Land of the Free

We lock up more of our citizens than any country on earth.



(charts from  Incarceration in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:)

This NPR story blames Nixon and Rockefeller but it looks like it really took off after 1980.




A couple of notes from Wikipedia....

Violent crime was not responsible for the quadrupling of the incarcerated population in the United States from 1980 to 2003. Violent crime rates had been relatively constant or declining over those decades. 

Perhaps the single greatest force behind the growth of the prison population has been the national "war on drugs." The number of incarcerated drug offenders has increased twelve-fold since 1980. In 2000, 22 percent of those in federal and state prisons were convicted on drug charges.

Our drug laws suck. Bankers and corporations can steal, cheat and lie. They can launder drug money but if you smoke a joint you're the criminal.

once again,... Our drug laws suck.


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