> Jerry Monaco wrote:
>
> >This was actually something that my criminal law prof told us. More
> >than half the people in prison now days are in prison for
> >non-violent drug crimes.
>
> People say that a lot, but it's not true for state prisons, at least
> according to the BJS
> <http://www.albany.edu/sourcebook/pdf/t600012002.pdf>. It's 21%. Half
> are in for violent offenses. Yes for federal prisoners
> <http://www.albany.edu/sourcebook/pdf/t656.pdf>, but there are like
> eight times as many state as federal prisoners.
>
> Doug
What level of violence is necessary for a crime to be labeled violent?
If I run into a liquor store with my hand in my pocket and tell the clerk to give me the till is that a violent crime? According to the DOJ it is. While I won't argue it isn't monumentally stupid I will argue it isn't violent.
According to the BJI Bulletin Jordan forwarded a link to 50.5% of inmates in State and Federal Prisons are there for "violent crimes". You'll also notice that the two catagories that make up the bulk of violent crimes are Homicide and Robbery with 12% and 13.8% respectively. So how many of those violent crimes were actually violent? Certainly the murders were, you be hard pressed to argue otherwise. Even in self defense killing is violence. However according to the DOJ a weapon was used in the offense of only 22% of all inmates crimes in State and Federal prisons.
I don't have handy the stats for homicides committed with a weapon but does anyone think it's less than 80%. The other 20% use their bare hands or perhaps arson to commit homicide? If 80% of homicides involve a weapon and 22% of all crimes resulting in incarceration at the State of Federal level involve a weapon then doesn't that mean that ~3% of non-homicide committing inmates at the State and Federal level used a weapon while committing their crime which was apparently overwhelmingly Robbery? I am just doing this in my head (I know that's lazy) but that makes the label of violent crime for 50.5% of inmates kind of hard to swallow.
John Thornton