http://wcbstv.com/national/prison.americ......053.html

So the question I have is, which of you off topic forum posters is a jailbird posting from inside some correctional facility?

Do I need to include a smiley face?

Here you go:

Another fun fact! 900,000 Americans are on the USA watch list.

Mitch

Just Visiting

I only live in the same town as Sing Sing ... but have been told I'm a prisoner of my job.

Posted: Feb 28, 2008 7:14pm
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Sorry, that last was from the annual FBI crime statistics report.

Think how many more should be in jail....

is there a point to this or just another chance to take a stab at the US?

27% of prisoners in the Federal system are from outside the US, can't find numbers for the states but I would think it is the same if not higher....so we get rid of them (send them to the country of their birth or some kind country that wants them) and that would be a major reduction. I also think we can release nonviolent prisoners with the understanding that if they f' up again they are done, back to the gray walls for 'em.

Here is another thing. 7 out of every 1000 African Americans is in prison. Here is the question, do we allow African Americans to get away with more crimes to reduce that percentage or do we take Asians and white guys, who make up a smaller percentage, and lock them up with no reason other than a quest for equality?

I blame the lawyers. So many bad ones are out there.

I live in NJ. Never had the pleasure of being behind bars, though. Although we do have the most violent prison in the country -RAHWAY State prison!!! A nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to get killed there...

J.T. What about Atica...Atica...Atica!!!

I used to get my haircut at Leavenworth.

You seem ready to take offense just a little too easily, any time anyone posts anything in any shape or form related to the U.S. ... I don't know what one would call that sort of behaviour, perhaps right-wing 'political correctness' for want of a better term?

You know, sometimes a joke is just a joke. Hence the smiley in my original post, in case you missed it.

:)

I believe the smiley was directed to those you thought might be convicts. So what do you do all day, type into google "Rapes in United States" "Prisoners in United States" "Number of baby seals beaten to death then excused as a cultural expression", oh wait.....

More Fishing Santa? You're running out of fresh bait and are now into re-runs. How do you expect to catch new "trout" with that old stuff? LOL

Best,

Tim

I think I've been inside a total of about six jails.

Margarette

Don't leave us hanging Margarette.. tell us more. LOL

Best,

Tim

Sorry Timothy, there is so little there to discuss...perma frost maybe....

As for jails I'm proud to say I've never been to one other than to visit my brother and that because my mother asked me too.

What aboot health care....oops already did that one too. LOL

Jails? Glad to say I share your good fortune of only seeing the free side of the bars. Visiting someone in Jail is enough to keep most out of them. LOL

Best,

Tim

I'm quoting from the blog of one of my family's dearest friends, an attorney in Arlington, Virginia:

For over 20 years I've represented criminal defendants in the Virginia courts. Most of my clients have been lower income, minority, under-educated individuals with drug and alcohol problems. Some have significant mental health issues and are referred to as dual diagnosis.

Criminal defendants do not exist in a vacuum. Many have at least one child, at least one significant other (some have an impressive array of significant others, but I digress), and one or more parents or grandparents whose lives will be affected by their incarceration. Few things are more disheartening than watching a mother of young children go to prison for two or three years because her drug addiction is out of control and she steals to support it. It's difficult to tell distraught parents and dependents of such people that they may have to do without them for a few years. An extraordinary number of grandparents are raising their children's children or even their grandchildren's children. In these fractured families the children are at extremely high risk for early involvement in drugs, sex, and alcohol...

Diversion programs ... are a better alternative. Diversion programs require the inmates to engage in counseling, critical self-analysis, job training, and proper management of their finances. Participants are required to pay their child support, address their addictions, learn new behaviors and take personal responsibility for their actions. Does anyone think warehousing people for years is even equal to the positive aspects of a diversion program?

Not everyone in a diversion program succeeds. Sometimes my clients are brought back before the court - it may be years after their diversion - for probation violations. Sometimes life's problems catch up with them and they decompensate, fall of the wagon, and re-offend. Mental health professionals understand this, that recovery from addiction is often a two steps forward/one step back type of process.

I could spend the next two hours highlighting my pet peeves with the criminal justice system. There are far too many offenses which have been labeled felonies, and far too many offenses which are actually symptomatic of social diseases or mental health disorders but which are aggressively prosecuted. There are few resources available for defendants who are genuinely mentally ill. Most diversion programs will not take dual diagnosis inmates. If they are bipolar, schizophrenic, suffering from other disorders requiring medication, then they are SOL when it comes to getting any help. We warehouse our mentally ill inmates and then kick them out into society to re-offend. Still, however, inmates who are eligible for diversion programs more often than not benefit from them. There are some good outpatient treatment programs and some good alternative diversion programs which gradually release inmates onto probation and into society. Some of my clients have gone through such programs, and years later I encounter them in the role of counselor to another inmate seeking diversion.

Amen, rossmacrae. A very good point to post. Sometimes people just need a bit of hope and direction. We focus too much on incarceration and not enough on rehabilitation.

Then again, I've also probably read too much about criminal psychotics. There's a difficult issue for you- they've got a mental disorder- an acute lack of conscience, but they're intelligent and logical, so it's not a good excuse. What do you do with them? There's no cure for the disorder, but it's often too dangerous to let them back onto the streets, even after they've done their time...

Well Tim, I'd say that Balducci trolled the bait this time, and MagicSanta bit.

The incarceration rates are curious, but it is hard to see just what they mean. The web is full of partisan explanations, but the world is rarely so simple.

I do find it odd that Canada and the US--which are very similar in very many ways--are so different in regard to incarceration. The US has about 7 times the incarceration rate of Canada--and that seems very strange to me

John

I'm sorry, you are correct, Canada has 'Free!' medical for all, no cost, nada, perfect in all ways... It cost the people of Canada only the time it takes them to get to their favorite doctors office where they are treated quickly to the level the doctor feels is required and then, as a joke, the patient is told they will get a bill in the mail, then the doctor winks and doctor and patient laugh as the doctor tells the latest "America sucks" joke. Free medical...FREE!

Please do not consider that 22% of the taxes collected in Canada go to pay for this health service as well as 7% of the GNP. Still it is FREE! It's okay because no one who is a professor from a major university in Quebec will make a statement like:

"Canadian public health insurance is not only compulsory, it is also monopolistic. The system is administered by provincial governments under strict guidelines imposed by federal law and federal subsidies. Private insurance covering publicly insured services is illegal. Physicians are forbidden to accept private payments above the fees billed to the government. Hospitals are public or non-profit, and tightly regulated. Physicians’ fees are determined—or “negotiated”—by provincial agencies. Prices of drugs are controlled. In short, the public supply of medical services is rationed, and there is little private alternative. Hence the apparent low cost of the system."

No way, the people of Canada get the service the doctor feels is needed and cost be darned because it is free! This same prof would also not say, most likely in French originally:

The hidden costs include the poor quality of services, and the costs imposed on customers (aptly called “patients” in this case) who have to wait in queues.

"Quality is subjective and can only be evaluated through consumer choices, but the government won’t let consumers make choices and vote with their feet if they are not satisfied. Anecdotal evidence of questionable quality is everywhere. In a recent piece in Montreal’s Gazette, a Canadian related her own experience, and contrasted the “kindness, discretion and professionalism” of staff in U.S. hospitals, with the frequent rudeness of unionized personnel in the Canadian system."

Or

"Long waiting lines are a fixture of the system. The Fraser Institute, a Vancouver think tank, has calculated that in 2003, the average waiting time from referral by a general practitioner to actual treatment was more than four months. Waiting times vary among specialties (and, less wildly, among provinces), but remain high even for critical diseases: The shortest median wait is 6.1 weeks for oncology treatment; excluding radiation, which is longer. Extreme cases include more than a year’s median wait for neurosurgery in New Brunswick. The median wait for an MRI is three months. Since 1993, waiting times have increased by 90%.

Waiting lines impose a real cost, which is approximated by what individuals would be willing to pay to avoid them. Waiting costs include health risk, lost time (especially for individuals whose time is most valuable), pain and anguish. Socialist systems are notoriously oblivious to anguish, discomfort, humiliation and other subjective factors which bureaucrats cannot measure or don’t value the same way as the patient does."

I'm certain the people in Quebec don't mind waiting the eight weeks for post surgical radiation treatment after breast cancer surgery. Heck, they likely set there, some 10,000 of them Oct of 1997, thinking "I may not be getting the treatment I need but, by golly, I'm not paying for it!"

I can't figure out why the indians in Canada (that barbaric term used by that professor, racist he is) would be building hospitals and clinics on their land in defiance of the law, which you second nationers (I made that up) can't use...neener neener, but then again why would you?

In all seriousness the US is too big to put together a real universal health plan. The problem is the assumption will be that companies will continue to cover those already covered (which isn't me at the moment, I pay over $800 a month for health insurance plus have a $2200 deductable so basically I'm paying a fortune and I'm not employed). They won't. Companies look for anyway to make more profits which is kind of why people invest in them. The only reason they offer medical is because they have to in order to draw in talent and it may only cost the employee a couple hundred a month. Not bad. If they can stop it and have it picked up by the feds they would drop it in a hot second. Sure some of the big guys would still do it just because they want to but my old employer has sliced away the benefits for the last few years, then sliced away people, like me. That being said there should be no one in the United States that is denied medical treatment. My brother owes Valley Medical Center of San Jose California in excess of three million dollars....no kidding. They won't ever get it and if he showed up there tonight he would be treated, if you showed up there with no insurance you would be treated and you would likely be able to have the cost written off. No one should die because they don't have insurance, no one should go to prison solely because they don't have the money for a good lawyer. I think that it is wonderful that Canada has their system but I think that companies like Celestica and RIM and SCS should be allowed to provide insurance to their employees and their families and that those without insurance can then get the service provided by the govt. This would reduce the cost to the 20,032 people living in Canada and let private practices treat those with insurance if they want and reduce the load on the govt paid doctors so hopefully the people would get better treatment. Govt treatment bothers me and I'll tell you why. My father retired with a pension and that pension included insurance for himself and my mother. At 65 this insurance ended because, surprise, that is when medical or whatever the govt paid social plan in the US is called. My mother was being treated for an illness when she turned 65 in October of 2000. She had to switch doctors to those that accepted the social security medical because General Electric didn't have to pay for medical any longer, they knew the feds would pick it up. My mother tried to get tests done and the new govt doctors had to get permission, this permission took two months, or December of 2000. She died sitting on a toilet on January 11th, 2001 of a cause that would have been detected in the test. On January 14th my father got a call from the doctor saying they scheduled the tests for two weeks later, the ones requested in October. This was quite disturbing to my elderly father who just lost his wife of 48 years. Two weeks later the same office called to tell my mother that because she missed the tests she wouldn't be allowed to take them again. Good thing she was dead huh? There is your govt managed medical, free free free.

John, the reason we have more in prison is because we have more criminals.