. . .
Foxcon North America LLC.
pods
everyone likes the guy who shows up to the party with a giant red dildo
“Our” fine country holds less than 5 percent of the world’s populous but a quarter (25 percent) of the world’s entire prison population.
http://www.financialsense.com/node/9466
and that does not even count the Corzines' and others within the bankers, government and executive criminal class!!!
But we could easily imprison 2 or 3 times that and not get all the scum off the streets. You have to commit a major felony or multiple lesser one's before our courts finally lock you up. Last night a guy who had been arrested for 4 misdemeanors and 2 felonies so far this year was picked up again for robbing a guy on a scooter at knifepoint. He'll be back on the streets soon enough too because he didn't kill the guy.
Who gives a fuck?
Did the scum of the streets kill 37,000 people in 2009? No! The banksers did. In the Great Depression the suicide rate was 22 per 100,000 people, in the Second Great Depression it is 10 per 100,000 people.
Who the fuck caused it? The scum of the streets or the banksters?
To be honest I'd rather have Jamie Dimon living next door (but I can't afford his neighborhood) than Trayvon Martin but then I'm not insane.
LOL.
Define "not".
the victim cares.
oooh the banksters. what an ignorant term. you sound like a 8 year old pointing fingers.
your fellow citizens elected the presidetns, the congressman who put the laws in place. look in the mirror jackass, Americans caused this not banksters. They just happen to be smart enough to use the insanity to their advantage, dont hate the players hate the game.
also eat it. suicide is caused by the individual no one is to blame but the person. loser
Bullshit. Suicides are worse in recessions and God aweful in depressions. Also there are 2 laws in America, the elected can steal and inside trade, those that elect them can't.
we should put the cheating wife/husband on trial as well. isnt that shira law? she cheated on me and caused me to kill myself. or mabe since she is causing it I can kill her? makes no sense. man alive the ignorance displaying in these comments is astounding.,
But no bankers amongst the incarcerated.
Imagine what the rate would be if they actually prosecuted FINANCIAL crimes.....
wouldn't be enough room - even with all those newly built privately run prisons
Penile enlargement reduces crimes!!!!!
I feel safer.
Plenty of room for banksters, politicians, corporate hoes, and alphabet agency employees once the innocent are sprung.
The Second American Revolution, unfolding now in a neighborhood near U.
Two words: Jury Nullification
They can indict a ham sandwich with all Of their chicken shit laws but all it takes is one hold out to throw a wrench in their grand plan. Get on a jury and wreak havoc with a state attorneys future political career.
Actually seeing this in the Bronx - but the elected prosecutor is teh one taking a stand against unwarranted arrests. You had some jury nullification but now the DA is refusing to prosecute a lot of questionable cases - like 'trespassing' in housing projects where those arrested are residents or invited guests (NOT criminals). He aloso pissed off a lot of cops by prosecuting them for ticket fixing. About time IMO, the connected get off while the rest get screwed. Know too many NYC cops who abused their position and were far from 'unbiased' in their enforcement of laws.
Sadly those other countries have extremly homogenous ethinicities. If you look at percent of certain races in jail...it pretty much is stereotypical. Look at african countries and you will horrific crime. Cultural some people accept more crime than others.
Death Penality for traffic violations, that would cut down on the prison population!
17-19% of all inmates have a mental health diagnosis. Since the reason for their incarceration is often a product of anti-social behavior as a consequence of mental illness, you have a rationale for a significant driver of the base societal rate of locking people up. Other countries (with lower rates of incarceration) manage this population differently--residential treatment facilities, day care centers or other alternatives to prison. The actual percentage of criminally insane is a small minority of the locked up mental health population. The US solution to treating mental illness by incarceration makes us look bad to the rest of the world and creates incredible barriers to effective care for the mentally ill in those locations. This is not the whole reason for the incarceration rate being what it is--law and order judges and legislaters have a hand in the process too. And most recently, the meth epidemic spiked the numbers (presently abating somewhat). Editorially: who is really being punished by the high incarceration rate? Certainly the individuals--tragically in some cases but also the payor of first and last resort, the taxpayer.
SSI would skyrocket if they let those retards out.
Downarrow please, I am going for the record (395)
Is that really the record? Was that MDB in his early days, or RoboTarder?
I got over a hundred one time when I made a comment about Obama and referenced his "cling to their bibles and guns" statement. I am amazed that /s tags are actually needed at times. Been around for two years and any look at my previous Obummer views would have left no doubt. I have voted you down.. good luck
I never down arrow but I'll help ya out just this one time.
Come on! Last year the R word was good for at least 100
Oh how times change
Bobby Rickey, you're either first or you're last
prison is one of the most barbaric and corrupt form of punishment in existence - exceed only by torture, something practiced extensively by the armed forces and cia.....and these high rates in the usa is more proof of its backward barbarianism, and the fault is not all with the so-called criminals but with the infantile minds of the judges and people who advocate this nonsense....it is a tool of repression aand has no rehabilitative value...
The only constant I have found in any court, government office at any level, nongovernmental agency, or 'helpers' of the court is that they will find some way to justify their position (societies great need for their 'service') at the expense of the innocent. If we actually got rid of the problem their racket would have to morph. They never solve or resolve anything concretely, they do make sure they and you are constantly involved, charged $ at every step, and can never legally get free unless there is nothing left to steal.
The net outcome of that self serving approach is the innocence is ALWAYS abused and nefarious activity is never consequenced, for the simple reason that it would harm the profitability of the racket.
I have no exceptions to these experiences.
This seems to apply to any and all areas of law.
+1, That was good.
This is where we can win it people...If we incarcerate most of the people who once worked jobs that were offshored, then we could utilize that labor to compete with China...
I have a great gulag archipelago scenario that will work out for everyone except for 90% of the populace
But still, even though immoral, my ideas should be considered because we have limited resources and although we don't offer any alternates to the current crisis, even though they do exist...I think we need to do what we can do with the information given to us by the authorities..
God, what BS...But whatever...The fucking MSM do it every day...with T.A. and a smile..
Of course there's Lauren Lyster where you get it all..Truth + TA....
All your freedoms belongs to us Bitchez
As of 2008, an additional 5.1 MILLION people were on parole/probation. 1 in 45 adults needed "supervision". What a joke!
http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=1764
So even though we imprison more people than any other country per capita, we haven't managed to jail one banker since 2008? WTF!!!
I worked in a prison hospital as a resident. God what a depressing place. It was sad to see the guards (the vast majority of which were some of the most pathetic human specimens you could come across) lord it over the prisoners. Some of whom were hardcore killers, but the majority of which were people who likely got caught up in events as teenagers and young adults and committed a minor drug crime or two, forever rendering them unemployable in Amerika.
Experiences like this convince me we are a sick, sick society. Like many of you I speak based on experience, not based on paranoid whims.
Prisons are amazing places but, believe it or not, the local jails can be much worse. And this was with a "healthy" economy. Working in the industry, I have watched the already borderline quality slip away almost daily. The worst is our state mental health hospital where, due to funds, they are starting to release violent unstable people that even the insiders confess to me "should not be released." As you witnessed, their stay at the hotel only made them worse. I'm sure you're familiar with the Stanford Prison Experiment:
http://www.prisonexp.org/
Been there too - one year in a Category C Institution in the UK. The standard of healthcare was actually VERY good, and generally the inmates left in better physical shape than when they came in (apart from the occasional deaths from natural (and on a few occasions, "not-so natural") causes).
Whilst (at that time) the morale in the UK NHS was pretty good, the morale in the Prison Medical Centre was amazing - a real "Happy Family" attitude, which translated to better care for all.
The only "bad experience" during my stint was us getting snowed in over one weekend - and with no t.v., and limited Internet (early days) it was cards or the radio.
Must say the Prison Officers were all pretty good too, which may have contributed a lot to the overall feeling of safety within the establishment.
Bankers are holy - you plebs are whitetrash or ghettoboys. Get with the program.
they are a lot like priests, at least bad priests - screwing our children and all
Follow the money. There is big business in imprisoning people.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-20034694-504083.html
nothing sums up the new prison industrial complex better than this story. A friend/judge's son did some of the federal investigation and questioning on this guy. I'd call him a psycho, but he only reflects the sick system we've erected.
Big business is imprisoning people.
Took a little liberty, hope you don't mind.
I would love to see a side by side chart that would chart level of incarceration along with Math score ranking by country over time. I'll bet the math score rankings went down at the same time as our incarceration rate grew.
Houston has 2 million people? More like 5 million. And don't give me that metro Houston shit. That just doesn't make sense to anyone.
By the way, Houston is where the cop a guy in wheelchair who was threatening the officer with a pen. And just to show how winning the guy is, he shot another person. Serial killer on HPD, yet the DA has too much of a vagina to actually prosecute a cop.
Once again ZeroHedge upholds its tradition of having the most worthless comments on the www.
So why add to it? (That feeling is the petard)
One of the greatest projects offering the best ROI is operating prisons. You didn't know that?
And there you have it.
On the bright side, we'll have a replacement for cheap labor (that, for $0.50/Hr, makes the furniture we get "at an everyday low price!") after the laborers riot in Communist China.
Who would have ever thought that the creator of Beavis and Butthead would apparently beat Matt Taibbi to the punch with creating the hilarious phrase, "pound me in the a$$ prison."
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0151804/quotes
. . .
Could it be that our justice system catches more of the (defined) criminals?
Or, has more definitions of "crime?
Or, some terrible combination of both?
I don't know, I'm just asking the questions . . . to all those just about to type a histrionic response.
Or, just catches more of the criminals we would would mostly all want locked up?
I'm not so sure.
And, we are the highest WITHOUT incarcerating the effing banksters and politicians that are the largest criminal element in our society! Amazing.
Population-wise, they may not be very many of us despite how ever much harm they do.
Or, don't do?
Minimum security Fed prisons are pretty nice ! Tax cheats mostly, good card games, fewer ass raping monkeys .... a higher class of guest ! Good libraries and salad bars ! Lompoc gets good marks ! Nice climate and ICBM contrails in the sunset !
Not a bad retirement plan these days considering some of the alternatives. The key is fine-tuning your crime (not too serious) and influencing whatever you can to make sure you end up in the right place.
Fortunately almost everything is illegal these days in some way, shape or form so there is quite a menu to choose from.
How long before legal practices/consultancies sprout up to service this demand?
i hope this is only a scary thought.
. . .
what a prospect!
Designer crimes are the key ! Lompoc has a nice "campus" with less security than LAX ! Prison staff got it good, too, and are more polite than TSA ! World class comfort and security ! Many people live worse on the outside !
The prison staff are pretty great, more like Sgt Schultz from Hogans Heros than real prison guards.
I'm just wondering if I'm better off committing a white collar crime now, turn myself in, and go to a minium security prison now, or should I wait until they take me to a FEMA camp in the future?
I'm sorry to mention it but, 30 minutes later, and I'm still laughing at this post. Kudos , Bud. 'I hope.
But either way you could still arrange an occasional ass pounding, right? I am concerned that many or most FEMA camp inhabitants are....will be elderly. Their sense of fun and play may not be suitably frisky. Does this concern matter? Or shoud I just plan to beat off to my 2008 Obama "Change" poster?
how do i sign up to be a banker, again?
You'll learn from some of the sharpest fraudsters, scammers and Ponzi operators alive .... you'd have to go to Harvard to get a better education ! Christmas and Thanksgiving are celebrated more than in public ghetto schools .... kitchen is partially staffed by fellow prisoners .... fresh sheets, towels and pillow cases .... twice a week .... institutional grade toilet paper !
Think ZeroHedge summer camp ? Downside .... your girlfriend will fuck your buddies and spend your gold on clothes !
Ok, Well that certainly closes the deal; where do I sign up?
Prison rape is a means of social control. People's willingness to engage in civil disobedience, or disobey the gangsters in blue, is substantially reduced by the threat of going to pound you in the ass prison. MLK would not be writing letters from Birmingham Jail today, and that is the way the PTB want it.
Too many f'in lawyers don't help.
About 55% of those prisoners were born outside the United States. About 25% are illegal aliens. We should send them back to their home countries and then the chart will look more balanced.
Other than Japan and South Korea, this chart only shows Europe and North America. Does anybody know what the ratio is in the rest of the world or China, Iran, Venezuela, North Korea and Russia?
You didn't build those prisons.
Watch the ending scene of "Boiler Room" when they paddy wagons and prison buses pull up to the "JT Marlin" headquarters to arrest all the financial criminals. This will be happening on Wall Street and at the White House very soon.
Oh really? Should we just stand by and count on it? Take your word for it? Can you share a source? I need some hope.
Toomanyfake,
You have been posting and saying the same thing along with links to this "drake" fella for about a year.
You have under 4 weeks to be proven a fraud. Do it now then, or stop posting bollocks.
http://stopthetrap.net/
"You could have to pay a fine for simply clicking on the wrong link.Right now, a group of 600 industry lobbyist "advisors" and un-elected government trade representatives are scheming behind closed doors1,2 to craft an international agreement called the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
Why the secrecy? We know from leaked documents3 that the TPP includes what amounts to an Internet trap that would:
The TPP's Internet trap is secretive, extreme, and it could criminalize your daily use of the Internet. We deserve to know what will be blocked, what we and our families will be fined for.
If enough of us speak out now, we can force participating governments to come clean. Your signature will send a message to leaders of participating countries.8
"Please sign our petition to make your objection heard."
Land of the free. LOL.
Well, actually people hate the US of A because of the constant wars. And the false propaganda that goes along with it.
bullshit.
they hate us for our freedom to shop at our choice of 3 different walmarts within 10 miles and fastfood and wrestling/nfl and piss water beer.
Many years ago when young and dumb, a friend of mind along with a buddy got sent up for armed robbery. While in Attica, he got a college degree and when he got out, he got a very good job with the state of NY. Why get saddled with debt when you can rob a gas station, go to prison and go to school for free?
Among other things that should be required in our curriculum...all school children should have to attend a Scared Straight program.
From Scared Straight '99:
"I'm gonna look after you kid. Get you coffee, kid. Cigarettes, kid. Sandwiches, kid. You say, "whoa this is a nice guy". Then I'M GONNA PUSH UP ON YA! I'm gonna show you the real deal! What are ya gonna do? I wanna meet your mother"
And in the shower room they have 5 showers and they shower 50 guys at a time. 50 big, fat, greasy guys who just came in from the yard pumping iron. And they look at ya funny. You say, "I'm a man. I stand at a urinal to piss. Why are they lookin' at me like I'm a woman?" That's prison."
LOL
When they legalize marijuana, they will throw the debtors in jail instead.
Ignorance is Bliss for so many of you..........
For the Po Po in Blue, and inmates, in Brown
Unless youv'e heard the echo of Steel and Concrete,
Please Stand, Down...
As far as Legalizing, Join in on getting that Drive-itself Google-Beetle up and running , and maybe, just maybe part of it's DESTRUCTION, can be, Controlled.....
Hell on Earth, does exist.............
Ticker symbol CCA for the win!
Ya,the FEDS have been filling up prisons at all security levels with pot smokers and pot dealers.Trouble is,it's running up the deficit and making the United States less competitive because of high tax rates.Then there's the issue of privately run prisons for profit where politicians,local cops,judges and FBI Agents have shares in these facilities in order to make dividend income.Did I mention their pension funds being tied up in this form of corruption?Everyone around the world refers to the U.S. prison system as a "GULAG".Top it off with a war in afgan-land that's unwinnable.What's that got to do with it you say?Here's the answer,how can you win a war against a plant?Plus,you've even got a U.S. Government Agency(CIA)running drugs.Hillary Clinton shut up pretty quick after referring to that country as a "NARCO-State".She was told to shut-up for a reason.The better idea is for the Government to regulate weed in order to pay off the deficit and put the Mafia out of business.But politicians want to keep their buddies in organized crime funded.There's evidence to show that a fifth of the worlds economy is illegally controlled.
The fake drug war is not the only source of guests for Uncle Sam's prison state.
Check out Stephen Baskerville and avfm.com for analysis of how the domestic violence industry, along with the divorce courts, are upping the ante by finding new and perhaps even more fraudulent reasons to imprison men without cause.