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:''Share links: [http://www.cannabis.wikia.com/drugwar www.cannabis.wikia.com/drugwar] and [http://www.cannabis.wikia.com/majority www.cannabis.wikia.com/majority]''
 
:''See categories: [[:Category:Charts and graphs|Charts and graphs]] and [[:Category:Maps|maps]].''
 
:''See categories: [[:Category:Charts and graphs|Charts and graphs]] and [[:Category:Maps|maps]].''
 
:''See also: [[Private prisons and private power]].''
 
:''See also: [[Private prisons and private power]].''

Revision as of 13:50, 12 August 2012

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Incarceration rates worldwide

See sourcing here. See charts and maps. Go here for latest incarceration rates for many nations. See Wikipedia list. See this category. Share link. See: Number incarcerated in the USA peaked in 2008.

Share links: www.cannabis.wikia.com/drugwar and www.cannabis.wikia.com/majority
See categories: Charts and graphs and maps.
See also: Private prisons and private power.
See: Portal: The U.S. Drug War. Republicans lead. Democrats follow. Everybody pays.

The majority of all prisoners in the USA (federal, state, local jails) are incarcerated due to the drug war.

The U.S. drug war inmate majority is shown by adding together drug offenses, crimes to get money for drugs, drug trade crimes, drug-related parole violations, etc..

True cost of drugs: More than half of inmates currently in U.S. federal prisons were convicted of narcotics offences. June 12, 2011. Daily Mail. The article discusses state prisons, too. Also, it discusses many aspects of drug-related crimes. For example; "The second main area is economic-related crimes where an individual commits a crime to fund a drug habit. These include theft and prostitution."

Dissenting Opinions of Judges, Federal Drug Sentencing, Mandatory Minimum Sentences. A list of many articles by judges. At November Coalition.

Jimmie Carter: Call Off the Global Drug War. In New York Times: "Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger pointed out that, in 1980, 10 percent of his state’s budget went to higher education and 3 percent to prisons; in 2010, almost 11 percent went to prisons and only 7.5 percent to higher education. Maybe the increased tax burden on wealthy citizens necessary to pay for the war on drugs will help to bring about a reform of America’s drug policies." -- June 16, 2011 article.

"Welcome to America, home to 5% of the world's people & 25% of the world's prisoners." NAACP, ACLU File Lawsuit Against City of Philadelphia for Rejecting Criminal Justice Reform Ad. Article by NAACP. Lawsuit filed October 19, 2011 during the period of the Occupy movement. Also see the ad banner article by Courthouse News Service. The drug war and prisons are big business, and a big part of how the 1% controls the 99%. See Facebook comments about the banner. The Republican Party leads the racist drug war.

Incarceration peaked in the USA in 2008. <<--See that article for sources, stats, and charts for the banner. Most inmates are incarcerated due to the drug war.

NAACP

Image info. See billboard and stats.

Length of sentences causes the huge U.S. incarceration rate

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US incarceration timeline

November Coalition graph. Some Congressmen and police who prosecuted the War on Drugs now believe it caused a large increase in the United States incarceration rate. See Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, and larger chart with sources. See template. Incarceration peaked in 2008.

American Exception. Inmate Count in US Dwarfs Other Nations'. April 22, 2008. New York Times. Page 1, Section A, Front Page. Archive. From the article (emphasis added):

Still, it is the length of sentences that truly distinguishes American prison policy. Indeed, the mere number of sentences imposed here would not place the United States at the top of the incarceration lists. If lists were compiled based on annual admissions to prison per capita, several European countries would outpace the United States. But American prison stays are much longer, so the total incarceration rate is higher. ... "Rises and falls in Canada's crime rate have closely paralleled America's for 40 years," Mr. Tonry wrote last year. "But its imprisonment rate has remained stable."

Incarceration Nation: "On June 30, 2006, an estimated 4.8% of black men were in prison or jail, compared to 1.9% of Hispanic men and 0.7% of white men. More than 11% of black males age 25 to 34 were incarcerated. Black women were incarcerated in prison or jail at nearly 4 times the rate of white women and more than twice the rate of Hispanic women." - Source:

Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP). LEAP - Matthew Fogg (former Chief Deputy US Federal Marshal): "Drug prohibition helps the US maintain a racial apartheid prison industrial complex."

The New Jim Crow: How the War on Drugs Gave Birth to a Permanent American Undercaste. NORML Blog. By: Russ Belville, NORML Outreach Coordinator.

Michelle Alexander's book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.

2003. Federal Judge Quits, Calls Judicial System Unjust. Associated Press (AP) story, National Public Radio interview, and Judge John S. Martin's statement. "The result, he said, is a slew of lengthy prison sentences for low-level drug dealers 'who society failed at every step.' ... While many judges have criticized sentencing guidelines, it is unusual for a judge to publicly cite the frustrations of the job in stepping down." -June 25 2003 AP story. See also: Let Judges Do Their Jobs. By Hon. John S. Martin Jr..

Timeline chart. The majority of U.S. inmates are in due to the drug war. The number of inmates in the USA has increased almost 5 times over since 1980. [12]

Mandatory Minimum sentences or "truth in sentencing"

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See also: The National Rifle Association and "truth in sentencing".
Some people don't know that the National Rifle Association had a large part in causing the huge increase in the U.S. incarceration rate. The NRA strongly lobbied state-by-state for mandatory minimum sentences (also known as "Truth in Sentencing"), and "Two and Three Strikes" laws. Mandatory-minimum sentences, and long sentences in general (compared to other nations), are the root cause of the astronomical US incarceration rate according to a New York Times article. The majority of people incarcerated in the U.S. are in prison or jail due to drug-related offenses, crimes to get money for drugs, or drug-related parole or probation violations.
US criminal justice cost timeline

$228 billion total in 2007 according to BJS data. $36 billion in 1982 (not adjusted for inflation). Detailed yearly costs timeline is here (scroll down). See inflation-adjusted chart. BJS is U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. The majority of prisoners are incarcerated due to the drug war. See drug war charts and maps. State prisons averaged $31,286 per inmate in 2010. See: Costs of U.S. drug war.

See Wikipedia: Mandatory sentencing. See also this page. Mandatory Minimum sentencing is oftentimes used for non-violent crimes such as drug possession. It is a modern-day way to create concentration camps for drug-using "undesirables." Sentences that usually do not allow parole until at least around 80% of the sentence served. Federal laws, and most states, have mandatory minimums. The majority of U.S. prisoners are in due to the drug war in some way or another.

See Wikipedia: War on Drugs, and Wikipedia: Sentencing Reform Act.

Correctional population USA

USA: Peak of 7.3 million people in 2007 under adult correctional supervision: On probation or parole, or incarcerated in jail or prison. About 3.2% of the U.S. adult population, or 1 in every 31 adults. More info here. See template.

Chart below is from a July 2000 report:
USA versus Europe

From this July 2000 report: Poor Prescription: The Costs of Imprisoning Drug Offenders in the United States.

Majority of inmates are in due to U.S. drug war

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Nixon victory stance
Tricky Dick Nixon (above) has won his drug war! Corporatist Dictatorship! The Halliburton Prison-Industrial Complex. A Nixonian "enemies list" that almost everyone is on at some time.

Republican evil, Democrat complicity, corporatist control: The Drug-War Industrial Complex.

In June 1971 Richard Nixon declared a "War on Drugs."

"Nearly one in four persons (23.7%) imprisoned in the United States is currently imprisoned for a drug offense. The number of persons behind bars for drug offenses (458,131) is roughly the same as the entire prison and jail population in 1980 (474,368)." -- From this July 2000 report: Poor Prescription: The Costs of Imprisoning Drug Offenders in the United States. See also: [3].

Number and percentage of prisoners whose primary and/or most serious crime was a drug offense: 8% in 1980. 23% in 1998. Based on federal estimates of state and federal drug prisoners. Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics. Chart from 1980 on.

Crimes concerning money for drugs

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"The FBI has reported that almost one-third of people convicted of robbery and burglary, and more than one-quarter of people convicted of larceny, committed their crimes to get money for drugs. Moreover, 6.5 percent of the murders in the United States in 1990 occurred in narcotics-related circumstances" -- Rethinking America's wasteful war on illicit drugs. By Jerry V. Wilson (former chief of police for the District of Columbia). Jan. 18, 1994. Washington Post.

The Nov. 2, 1995 Chicago Tribune reported: "The latest Bureau of Justice Statistics [BJS] survey of U.S. prison inmates in 1991 found that 27 percent of robbers admitted they committed crimes to buy drugs; 30 percent of burglars said so, and 5 percent of convicted murderers did." -- See Table 3 in the BJS report Fact Sheet: Drug-Related Crime. September 1994, NCJ–149286.

"According to the 1991 joint survey of Federal and State prison inmates, an estimated 17 percent of State prisoners and 10 percent of Federal prisoners reported committing their offense to get money to buy drugs; of those incarcerated for robbery, 27 percent of State prisoners and 27 percent of Federal prisoners admitted committing their offense to get money to buy drugs (see table 3). In 1997, 19 percent of State prisoners and 16 percent of Federal inmates said that they committed their current offense to obtain money for drugs. These numbers represent a slight increase from the 1991 figures."
http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/publications/factsht/crime/index.html#table3

"In 1988, just over half of the murders in the city [New York City] were 'drug-related.' But once the researchers examined the circumstances of the murders, they discovered that the clear majority, 74 percent, were results of the drug trade, not drug use (14 percent) or the need to get money for drugs (4 percent)." -- July 15, 1999. Washington Post. Op-ed from the Drug Policy Foundation. Emphasis added.
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v99.n731.a13.html

"The percentage of homicides thought to be drug-related reflects both the frequency of such crimes as well as how the relationship is specified. 'What proportion of homicides is drug-related?' This simple question is difficult to answer. The FBI's definition is specific but limited. Cities or police departments may have broader but inconsistent definitions. For offenses not as reliably reported or as thoroughly investigated as homicides, the question is even more difficult because complete information is not systematically available at the national level for any definition of 'drug-related.' " See the chart below.
http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/publications/factsht/crime/index.html#whystatistics

Drug-related homicide rates as defined using differing criteria in four cities, 1990
Percentage drug-related
City 1 City 2 City 3 City 4
Definitional criteria 36.0% 25.7% 39.0% 44.6%
Committed during commission of a narcotics felony x x x
Dispute between dealers x x
Offender under the influence of drugs x
Victim under the influence of drugs x x
Source: Data were obtained by the ONDCP Drug Policy Information Clearinghouse.

Parole violations and drugs

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'*Parole violations and drugs. 16.1% is the percentage of parole violators returned to state prisons in 1997 for drug related violations; for failing drug tests, possession of drugs, failing to report for drug testing, failing to report for alcohol or drug treatment. Info is from Table 21 of this report:

U.S. parole revocation reasons. 1997 stats
See chart source with links.

See also

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World incarceration rates

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