Startling figure, 5.6 million…..

[skuthorp]

….people in jail or on remand in the US.
(Quoted from a US source from out morning news)

Point was how many are wrongly convicted becaus prosecutors cannot be held responsible.

Five percent of the worlds population, 25% of the imprisoned population accordingto WAPO.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...lds-prisoners/

[Art Haberland]

and if you let one of them go.. they are being "soft on crime". I really do not understand the hatred and need for revenge some people have.

[Jimmy W]

Mississippi leads the world in mass incarceration

[Decourcy]

and if you let one of them go.. they are being "soft on crime". I really do not understand the hatred and need for revenge some people have.

The problem, of course, is that most crimes are committed by serial criminals. So, criminals that are released early, on bail, or having served the sentence.

As an example, in the town closest to me, Nanaimo, there are about 100000 people. Less than 30 people are the cause of 90% of police calls.

So it’s offend, arrest, release, repeat. Is it soft on crime to release those people? I’d argue yes. The rest of the people in prison, whether guilty or innocent? No, it’s not soft on crime to release them. They don’t reoffend.

Telling who is in group one and who is in group two is a issue though.

[Nicholas Carey]

Five percent of the worlds population, 25% of the imprisoned population accordingto WAPO.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...lds-prisoners/

More people in prison as a percentage of the population than any other country, by a significant amount. The USA has an incarceration rate of 639 per 100,000. The next closest country is El Salvador at 562 per 100,000.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/...0-inhabitants/

In sheer numbers, more people in prison than even China (US population is c. 350,000,000; China has an order of magnitude larger population -- c. 1,402,000,000). The USA has c. 2,094,00 in prison; China just 1,710,000.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/...ost-prisoners/

Prison is a highly profitable industry, though.

[skuthorp]

"Prison is a highly profitable industry, though"

So who get's a cut? Prosecutor? Judge? Attourney General?………...

[Decourcy]

"Prison is a highly profitable industry, though"

So who get's a cut? Prosecutor? Judge? Attourney General?………...

Literally private prisons. No cut required, it’s a for profit enterprise. Despicable.

[Nicholas Carey]

"Prison is a highly profitable industry, though"

So who get's a cut? Prosecutor? Judge? Attourney General?………...

There have been a few judges caught taking kickbacks fro delivery of .... ah ... merchandise to private prisons.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...arella-conahan

https://www.npr.org/2022/08/18/11181...-kids-for-cash

These morons got caught because they were sending children to jail for stuff like jaywalking and truancy.

I'm sure there are more that are rather more careful.

[ShorelineJohn]

It starts in the schools! And so many people think what is being taught is far more important than who's (or who's not) being taught!
"Dead or in jail by the time your 21."

[Keith Wilson]

Whoopee! Another map on which you can make out the borders of the Confederacy!

FWIW, the origin of the problem is not for-profit prisons; it long predates that. Those are mostly opportunistic, parasites on something larger.

And just for comparison, rates for EU countries not formerly part of the Soviet Empire start at about half the lowest rate for US states and go down from there.

[ShorelineJohn]

I sure would like to see a map of high school graduation rates overlaid on that map. Maybe even an indicator of how many people incarcerated are home grown.
There is that possibility we are the ones producing them.

[Keith Wilson]

Doesn't much correlate; this is one map on which the Confederacy doesn't show up, although it did until fairly recently. These are 2022 numbers. Texas and Kentucky do very well indeed. (Source.)

[ShorelineJohn]

Um.. our smartest people come from Texas?
Texas is the one with the school system that works?
I guess we all should be reading their text books.

Really I know very little about their school system except they like to phrase things in strange ways, but I am not not one to question real data, or call it fake.
The IT security here won't let me go to your source, I would like to see how they arrived at these numbers.

Do you know of a web site where you just put in the criteria and it pumps you out a map or graph? I could get a lot of use out of something like that.

[Keith Wilson]

Um.. our smartest people come from Texas?
Texas is the one with the school system that works?

No, they just have a high graduation rate from high school. Not necessarily the same thing at all.

You can find a surprising variety of data graphed or mapped just by searching for an image with a description of what you're looking for. You'll need to make sure the site's reputable, but there's a tremendous amount of stuff out there.