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Colbert 1, U.S. State Department 0
On last night's Colbert Report, an amazing moment occurred when Stephen Colbert raised a major social issue that U.S. mainstream media assiduously ignore: the huge U.S. prison population. The issue quickly disappeared due to the apparent ignorance of Stephen's guest: Assistant Secretary of State Michael Posner, in charge of "Democracy, Human Rights and Labor."
In a sometimes jokey interview, with Posner discussing China's various human rights abuses (including prisoners), Colbert tried to steer the conversation to human rights problems in our own country.
COLBERT: We've actually got more people in prison than China does.
POSNER: Well I'm not sure that's true.
Colbert's assertion is indisputably true. Posner's denial is false. Does the State Department's man in charge of human rights not know the facts?
According to statistics gathered by the authoritative International Centre for Prison Studies in London, the United States has by far the largest prison population in the world: almost 2.3 million people behind bars. China's prison population is second in the world: roughly 1.6 million.
The United States is also number 1 in the world in its "prison population rate": 748 inmates per 100,000 citizens. Russia is 3rd. China is tied for 114th.
This is a U.S. human rights problem of enormous proportions. Our bloated prison population has many causes: the "drug war," mandatory minimum sentencing, poverty, racism. And there are corporate profits to be made from "The Prison-Industrial Complex" -- as independent journalists like Eric Schlosser began documenting a dozen years ago.
Wouldn't it be great to see this issue tackled by some mainstream TV voices . . . other than Stephen Colbert?
- Posted in
45 Comments so far
Show AllBetween Colbert and Assange there might be some hope after all.
Unfortunately, I think too many people who watch will just think this is another of Colbert's "jokes" ...
I saw it and thought the same thing when watching.
And Colbert COULD have at least begged to differ.....That is colbert for you, though.
Worlds largest prison population + Worlds most bloated defense budget = police state
The essense of democracy, human rights, and labor is peaceful conflict resolution through argument and persuasion. A country armed to the teeth and imprisoning so many has lost its ability to persuade. Instead, it promises and delivers violence. Might makes 'right'. What we need is for Colbert to define a new word that is like 'right' but isn't (like his word 'truthiness' in place of 'truth'). How about 'rightiness'? Might makes rightiness.
"Wouldn't it be great to see this issue tackled by some mainstream TV voices... "
I hope Jeff Cohen was being sarcastic since the alternative is naivete. Mainstream TV voices do not attack ANY issue.
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
Cohen sez: "Our bloated prison population has many causes: the "drug war," mandatory minimum sentencing, poverty, racism. And there are corporate profits to be made from 'The Prison-Industrial Complex' ..."
***
Each item on that list is a problem, to be sure. But that last one -- privatization of prisons -- is directly responsible for the exponential leap in U.S. prison populations over the last three decades. And will ensure those populations are not allowed to dwindle.
So, the mythical "land of the free" has the largest percentage of its population who are incarcerated?
How can this be?
Let me construct a resolution to this paradox. It goes as follows:
Yes, we (the US) are indeed the land of the free. Unfortunately, about 0.5% to 1.0% of the people in any typical human society are criminals of one sort of another. The best arrangement is to jail them, so the remaining 99% of the population can go about their life without fear, and indeed, "free" of worry of what this dangerous 1% might do. True freedom, thus, requires a tough-on-crime stance on the part of the authorities, and thanks to God, capitalism, and cojones, the US is the one country in the world that has succeeded in providing freedom to the deserving 99% of its population.
So that's one way to resolve the paradox.
Any objections?
Yes, I live in mortal fear of all those pot smokers that are filling up our prisons. They might break in and steal all my cheezy snax.
I object... to this flaw in your example:
In this country, we don't jail the criminal 1%, we elect them.
Nice.
VERY nice!
Now, that would make a nice bumper sticker!
You are pretty close to being right on the mark when you say we elect the 1%! Of course we don't elect any of them at all as they are hand picked and served up for consumption like any other cleverly marketed product.
Let me put it top you this way.
I would feel far safer walking ANY dark street in Oslo at 4 in the morning then I would a street in Washington DC both from Criminals and from Police.
The fact is even with the highest rate of incaceration in the world, the US has a higher crime rate then most nations of the OECD.
The US also has the most heavily armed Citizenry on the face of the planet and spends 1 trillion a year on arms . I am going to suggest to you that the Citizens of the USA are one of the most fearful on the planet as witnessed by people sealing their homes with tape when warned Saddam Hussein had UAV's that would bombard US Cities with chemicals.
So your paradox is not resolved.
Two questions:
1. Where do these statistics come from? "...about 0.5% to 1.0% of the people in any typical human society are criminals of one sort of another."
2. Do you include war criminals and those who authorized and/or committed crimes against humanity in those statistics?
1. The statistics about 0.5% to 1.0% of people in any society having a criminal bent are totally made up. I don't need to prove anything; all I need is (a) for my facts to have plausibility and (b) for my argument to be logical. In other words, that's all that is needed to resolve the paradox, at least to the satisfaction of a hypothetical person who believes in the mithology of America as the 'land of the free'.
By the way, I picked that particular range (.5 to 1%) just to include the approximately 0.75% incarceration rate in the US, based on the numbers mentioned in the article.
2. ("Do you include war criminals ...") No. I was only thinking of 'criminals' from a right wing ideological frame. The worst criminals in our and in most societies, such as most people in the ruling class (and certainly including the war criminals), are typically viewed by right wingers as respectable members of society. Right wingers tend to only fear the petty criminals, and not the trully dangerous criminals.
Yes. You are full of shit.
Just wait until you or your son or daughter or wife is accused of some petty crime and presumed guilty. Just wait until a rogue prosecutor decides she is guilty even when all the evidence suggests innocence and drags her/him through trial after trial until your family is bankrupt because of legal fees.
Hung jury? New trial, more legal fees. Found innocent? Try her/him on a different charge, more legal fees.
Either we are the worst people in the world or our legal system is out of control. This is a disgrace, something we can all be ashamed of.
"You are full of shit"
calm down, I'm just playing devil's advocate.
Of course I agree with you.
Welcome to Gulag USA. Now go home before you become a guest of Obomber.
It's really impossible that Posner doesn't know about U.S. prison population and prison abuses. Every year Amnesty International comes out with a report on the human rights violations in U.S. prisons.
Also, it was even in the news recently that British citizens opposed being extradited to the U.S. due to the fact that the U.S. routinely and systematically violates the European Convention on Human Rights in its prisons.
Omar Khadr's brother was just freed by a Canadian Court which refused an extradition request from the usa. In part due to torture, in part due to the lack of due process when the brother was incarcerated in Pakistan...
China kills prisoners left and right. While we certainly have an outrageously bloated prison population, I think a more fair comparison would include not just the people in prison in both countries, but the prisoners executed by both countries.
There are no hard numbers, but estimates for the amount of people executed in China each year range from 3,000-10,000. That certainly doesn't even out the difference in the prison population between China and the U.S., but it does illustrate that the criminal justice system in China is far from ideal.
We're also less than Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. We're only the 5th cruelest and inhuman country in the world! Alright!
Who said China is ideal? China's penal system is notoriously savage, which is WHY the US outstripping China is newsworthy.
"A fair comparison ......should be the number of prisoners executed in each country."
There should be no executions in a civilised democracy.
I visited China as a part of an official delegation shortly after the Tiananmen Square protests. We were in a small town in the north when our van came up against a crowd. A man convicted of rape was being paraded around the town, prior to being shot by firing squad. The town people, though muted, thought this good theater.
China's ready application of capital punishment is one of the main reasons for it's relatively small prison population.
That's why it's called the military-industrial-prison complex...
Yeah, but at least we have good honest criminals in prison, instead of political prisoners. Besides, we can be compassionate and don't always put people in prison, just walk down Wall St. some time, for proof.
Not only do we have the highest prison population, but it consists disproportionately of hispanics and especially african-americans. Here's just one example, taken from an Aug 2003 analysis by the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
32 percent of black males born in 2001 can expect to spend time in prison over the course of their lifetime. That is up from 13.4 percent in 1974 and 29.4 percent in 1991. By contrast, 17.2 percent of Hispanics and 5.9 percent of whites born in 2001 are likely to end up in prison.
You are certainly right about American minority prison populations, but China is not known for "fessing up" to its prison populations. In addition, China does not report political prisoners as prison population; dissidents are forcibly confined for "re-education." The mentally ill populations are "confined," but usually by their own families, and certainly not counted as a prison population. Mental illness is not officially recognized as one of China's Government social and moral responsibilities. So, as Mr. Posner said: "I can't be sure about that," no statistics at present can confirm the imprisoned populations of China, and none of us, at present, are sure about that either.
It should be noted that prisons in Asia and pretty much the rest of the world have a much lower rate of violence and fear for inmates than in the U.S. For example it is almost unheard of an inmate getting raped in a Korean, Japanese or Chinese jail. Inmates killing each other are also quite rare oustside of the U.S. which is a very good measure of how much worse a sentence is in the U.S. relative to the safety of inmates. Basically when an 18 year old male is sentenced to two or more years in the U.S., it is a sentence which will most likely involve constant rape and other forms of violence. I would be very careful therefore in describing any "Third World Country's" prison system as being worse than in the U.S.
Space Cadet August 6th, 2010 2:43 pm: "Basically when an 18 year old male is sentenced to two or more years in the U.S., it is a sentence which will most likely involve constant rape and other forms of violence."
Is this a fact? If so, where did you get it? Does "most likely" mean that 75%+ of inmates are constantly raped?
Also, why do you specify 18? Would a 20 year old or a 35 year old be more or less likely to be raped and beaten?
Yes you, too, can make BIG money by investing in one of Amurka's examples of predatory capitalism. Go to Google and type in "Corrections Corporation of America". They are a "leading private sector provider of detention and correction services to federal, state and local governments." That is why it makes perfect sense to take a small time loser and lock him/her up for decades at a cost of $50 grand a year. It is a great way to make money AND you get the useful side benefit of "minority" control so that the people in the gated communities can sleep tight and dream of that retirement cottage in the Caymans.
There is a saying that a society can be judged by the way in which it treats it's prisoners. If that is true, then the U.S. looks more and more like a barbaric country.
By the way, CCA is on the Big Board at the New York Stock Exchange. An investment in them will just keep going up, up, up! Happy profiteering, capitalists!
One more thing - what does it say about our media that we can get some of our best news from "Fake News" comedy shows?
Although I do agree that our prison population is quite a problem and the issue is extremely ignored, one must also realize, that we do have A LOT of people in the U.S., as well as China and Russia have. Yes, we're the top 3, but we also have a lot more land and people that most other countries do. Naturally we're going to have more. And this whole ordeal about human rights, a lot of the people in prison... deserve to be in prison because they're criminals. People in China aren't afraid of the criminals and they don't have as much prison violence, because their human rights laws suck and they're treated very badly. In the US, they get 4 meals a day and cable TV. My ex-boyfriend's step brother was in prison for 12 years and said it was basically, like being a vacation, that you couldn't really leave. He was put away for drugs and some violence acts... when he got out he started right back up with the drug ordeal... so lets not talk about prisoner treatement because really, prison in the US, rarely "fixes" peoples behaviour problems. Some studies argue, that it only makes them worse. I do agree, that there are a decent number of people who don't deserve to be in prison and are really wasting peoples tax dollers... But that doesn't make the idea of prison bad... Would you want murders and rapists running around without reprocussions? Yeah it sucks for them they have to be taken out of society, but at the same time, that's the life they chose and every choice has a consequence, good or bad. Personally, I like being alive and having been in a rape situation before, I really don't want to have to deal with that again. One can't look at sheer numbers when it comes things like this. One must be logical, we have more people so therefor, we have more "bad apples" and more people in prison. England doesn't have as many in prison because their country is as big as 1 state in the US... Same thing with China and Russia is a different story entirely. They have a lot of people in prison, but they also have had an extremely hard time after the fall of communism in Russia. They have a huge homeless problem and honestly for some, prison is a lot better than living on the streets. In times of turmoil, there will be a lot of crime because people are hungry and poor and will do anything. I'm not saying it's not a problem, I'm just saying, look past the numbers and be logical about things.
[that we do have A LOT of people in the U.S.]
Population of China is over 1 billion. Population of Russia 149 million. pop of the usa 307 million.
But the numbers the article mentioned weren't talking about just the raw numbers, they were talking about what proportion you have in prisons. how many prisoners/100k people in the population.
land area of Russia 17075200 km2. land area of Canada 9984670 km2. land area of China 9572900 km2. land area of the usa 9161923 km2. Exactly what the physical size of the nation has to do with crime and punishment is utterly beyond me. Although if you don't know that the usa is physically smaller than Russia, Canada and China, why would I believe you did any research whatsoever on the conditions of prisons in the usa or elsewhere?
If your step brother was indeed in prison, and he compared it to a vacation, he must have been in a minimum security jail, and is probably white. No one argues that murderers and rapists should be 'free to walk the streets' but hey, thanks for making an argument known as a 'red herring'. (in other words, PFO.)
I think jenpen1107 should spend their next vacation in prison. Prison is better than homelessness please! The reason theres so many people in prison and county jails is because there is a "prison industrial complex" in this country. We had to do something about all those manufacturing jobs going overseas,and over the border, what better way to put people to work,than by watching over other people, ummm black people in most cases but with the immigrant hysteria, now they can lock up whole families,(how nice)of illegal aliens. Of course you also know that these prisons are privately run and very poorly i might add. If you think about it its scarier than hell! i mean what is the statistic, like 1 out of 89 will end up in prison or jail, i dont know about you, but that sure scares the hell out of me!
But is he fair and balanced?
The statistics show:
1. We have a lot of criminals
2. We are better at enforcing our laws (Ever be to Mexico? Drunk driving is an offense you can bribe your way out of with $100)
You think the rich don't 'bribe {their} way out of' jail for money? lol
WE need to see alot of brave people in the media step up and expose the truth of/in this country. It seems like most of the time they are complicit or going along with the evils, by hiding or obfuscating the facts by diversion into moronic concerns. WE need our schools to educate students to critically look at what is being said, and how to discern truth, how to avoid being manipulated, rather than jumping on the corporate bandwagon, enslaving themselves to a lifetime quest of illusive material gain, but ultimately enriching only the 'laughing in your faces,let them eat cake' uber wealthy controllers of our world. I think it's time for "Righteous indignation" to be part of the discussion, and movement. Seek Truth, and let it be known that scoundrels and their ways will not be tolerated.
US' total population: 308 million;
China's total population: 1.3 billion
But we have more people in prison.
Sure. That makes sense.
Mo Rage
The blog
Only to those who are thick. The number refers to the number of people in prison for every 100k people in the country. That's how things get compared when talking about countries.
You have a higher proportion of your population in jail than China does. If China was honest about how many people it executed each year, they'd have the highest number of death penalties per capita each year.
"they'd have the highest number of death penalties per capita each year." - only if you exclude the millions of innocent people murdered by the US the last few years. China may have capital punishment for rape, but the US exercises capital punishment for simply sleeping in your own bed in the wrong country (or going to a wedding, or the subsequent funeral, etc - or even DWB).
And by the way, you are the one who is 'thick' - those are actual numbers, not 'for every 100k people' as you claim. Yes, we actually have more people in prison than China (or anyone else). Didn't think I'd have to add you to the 'troll list' - the whole world knows about the US 'injustice system' - we're in a league of our own (with Iran, Saudi Arabia, Israel, North Korea, and a few nasty African barbarians - but they can hardly lay claim to being 'civilized'). The US prison complex is truly barbaric.