Life in prison for stealing food

[kayak3]

Doug Henwood wrote:
> 
> Michael Hoover wrote:
> 
> >a guy I knew who was popped last month for marijuana hung himself in
> >jail rather than face trial under Florida's 'three strikes' law...his
> >2 previous felony convictions on similar charges would have meant a
> >mandatory 25 years to life sentence...this is sick, vile shit...
> 
> No kidding. Thanks to longer sentences, mandatory prison time for formerly
> non-prison offenses, and three strikes laws, the U.S. prison population
> continues to rise - despite falling crime rates and arrest rates. Here are
> some numbers to make the point (numbers are cumulative, not annual
> averages):
> 
> CUMULATIVE GROWTH
> number of prisoners,
> serious crimes, arrests,
> and total population
> 
>              prisoners   crimes   arrests  population
> 1980-90      +134.2%     -7.7%    +49.6%     +9.7%
> 1990-97      + 61.8%    -13.2%     -0.6%     +7.2%
> 1995-97      + 10.3%    -13.0%     -9.8%     +1.8%
> 
> Note there was no visible crime boom during the 1980s or 1990s. The growth
> in the inmate population (and these are convited prisoners serving
> sentences of a year or more, not people in jail awaiting trial or doing
> time for minor offenses) has slowed a bit over the last few years, but it's
> still 5 times faster than population growth, and continues despite declines
> in crime rates and arrest rates.
> 
> The crime figures come from the Justice Department's annual survey, the
> National Criminal Victimization Survey, which asks people if they've been
> crime victims in the previous year. It's different from the FBI's counts,
> which rely on police reports, which are not comparable over time
> (significant changes in coverage, increased cop zeal in reporting crimes,
> etc.).
> 
> Doug

Could the politicians who have pushed for mandatory sentences and longer
prison terms argue that there is less crime because there are more
criminals in jail? 

Brad Hatch