America and Texas Are #1 But Not In A Good Way

In last Sunday's Parade magazine Virginia Senator Jim Webb wrote an article about the disgrace of America's prison system and incarceration rate.

America has by far the World's highest rate of incarceration. We have only 5% of the World's population, yet we jail almost 25% of the World's prisoners.

That is just embarrassing. Are we the World's most criminal country? Or as Senator Webb put it, "Either we are the most evil people on earth or we are doing something very wrong."

I don't think we are the most evil people on earth, I opt out for the doing something very wrong option.

As in putting way too many people in jail for crimes that don't seem jail-worthy. Like, as satisfying as it may have seemed to see Martha Stewart do jail time. Did her supposed "crime" really deserve that drastic punishment? I don't think so.

I think only those who commit crimes such as murder, attempted murder, armed robbery, rape, child abuse (of any sort), treason, vehicular homicide due to drugs or alcohol, and maybe a few other type crimes I'm not thinking of right now, should be locked up, many for life.

But, economic crimes, as in embezzlement, swindling, stock manipulating, being caught with marijuana, crimes where no one has been physically hurt, those crimes should not be punished with jail time. Big fines. Yes. House arrest for a period of time. Maybe.

But to take so many citizens away from being productive and making them temporary wards of the state is just plain stupid.

And then we have those convicted and jailed erroneously. Just last week, more than a dozen men who had spent, collectively, more than 200 years behind bars for crimes they did not commit, went to Austin, Texas to sadly and angrily ask the state legislature to pass laws to improve eyewitness testimony, expand post-conviction appeals and DNA testing. And to pay more compensation to those wrongly convicted.

As former inmate Billy James Smith said, "I'm still not completely free. I'll never be completely free." Smith spent 20 years in prison for aggravated sexual assault. He was exonerated by DNA testing in 2006.

In Texas DNA testing has freed 36 wrongly convicted citizens. Texas leads America in the number of wrongly convicted people freed by DNA testing. Yet one more #1 ranking to make us in Texas feel proud.

So, we've got people in jail for very minor crimes. Like an out of control Robert Powell-like cop throws a person in the pokey for walking across the crosswalk against the light (happened in Dallas). You've got young kids, with ruined lives, due to being thrown in jail for being caught in the wrong place at the wrong time with a lit up marijuana cigarette. You have all sorts of people, for all sorts of very minor "supposed" crimes, doing time, for no good reason.

And it's a mystery why America leads the World in number of people behind bars? One in every 31 Americans is in jail or on supervised release, such as house arrest.

What sort of hit does the economy take with this type of idiotic dislocation of its citizens? A certain percentage are productive adults (Martha Stewart) thrown in jail, their business taking a hit. Even though it's on a much more minor scale, a McDonald's working kid, incarcerated for 6 months, due to being caught with a drug, also causes the economy a hit.

Local, State and Federal spending on jailing Americans adds up to around $68 billion a year. That is nuts. We need a massive release of prisoners doing time for non-violent crimes. And DNA testing done wherever it may prove an American innocent.

United States & Texas #1

A report from the Pew Center on the States released yesterday documents that the United States incarcerates more of its citizens than any other nation in the world. Including China with its 1.3 billion people. For the first time in its history the United States has more than one in every 100 adults in jail or prison. At the start of the new year, 2,319,258 adults were behind bars. That's one in every 99.1 adults in the United States. In stir. The United States leads the world in both the number of citizens jailed and the percentage of its citizens jailed.

Almost $50 billion is spent yearly to incarcerate the 2 million plus inmates.

Texas leads the United States in its number jailed, with 171,790 behind bars. Texas also leads the nation in number of executions.

So, doesn't it seem that maybe there might be something wrong here? Besides there apparently being way too many criminals. Could part of the problem be maybe some things should not be punished by jail time?

For instance, a couple weeks ago I blogged about The Soviet State of Texas. I wrote about what happened to a friend of mine down in Corpus Christi over a bounced $20 check from years prior. For a few days she was one of the 1 in 99.1 adults in jail. Read what she had to say about her experience in what I call the Texas Gulag, but which she refers to as a Concentration Camp.

"I saw more pain in that Concentration Camp of torture than I ever need to see again. The Judge in Dallas who wanted to extradite me back to Dallas to account for this $20 check to Kroger I don't even remember. It was my worst nightmare. They held me with no charges from 8:30am my last day until 11:30pm that night. I thought I was gonna die there. They took me off all my meds and provided no treatment for my diabetes. I went thru withdrawal from all my meds. You can't imagine."

The U.S. frequently complains about China's supposed human rights abuses. I wonder if someone can get thrown in jail in China over a bounced check?

Such things don't just happen in Texas. I have another friend who had a similar experience, but this was up in Washington. This also was over money, and in my opinion, a malicious prosecution by an unscrupulous, amoral prosecutor. The victim was also a female, she also was denied her meds. (why do I know so many female jailbirds?) On arrival at the jail she was strip searched and spent her first night chained to a toilet that was used by dozens of others. The judge was sympathetic to her plight and released her after 3 days.

Til I heard her story I did not realize such things happened in America. Good Christian human rights loving nation that we are, land of the free, home of the brave. The majority of Americans consider themselves God-fearing Christians. Isn't one of Jesus's things something like "that which you do to the weakest among you, you do to Me."?

There are too many people thrown into jail for nonsensical things. It needs to stop. Meanwhile, O.J. remains free. As are many other actual serious crime perpetrators. While who knows how many modern day Jean Valjeans are having their lives ruined because they were so hungry they took a loaf of bread without asking? Or bounced a check? Or didn't realize calling a prosecutor an idiotic baboon would result in a vendetta that would end in jail time?