Prison Nation Breaks The One In A Hundred Barrier

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Without trying to state the obvious Prison Nation is in dire need of reform but as long as the pols are more concerned with appearances or more specifically "Not wanting to appear to be soft on ******" Put whatever subject you like in the space, then I can't see anything changing in a hurry.

As anybody with a bit of sense knows the dramatic increase in prison population is not the result of the country's stormtroopers doing a sterling job and arresting bad guys, it's the result of every schmuck and his missus being tossed in the hoosegow for obscene lengths of time for committing the slightest misdemeanour or being found in possession of the smallest amounts of substances.

Nobody but nobody in any country in the world should be locked up for personal possession, instead we see families ripped apart, kids taken into custody and lives ruined forever, for what?

For nothing, or at worst for having a drug of choice other than the state sponsored narcotics of alcohol or nicotine.

NEW YORK (AP) -- For the first time in history, more than one in every 100 American adults is in jail or prison, according to a new report tracking the surge in inmate population and urging states to rein in corrections costs with alternative sentencing programs.

The report, released Thursday by the Pew Center on the States, said the 50 states spent more than $49 billion on corrections last year, up from less than $11 billion 20 years earlier. The rate of increase for prison costs was six times greater than for higher education spending, the report said.

Using updated state-by-state data, the report said 2,319,258 adults were held in U.S. prisons or jails at the start of 2008 - one out of every 99.1 adults, and more than any other country in the world.

The steadily growing inmate population "is saddling cash-strapped states with soaring costs they can ill afford and failing to have a clear impact either on recidivism or overall crime," said the report.

Susan Urahn, managing director of the Pew Center on the States, said budget woes are prompting officials in many states to consider new, cost-saving corrections policies that might have been shunned in the recent past for fear of appearing soft in crime.more

UK Ch4 ten minutes America's Brutal Prisons.