> The abolitionist stance towards prisons is just another of a long list of
> "transitional" demands that the left makes that somehow never seem to find
> application in really existing socialist states. Cuba has somewhere between
> 30,000 and 55,000 prisoners, for a population of about 11.5 million people -
> not a low rate of incarceration at all. The Soviet Union also had a high
> incarceration rate - even after Gorbachev's legal reforms, the U.S.S.R. had
> 353 prisoners per 100,000 people in 1989 ... Socialist countries are
> typically intent upon the exact opposite - high growth rates, rapid
> industrial development, high levels of labor discipline, and social order.
>
-- "In the tender annals of Political Economy, the idyllic reigns from time immemorial ... the present year of course always excepted." -- A German refugee, circa 1867 --
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