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America: "Land Of The Not-So-Free" If You're A Woman
According to the International Centre for Prison Studies, nearly a third of all female prisoners worldwide are incarcerated in the United States of America. There are 201,200 women in US prisons, representing 8.8% of the total American prison population. As Forbes' Niall McCarthy reports, China comes a very distant second to the US with 84,600 female prisoners in total or 5.1% of the overall Chinese prison population. Russia is in third position – 59,000 of its prisoners are women and this comes to 7.8% of the total. Either American women are the worst-behaved in the world, or the politically-expedient "prisons-first" culture has gone too far.
And here is Al-Jazeera's Heather Schoenfeld explaining five things everyone should know about US incarceration:
Since the late 1980s, the US federal and state governments have sold imprisonment as the solution to myriad problems that have their roots in much more complex social and economic conditions.
The criminalisation tendency is politically expedient. This "prisons-first" political culture has one big downside: it has created mass incarceration.
Here are five things that everyone should know about mass incarceration in the United States.
1. The US incarcerates more people per capita than any other nation in the world: Approximately 1 in 100 adults or more than 2.2 million people are behind bars in the US, according to the Pew Center on the States. In addition, another 4.6 million (or a total of almost 7 million) people live under some form of correctional supervision.
Although the US is widely recognised as a "land of liberty", it could also be described as a nation of prisons. It incarcerates more people per capita than any other nation. Its imprisonment rate (per capita) is almost 50 percent higher than Russia's and 320 percent higher than China's.
Within the western hemisphere, the US incarcerates five times as many people per capita as Canada and almost 2.5 times as many as Mexico.
2. Mass incarceration is not a result of higher crime rates: The US has the highest incarceration rate in the world not because it has higher crime rates, but because it imprisons more types of criminal offenders, including non-violent and drug offenders, and keeps them in prison longer.
With the exception of homicide, US crime rates are comparable to other European countries with much lower incarceration rates.
High incarceration rates are the result of "truth in sentencing", "mandatory minimum" and "three strikes" laws which have limited judicial discretion in sentencing and parole release. As a result, sentences are now mainly determined by what the prosecutor decides to charge. And prosecutors routinely over-charge defendants in order to encourage plea agreements.
An egregious, but not unusual, recent example illustrates this point. In 2012, a Florida woman, who fired a "warning shot" in the direction of her physically abusive ex-husband (who was not hit by the bullet), was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
The judge, as a result of mandatory sentencing legislation, was given no discretion in her sentencing. He sentenced her to 20 years in prison.
3. Mass incarceration disproportionately impacts US racial minorities: Mass incarceration has had a devastating effect on blacks and Hispanics in the US. African Americans are six times more likely to be incarcerated than a white person and non-white Latinos are almost three times more likely to be incarcerated, according to the Pew Center on the States.
Incarceration hits hardest at young black and Latino men without high school education. An astounding 11 percent of black men, aged between 20 and 34, are behind bars.
Much of the racial disparity is a result of the US' war on drugs - started by President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. By 1988, blacks were arrested on drug charges at five times the rate of whites.
By 1996, the rate of drug admissions to state prison for black men was 13 times greater than the rate for white men. This is despite the fact that African Americans use drugs at roughly the same rate as white Americans.
4. Mass incarceration is expensive: Imprisoning people is not cheap. The average cost of housing an inmate is approximately $20,000 to $30,000 per year. This price tag comes at the direct expense of public money that could be spent on public education, medical care and public assistance. And it is one reason why so many states face fiscal crises today.
To put this in perspective, the state of California spends 2.5 times more money housing and feeding its inmates than it does educating students. California is not alone: five states "spend more on corrections than higher education", a 2008 Pew Center study revealed.
5. Mass incarceration disguises the US' real unemployment rate and exacerbates inequality: The current unemployment rate in the US is high. And if we factored in all the people who are not looking for work because they are behind bars, it would be higher - especially among young black Americans and people without a high school diploma.
A recent research by Becky Petit reveals:
"Employment-population rates adjusted to include inmates suggest that only 26 percent of young black, male dropouts were employed in 2008, while over 37 percent were in prison or jail. Over half of the joblessness of young, black, and male dropouts is linked to incarceration."
Incarceration also negatively impacts former prisoner's ability to earn a decent living. Several studies suggest that there are at least six million "ex-prisoners" living within society and when they look for a job, they are 50 percent less likely to be hired than job seekers without a criminal record.
Former prisoners are paid less than those who have not been to prison. In addition, incarceration of a parent reduces a child's prospects for economic mobility.
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As long as there's money to be made housing prisoners you'll see the prisoner numbers rise.
Finally, the USA is number one in something.
More #Feminist Clap Trap, fun fact women get off 80% of the time for a crime that would put a man in jail.
Come on ZH, your not supporters of the FemiNazi Agenda now, are you?
My ex-wife, suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and off her meds, spent TWO YEARS incarcerated in a California Prison...
For shoplifting a $20 blouse from Macy's in Fashion Valley. She was homeless and wandering the streets.
It was her second offense.
So...FUCK YOU.
Yes just look at all the bankers who went to jail after the financial crisis.
Oh wait....
America is a shitty 3rd world country with a few rich people.
Most people now try to avoid america if they can. I usually spend extra just to not fly through the US if I am going somewhere.
"It was her second offense."
Then her FIRST offense must have been a strike.
PS: not a problem anymore; see Prop-47.
Shoplifting under $950 worth of merhandise can now never give rise to a felony prosecution in California; no matter how many priors you have, unless one of them is a "Super Strike"...
Sounds like they made it into a video game.... How many points for the level boss?
the point is that it equally applies to men if not more, so the article starts out with a bullshit in its very title...
Maybe you should instead attack the Californian "Strikes" system, dumbo!
Taking shortcuts in evaluating crime and determining punishments does not always lead to the expected results...
I don't know.
I watched Tony Sotomayor and his 'Beastie Channel' on Youtube. This guy who is African American runs a string of videos showing African American women acting like complete and total reckless degenerates. He usually streams terminator music in the background because he also noticed their about indestructible.. Of course if anyone who isn't black tried to say that.. But all color aside what happens in a degenerate world where people are in line with animals..?
The feminists are a bunch of dopes that demanded their own wage enslavement, and the government was all too happy to give it to them. Women in the workplace is a result of wage stagnation, women-centric advertising (creating a "consumer base") and inflation NOT the feminist agenda. They just took credit for it because they're idiots.
Women, including dope feminists (aka ugly women suffering from sour grapes syndrome) are as much affected by the dystopian effects of the empire as are men. Even worse....a guy has much more time to get his act together than women do. Tick tock tick tock.
Corrections Corporation of America baby!!!
Hey, lets outsouce functions of the state to the private sector where the state had a marginal incentive to keep costs down but the corps have an incentive to extort as much as possible.
Works for the likes of Blackwater/Xe/Academi too!
When has the state ever had an incentive to keep costs down?
CLEARLY women get away with crime much better.
Am i to believe women only commit 8.8% of crimes in the USA?
Yeah...a cop let me drive home after I blew over the alcohol limit. Women's tears, man. Seriously I don't know what these feminists are getting at. Sexism is great. I'm serious.
It's all because of the Tea Party and their war on women. Duh.
Great now the feminists won't shut up about this.
Yep, clearly not enough women in the prisons. We need to get up to at least Thailand levels to be competitive by global standards.
Hey Bitchez: you wanted equal rights, you got 'em.
Someone should write an article about "time served' - they jail you without charging you for unlimited time
Get rid of the for profit prison model........
How about the revolving door injustice system that employs hundreds of thousands of cops, judges and lawyers? They purposely release career criminals to prey on people and create more crime and court cases.
I'm sure Chelsea Manning would agree with you.
PTI,
@government need...Honestly which country treats 'Negros' so fucking bad and are the most racist....the U.S. and Brazil.....both relegate them to ghettos.....you're a grade A asshole.....punk...and that goes to the rest of you 'thumbs up' pricks
Unless the White House is a ghetto, you're a cocksucking moron.
PTI,
Go and put your fucking hood on ......bitch....anytime a 'Negro' gets a nice place ...you want to burn a cross on it.....
No.
Any time a personable but average Negro thinks he's capable of being president of the USA, when he couldn't even run the dog pound in Dogpatch, and then wins the primary and the general, and governs even worse than than the moron he suceeded, I don't want to burn a cross, I WANT TO BURN HIM.
Which of these countries has the most Negros? Not China, not Russia.
Which country of the G-20 has the most Negros?
Which ethnic group in the US is the most likely to commit crime by a 7x factor?
Listen.
I can't argue with this guy.
Mostly, too, many USSA females rape young boys and as a consequence become imprisoned. Their profiles reveal that they are in positions of power, like teacher or FBI "SPECIAL" agent.
Dragging test scores down too. Instead of #29 in Math we could at least be in the top ten. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of White Trash bringing us down, but at least we have a few Koreans to off set that.
Due to decades of liberals telling blacks that they can do no wrong because it's all whitey's fault.
Dupe
So it's the LIBERALS fault? You are useless.
The mess this country is in is NOT the fault of the Richest and Most Powerful Middle and Upper Middle Class the world has ever known who gave away the fucking store because they got sweet-talked by a B-list actor.NO! it is the fault of the poorest,weakest least educated and most disadvantaged Americans.They insist on eating,sleeping,breathing,and walking around even when there are no jobs for them! How dare they try to cling to life by collecting checks from .gov that pay 60% of their living expenses!The Upper Classes have a natural right and inclination to enslave everyone they possibly can! When the economy can't provide a way for millions of people to earn a living,the unemployed and chronic impoverished citizens are supposed to Lay Down and Die.They refuse to do it and that's what's wrong with the Economy! Welcome to Zerohedge!
Did these poorest and weakest and least educated you talk about do anything to help themselves before the downturn?
At least they can't make new crotch droppings while locked up.
I've known three bitchs that did time, and all three were pregnant. The hormones must make them crazy. One of them got pregnant AGAIN on the inside. Conjugal visits, dontcha know...
Zerohedgeington Post? click bait
Haha nice one.
Am I the only one thinking the title is well and truly over the top?
If women compose only 8.8% of the prison population (ignoring for the moment that the prison idustrial complex on the whole is sickening) it seems to me they're getting off pretty damn lightly.
There is no way on earth that women commit less than 1 in 10 of the jailable crimes; maybe 3,4 or even 5 times less but 10? Gimme a break.
per Wikipedia. Between 1980 and 2008: "Males committed the vast majority of homicides in the United States at that time, representing 90% of the total number of offenders."
Male primates simply are far more physically aggressive than female primates.
But you are right, men serve longer terms than women do, when they are convicted of the same crime, and women are far more likely to avoid charges and convictions:
"A new study by Sonja Starr, an assistant law professor at the University of Michigan, found that men are given much higher sentences than women convicted of the same crimes in federal court. The study found that men receive sentences that are 63 percent higher, on average, than their female counterparts. Starr also found that females arrested for a crime are also significantly more likely to avoid charges and convictions entirely, and twice as likely to avoid incarceration if convicted." http://www.law.umich.edu/newsandinfo/features/Pages/starr_gender_dispari...
It's the testosterone. Men with xyy choromosomes are incarcerated at a much higher rate than genotypically normal men. Extra T and they are typically less intelligent.
Male primates are more aggressive and roughhouse more. But, in the school systems everyone is equal. Coupla boys playing punch buggy get detention. BS, kids had dustups when I was a kid and as long as it wasn't a brutal ass kicking that went on far too long no one said anything about it. It happens. Not today. Men's testosterone levels are lower than they were in the 70s and they're conditioned to never fight. So, when the time comes and the aristocats clamp down on us, only us old fuckers will have the balls to do anything about it. Ha!
I trained stallions for 10 years which is essentially a 2000 lb bag of testosterone on legs. I was one of the few that escaped serious injury because I respected the power of the animal and never asked anything that would cause him to chose between me and his instinct knowing what the choice would be.
If a stallion trusts and respects you he will jump through a wall of flame if you ask. If he has deemed you an idiot, your life is at risk and no amount of pain will stop him from killing you if he chooses to. Though I would not work with them any more because of the danger involved, I have always appreciated the focus, power and presence of stallions who cannot be fully tamed, domesticated or beat into submission.
Miffed
USA's imprisonment rate (per capita) is 2400 percent higher than India's - that is a huge difference. The incarceration rate for women in US is 52 times higher than in India.
Most Indians, outside of the IT sector of course, are very humble and meek people.
(Ok, I kid about the IT sector, if you actually talk to them nicely they are firendly too)
Most of India is a hellhole. The ones that come to the West are educated and somewhat civilized.
India IS a fucking prison. People leave there to come to American jails.
Equal rights (which I support) and crazy women might have something to do with it.
BTW, ... it would be so much easier to comment without all these advertisements from Asian women dating sights.
Thanks for letting us know what kind of porn you favor. My screen advertises WD-40, for those tight nuts rusty screws.
Oh man, I got a concealed carry ad, a glock ad, a silver ad...and winter coats?
Well, those Asian women have been after me for years. It's caused me endless disturbing dreams and a questioning of my sexuality. The Russian women have pursued Mr for the same amount of time and he seems strangely content.
Miffed
Wait, what? I can't believe I'm saying this, but I might turn adblock plus off for this site now!
Aw damn! All I get are ads for razor blades, $6 t-shirts, and places to buy gold and silver bullion coins. I wonder what that says about my surfing habits...
It says you don't spank you monkey enough and for some it says you spank it too much and need to read books on how to get laid.
Land of the free LUNCH
Hey, you wanted youz equality, now youz gots youz equality; now STFU and make me a sammich! Bitchez.
Shouldn't gender equality require that approximately 50% of the population be female?
More wymminz need to be forced to pay child support. Give it some time and see how many are found guilty of non-payment.
Korrupt Kortz won't have it dough.
America has more meth addicts.
"Either American women are the worst-behaved in the world, or..."
Is that actually so hard to believe?
Aren't these the same type of people who also complain about gun violence and all other types of violence and now bitch about prison population? Are we too fucking violent or too much a fucking police state. I'm so confused.
I vote open carry and we settle it on the street. More than a few bitches.
Noticed there's no women in prison in the middle eastern countries. I guess that means the women over there are more free than in the United States? Perhaps the authors should go there.
Stoned to death means something very different in the ME versus the USA too.
What this report clearly shows is that America locks up its men… You can’t tell me that America does not have a female criminal problem; as the famous saying goes – “If something bites you it’s probably female.”
Every time there is some domestic fight – throwing things at each other, trying to kill each other – the police are called and guess who goes to jail?
And don't forget it was the women's vote that gave us Obama, and if that ain't criminal, I don't know what is.
And, please, save us from Pew Research, which is not research at all…it’s advocacy.
Anyone who looks at the makeup of the Pew organization, top to bottom, can easily see that it is anti-white, anti-capitalist and anti-American culture.
All you have to do is mention Pew once and your report is poisoned.
Suffice it to say you're absolutely correct J.R. Personally I've never been involved in a domestic violence dispute.
I've had friends that were, and it completely destroyed their lives. Their wives and girlfriends wished they had never got LEW involved.
It used to be "in-Vogue" to blame the male. Now, everyone get's fleeced. Listen ladies, you're not immune anymore.
Agreed. In fact I said pretty much the same thing earlier on (in therms of the stats themselves) but should have probably included a bit more info:
When a woman abuses a child, or sexually molests a young male, they are inclined to get much reduced sentences compared to the men doing the same horrendous act. Often they serve no jail time at all.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/8852046/Home-D-for-womans-sex-abus...
Even an 11 year old: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10890674
That's two cases in just New Zealand alone.
You mention domestic's, and you're right on that front but it goes further. Anywhere, any public place, hit a woman in self defence and you'll be held accountable and locked up regardless. The irony in this is that the 'woman are smaller' aagument we always here is no argument at all. If a small bloke starts provocing the linebacker, lashes out at him and throws a punch while the line backer then decks him everyone is like "Oh he got what he deserved". But try that with a chick and you'll get half a dozen fuckwits coming in to try and defend her so called honor.
There really are countless cases of men getting locked up for things that if a woman commited it she would be let off, or with a slap on the wrist.
JR, it is a rule of 7.
Although women hit men as often as men hit women a woman is 7 times more likely to be injured. (men are stonger)
The injured female is 7 times more likely to report the injury than a male. (what man is going to come forward and say he was bitch slapped,he would rather claim the injuries are from football or a bar fight to avoid being mocked)
The authorities are 7 times more likely to prosecute a male than a female. (the police will advise the male victim that if he proceeds with legal action his wife will leave him and take the kids and the house, so he drops the action, a woman victim would be advised that proceeding to court will give her sole custody and all the mans assets).
The male is 7 times more likely to be found guilty if prosecuted, (juries cannot believe that the woman can be violent or assume she was lashing out in self defence against an abusive man).
The male is 7 times more likely to serve serious time than a woman. (society hates men who beat and hurt women and want him to pay, but they are reluctant to see women that way or to lock them away).
The rule of 7 will vary between countries and juristictions but the basics behind the figures remain the same.
This may come as news to the authors of the article, but no country incarcerates more men than the United States either.
An appalling state, for sure. But, we got a lot a crazy bitches up in here.
Are women incarcerated at equal levels as men?
I believe they make up the majority of our population.
If they are not at 50%...we need to establish a quota and get some more ho's in prison.
Equality....bitchez!!
It's the women outside of the jails that concern me, especially those that wear badges.
FREE WOMEN! (slurp)
Do the crime, do the time.
Eqaulity is a "bitch".
Do the crime, do the time.
Eqaulity is a "bitch".
Do the crime, do the time.
Equality is a "bitch".
This is what you get with a capitalistic, market driven prison system.
It needs prisoners to feed the engine. more and more. they make money on prisoners.
......Yes, American Women are the worst behaved. Answered. Own. Question.
Too many black (may I call them that without offense) females take the rap for narcotics when they get picked up by the cops with their bro. The women go to prison and the guy immediately finds another sistra and forgets about the woman in jail. Very sad fact.
I visited a sanctuary site in AZ and then took a shortcut to get back to a major highway so I could roar back to LA. There in the middle of "no man's land" were a couple of CCA prisons. Holy shit. Now I see where the for profit business is (does this count as part of GPA). They take them from the over-crowded, court mandated, over-crowding in CA and send them to CCAU for a tan and rattle snake training lessons.
I'm surprised that some lib-tard women's group isn't commenting that the ratio of men to women in prison should be 50-50
It's really good for the softcore porn industry
Either American women are the worst-behaved in the world, or the politically-expedient "prisons-first" culture has gone too far.
Both are true.
How about the rates of gang rape and other sadistic abuse allowed to happen in America's prisons without a damn thing being done about it? Don't get excited next time you hear about a psychopath being thrown behind bars, he will be allowed to continue his demented delights while in prison and may even be employed by prison guards as an enforcer. How in the hell do we continue to allow that?
It's terrible. I've worked with a couple of guys who were former prison guards. They said only a few are tough enough to stand on their own. Everyone else has a choice to either gang up or punk out (be the sexual receiver) for their prison term. Increasing gang membership, that's good for business for the Prison industrial complex. If you believe in karma it's bad for the rest of us. When a child abuser goes to jail I'm glad for this but otherwise it's a crime against humanity. To take a person's freedom and then either force them into a gang or force them to get ass fucked for a prison term. And, some guys profit off this and sleep well at night.
Ms No, you raise a terrible fact about prisons. There are so many rapes in prisons that over 50% of rape victims in America are males (with young black males most likely to be raped).
Prison time is supposed to be serving time in austere prisons; not spending every day wondering if you will get raped, bashed, shanked or killed. That should be covered by Cruel and Unusual Punishment.
Women in the USA are heavily drugged IMO. they are all fucking insane, even the ones that look sane, are not sane, infact the ones that don't look crazy at first glance, are usually the most dangerous and manipulative IMO.
The level of run-off drugs and pharmaceuticals in the water obviously affects women more than men.
You can thank Monsanto.
Look at the birth rates, if they drop it usually indicates that population group has some kind of poison in the water making the women in that group crazy homicidal demons.
ROFL, you are insane.
This statement in the monologue is incorrect: "California spends 2.5 times more money housing and feeding its inmates than it does educating students."
California spends $1b more on prisons than on higher education.
The Author should spend less time being inflammatory and more time on fact collecting.
There's no mention of the percentage of people incarcerated who suffer some form of mental illness?
"Either American women are the worst-behaved in the world".
By what I can see in Hollywood movies, that's probaby the right answer.
"With the exception of homicide, US crime rates are comparable to other European countries with much lower incarceration rates."
Could that be because the most likely to commit crimes are already in jail? It seems to me long prison terms can only reduce the amount of repeat offenders.
"Mass incarceration has had a devastating effect on blacks and Hispanics in the US."
Yeap. When you sell those people violent rap music/icons/porn to line your purse, you get violent people as a result. It works like advertising.
Why doesn't America find the right solution, give them equal opportunity instead of locking them into stereotypes? Ah, yes, because stereotypes make money, whereas education breeds political dissent.
"Either American women are the worst-behaved in the world, or the politically-expedient "prisons-first" culture has gone too far."
OR we are finally moving towards equality and no longer letting women off with a slap on the wrist for committing the same crimes that would get a man thrown in prison... Though I would rather have it go the other way and stop punishing men so harshly.
Speaking of 'criminals'.....anyone seen 'Jon Corzine' lately?...anyone?
Women just get caught in the U.S., because of world class forensics. They are far more voilent than men. They have just been getting away with thry're crimes previously, simply because they're women. Feel sorry for me, she said.
Tough call. American women are the worst-behaved and America is also a police-state so it could be both.