U.S. leads the planet in number of people in prison
A recent NY Times article detailed the number of people the United States has in prison, and the number is shocking.
From the article:
- The United States has less than 5 percent of the world’s population. But it has almost a quarter of the world’s prisoners.
- Americans are locked up for crimes — from writing bad checks to using drugs — that would rarely produce prison sentences in other countries. And in particular they are kept incarcerated far longer than prisoners in other nations.
- The United States has, for instance, 2.3 million criminals behind bars, more than any other nation, according to data maintained by the International Center for Prison Studies at King’s College London.
- China, which is four times more populous than the United States, is a distant second, with 1.6 million people in prison.
How the hell can we continue to call ourselves the land of the free when we imprison more of our citizens than any other nation?
It’s safe to say a very large number of Americans in prison are there as a result of unconstitutional laws, namely drug laws. With more and more prisons being built, it’s only a matter of time before all of us are considered criminals.
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