[lbo-talk] Abolition of prisons (Was: Angela...)

John Thornton jthorn65 at sbcglobal.net
Mon Apr 6 16:28:37 PDT 2009


Dennis Claxton wrote:
> At 03:30 PM 4/6/2009, John Thornton wrote:
>
>
>> From the link Doug sent.
>> Search for the Truth in Sentencing Report on the usdoj.gov bjs site.
>
>
> I think you're talking about this.
> http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/tssp.pdf
>
> That report is from 1999

That's the last year for this report.


> and excludes offenders with a sentence of less than one year.

96% of commitments were for 1 or more years so we're only dropping off 4% from the total.


>
> In 2005 the state percentage for drug offenses was 20%. Ten years
> earlier it was 22.
>
> http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/prisons.htm

The 1999 report shows New Court Commitments for drug offenses was 30.2% for states. Drug incarcerations also account for more than half of Federal commitments according to the 2006 report.

On September 30, 2006, (the latest available data from the Federal Justice Statistics Program on offenses of Federal prisoners) drug, weapons, and immigration offenders made up more than three-quarters (78%) of the 176,268 sentenced Federal prison population (table 12). Drug offenders made up more than half (53%); weapons offenders, 14%; and immigration offenders, 11%.

None of what you post suggests that the majority of the people in prison would otherwise pose a risk to the safety of the overall population. I haven't argued no one in prison needs incarcerating to prevent harm to the public only that the majority of prisoners pose no such threat.

John Thornton



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