AMERICAN DETENTION CENTER - 2004 RNC GULAG

Is this the kind of America that you want?

DNC Detention Camps Checked Out by We Are Change Colorado

Do you think that you can trust the police and the local government in your community?

World's Worst Prison Population

The U.S. has about 375,000 more people in prison than both India and China combined. However, the population of the U.S. is only 13% the size of the populations in India and China which has a combined population of about 2.2 billion. The United States has less than 5 percent of the world's population. But it has almost a quarter of the world's prisoners. How is that possible in a supposedly free nation?

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/depsta/law/research/icps/worldbrief/wpb_stats.php?area=all&category=wb_poptotal

Also in 2004, nearly 7 million people were on probation, in jail or prison, or on parole at yearend 2004 -- 3.2% of all U.S. adult residents or 1 in every 31 adults. Is the US still a free nation?







Here's another article from the NY Times and Herald Tribune:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/us/28cnd-prison.html?incamp=article_popular_1

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/23/america/23prison.php


It used to be that Europeans came to the United States to study its prison systems. They came away impressed.

"In no country is criminal justice administered with more mildness than in the United States," Alexis de Tocqueville, who toured American penitentiaries in 1831, wrote in "Democracy in America."

No more.

"Far from serving as a model for the world, contemporary America is viewed with horror," James Whitman, a specialist in comparative law at Yale, wrote last year in Social Research.

"Certainly there are no European governments sending delegations to learn from us about how to manage prisons."

Is it possible that this trend could be related to voting? I found this comment at the Herald Tribune that I thought you might find interesting:

"If I may, there is an epilogue to my country’s obscenely large incarceration statistics, and that is voting rights. Many outside this country and even INSIDE this country don’t realize that a felony conviction means that you lose your ability to VOTE.
39 states even deny the right to vote while on parole.
29 states deny the right to vote even if the convicted felon is only serving probations.
And in 14 states this right to vote is lost for an entire LIFETIME, even if the conviction is fully served.
This amounts to nearly 4 MILLION adults in this country who do not have the right to vote at any given time. 1.4 MILLION of them have lost this right for their entire lifetime.
But this trend of voting disenfranchisement becomes even more troubling when you look at the demographics of which Americans are most effected.
1.4 million African American men, or 13 percent of the black adult male population, are currently disenfranchised. More than one-third (36 percent) of the total disenfranchised population are black men.
Given current rates of incarceration, three in ten of the next generation of black men will be disenfranchised at some point in their lifetime. In states with the most restrictive voting laws, 40 percent of African American men are likely to be disenfranchised for their entire lifetime."

Also, here's another perspective that you might find interesting:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/2/15/114022/882


Is this the correct way to address the problem with drugs as shown in this article?
http://www.drugpolicy.org/library/vliet2.cfm

Officer Jackboot Jones

Do you see Officer Jackboot Jones in your town on a regular basis:

DNA links man to anthrax mailings

CNN reports on new developments in the anthrax mailings case:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/08/03/anthrax.case/index.html

Police and Cameras

Jim Carey makes a good point about police and cameras:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=do59qlLOK8A&feature=related