Prison boom sets new record!

I believe it was Kentucky populist luminary Gatewood Galbraith who said that, under the burgeoning police state, full employment means 50% of the people are prison guards and the other 50% are in prison. If that's the case, America is approaching full employment slowly but surely. (sEe tHe eCoNoMy iS dOiNg gReAt lololololol!!!!!)

The prison-industrial complex has swollen so much since the tyranny-fueled prison construction boom of the '90s that now, for the first time ever, more than 1 out of 100 American adults is in jail or prison. To be more precise, this new record is 1 out of 99.1.

Not only is this an all-time record. The incarceration rate in the United States continues to be the highest of any country in the world. With over 2,300,000 people behind bars, America's rate far exceeds China, which has only 1,500,000 people imprisoned despite having a much larger overall population.

The report released today by the Pew Center on the States says that the states spend over 4 times as much on corrections now than they spent 20 years ago. The rate of increase for the ever-growing (and racist) prison business was 6 times as big as it was for higher education spending.

My home state of Kentucky - under its recently humiliated Republican machine - is the worst offender of all states. In the past 30 years, the state's inmate population has increased by an amazing 600%.

See, that's what happens when everything is illegal. Except when corporations do it, of course. There's no laws on Big Business, but there's so many laws on individuals now that each of us probably breaks the law without knowing it at least monthly. Victimless crimes carry stiff - often mandatory - sentences. A mother of 3 in my area was recently imprisoned for 3 years after being nabbed on a minor drug warrant from 8 years ago. Now those children have lost their mom for a significant portion of their childhood because of a zealous "justice" system that feeds a greedy corrections industry.

Because so many small-time drug offenders are locked up, real violent thugs have to be set free or given a light sentence to make room for them. Recently a man in Wisconsin was sentenced to only 5 years for beating and strangling his wife to death and burying her body - and he may be out after just a bit more than 3 years. Why? Part of the reason is so people can be imprisoned for 10 years over forgotten drug warrants.

The result of all this is that murder and other violent crimes continue unchecked, hard-working Americans who never committed a violent crime are locked away, and America becomes an anti-people prison state.

(Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080228/ap_on_re_us/prison_population;
http://www.madison.com/tct/news/stories/273077)