Sunday, May 11, 2014

Land Of The Free

If this were happening anywhere else in the world, Americans would be justifiably horrified:
1 out of every 100 adults are living behind bars in the United States, with 1 in 31 in some sort of correctional control, including prison, jail, parole, and probation.
The United States, with 5% of the world’s population, has 25% of the worlds prison population.
Private prisons are operating around the country at the local and state level, and a majority of them include “occupancy requirements mandating that local or state government keep those facilities between 80 and 100 percent full. In other words, whether crime is rising or falling, the state must keep those beds full.”
Thousands are serving life sentences for non-violent crimes.
The School to Prison Pipeline is still funneling mostly black and brown children into the juvenile and adult criminal legal systems.
Solitary confinement, defined as torture by the UN, is commonly practiced in both Guantanamo Bay prison and in mainland US prisons.

Taken from here


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