Why the US is violent place to live in?

[Pekka]

1.8 million?!! omg.. I knew it was a lot.. but.. I'm pretty much out of words right now. I need to go to sleep, nighty night.

... 1.8 million..

[Ramo]

Would you mind quoting the relevant passages? I can't find them...

[Kontiki]

Sure.

from the first link:

According to data collected by the United States Justice Department, from 1978 to 1996...the number of drug offenders increased seven-fold (from 14,241 to 114,071 inmates).

and:

The Justice Department recently released data showing that the number of prisoners in America rose to 1.8 million last year, the highest level ever, and the second largest prison population in the world.

My mistake, I think the total prison population figure is from 1998, so the percentage would probably be a little higher in the US.

from the second:

And the guards needed to watch over the nine per cent of Canadian prisoners behind bars for drug crimes.

[Kontiki]

Actually, the current US prison population is close to 2 million.

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/prisons000420.html

[Kontiki]

Ramo, I wonder if this is what you were thinking of:

About 25 percent were on probation for a drug law violation and 18 percent for driving while intoxicated.

from: http://www.cnn.com/2002/LAW/08/25/jail.stats/

of course, there are about 4.6 million people under probation (from the same source).

[Ramo]

Allow me to quote the entire passage:

Contrary to the public perception that the incarceration of violent offenders has driven America's prison growth, the Institute found that 77% of the growth in intake to America's state and federal prisons between 1978 and 1996 was accounted for by nonviolent offenders. According to data collected by the United States Justice Department, from 1978 to 1996, the number of violent offenders entering our nation's prisons doubled (from 43,733 to 98,672 inmates); the number of nonviolent offenders tripled (from 83,721 to 261,796 inmates) and the number of drug offenders increased seven-fold (from 14,241 to 114,071 inmates). Justice Department surveys show that 52.7% of state prison inmates, 73.7% of jail inmates, and 87.6% of federal inmates were imprisoned for offenses which involved neither harm, nor the threat of harm, to a victim. Based on this data, we estimate that by the end of 1998, there were 440,088 nonviolent jail inmates, 639,280 nonviolent state prison inmates, and 106,090 nonviolent federal prisoners locked up in America, for a total 1,185,458 nonviolent prisoners.

The key word there is entering. Otherwise, it doesn't make any sense. Since, by definition, there are only violent and non-violent prisoners among prisoners. Your interpretation implies that there are only 360,000 prisoners in the US.

Note that entering is implied in the sentences following violent prisoners. Otherwise it contradicts itself by saying there are 1.1 million and 260 thousand prisoners at the same time.

And the guards needed to watch over the nine per cent of Canadian prisoners behind bars for drug crimes

While in the US, it's closer to 50%...

[Traianvs]

Hmm that's a lot, but on how much inhabitants? How many ppl are there in the US nowadays btw? they always say 250 million, but i'm sure it must have been risen by now...


As a sidenote: Belgium has about 8000-9000 prisoners on a population of 10 million, and quite a few of them are foreigners or ppl that are now Belgian but still originate from another country (they mainly do crimes because they are poor, or sometimes, because they're simply evil)

2 million is ... much

Btw don't you have a military of 2 million as well or something? so basically you have as much prisonars as soldiers.. which is funny

[Kontiki]

Ramo:

Whoops - my bad. I skimmed that article way too fast, apparently.

I'm still not so sure you can say that the number one cause of violence in US society is the war on drugs, though.

[chequita guevara]

There are 283 million Americans. And we are armed. Don't **** with us.