There are too many people in prison. Increasing the rate of executions by two orders of magnitude would diminish this problem (and crime generally) significantly.

A question that is seldom answered in these articles is what percentage of the population is in the correctional system today as opposed to times past. Rather than raw numbers, this seems to be a more informative statistic. Does anyone know?

A lot of people fail to realize that a large percentage of prisoners, especially in California which has the largest prison population in the country, are illegal aliens. If we had prevented them from being in the country in the first place, our prison population would be much smaller, and countless criminal offenses could have been avoided.

You are correct in positing that law and order are necessary for freedom, but theere is more to it than that. What is needed are few laws, strongly enforced. A stifling culture, with infractions punished by, for example, stonings and amputations, is not free and does not prosper.
We enjoy many freedoms, such as freedom of travel, economic freedom, even the RKBA, but we punish and incapacitate by confinement those who cannot handle their freedom without injuring others.
This is at the heart of the gun control debate. There are many who are a danger to society because they cannot be trusted with the means of force. The alternatives are to deprive all of us of weapons or to cuff and stuff the malefactors. Prison for the criminal allows freedom for the rest of society, not just freedom from the criminal, but from the state also.

Vince:

That's how the Japanese tried to explain their rise in crime too but the percentages tend to be quite similar to natives. It's a function of the society not of immigrants from other societies.

Orrin, illegal immigrants should not be in this country--period. If we were properly securing our borders and enforcing our immigration laws, there would be far fewer illegal aliens around to commit those crimes. That alone would drop the criminal population. The question is: By how much did the criminal population increase among citizens and legal residents? Perhaps, the number is insignificant.

Sorry, OJ, I think Vince is right. The figures I've seen are that illegals are 25-33% of the prison population, and they're not all in there for immigration offenses.

Vince:

If we were properly securing our borders and enforcing immigration laws no other work would be done in this country and we'd be deporting ourselves.

Papaya:

That's inaccurate:

http://www.cis.org/articles/2001/crime/toc.html

Orrin, that is an absolute lie! What about all of those people on welfare or unemployment. They always complain that they can't find work. Oh really? What about all of those spoiled teenagers? They could work. We could even have a guest worker program, where immigrants would legally come to work in the fields, and then they would go home without any need to abuse our social services, negatively impact our culture, or commit crimes that lead to huge increases in our prison population. If there were no illegal aliens, the country would suffer for one day, then the next day American citizens would face their new reality and do much of the work themselves. It is absolute hogwash that we need unfettered immigration, especially while our country is being threated by foreign terrorists.

There were illegal immigrants in the USSR and Mao's China; mostly internal immigrants who moved into the cities without the proper permits. Of course, they probably didn't take these law and order issues seriously enough and didn't have the will to really crack down.

Vince:

How are you going to guard all this:

http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0001801.html

If we can send troops to defend ungrateful South Koreans, and if we can send troops to Germany to get drunk and play with blonde *@##%, we can send troops to defend our borders, which I think should be the number one job of the Federal Government.

Vince:

All our troops in Germany didn't even put a crimp in its illegal immigration problem. Forget woulda, couldam, shoulda, just ask yourself how big a military you're willing to support to close our massive national boundaries.

I and millions of Americans are willing to defend our borders to protect us from terrorists, contraband and illegal aliens. What other alternative do we have?

Vince: Open immigration.

Vince:

That seems a reasonable solution--an all volunteer patrol. Good luck recruiting enough to guard our every border 24/7.

Orrin, what would you do to control our borders?

Nothing. Let them come.

Better yet, we annex Mexico and most of the problem just goes away. (What little border that would be left is easily patrolled.)

we need illegals because they cost less in terms of labor. if they were legal, or businesses were forced to hire snot-nosed teenagers and pay them at least minimum wage, price of goods would increase along with unemployment. i think it's good economic policy to allow just enough illegals in the country to keep pace with the low-skilled, sub-minimum wage labor performed while balancing the cost of shipping out the extras. not to mention, the billions sent home by the illegals gets spent on american goods (go nafta).

Raoul:

I agree that the US should annex Mexico, but although the rewards would be enormous, they're also decades away.
The immediate situation would involve many problems far more difficult than immigration control.

What do we gain by bringing the Third World to the United States? It is funny, but I guess you guys like it when the government uses your tax dollars to give billions of dollars worth of social services for illegal aliens even though they pay nothing into the system. I guess you guys aren't as fiscally conservative as you appear.

Does anyone think that by eschewing the softer
forms of correction that may be considered judgemental and illiberal we necessitate the
need for such a huge prison system?

Is it possible that when our society had more of
a self-policing mechanism of gradual corrective
action (including patriarchy in the home) that
there was much less of a need for prisons?

Vince:

Nothing but cheap labor and productivity. They come because we need them, and stay because it's not worth the cost to kick 'em out en masse.

J.H.:

Yes, that's part of it, but the biggest driver of prison populations over the past twenty years has been mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent drug offenders, who could just as easily serve in half-way houses.

Vince:

They can have all the tax dollars they want so long as my kids don't have to grow up to be fruit pickers.

Don't annex Mexico; give them California south of Mendicino.

The long term solution to illegal immigration is to economically develop Mexico. Give people a reason to stay there, and we'd see a massive drop in illegals. That's why NAFTA is important, but it is not enough by itself.

It's the border in Mexico that's the only problem. And despite it's length, the Rio Grande and a killer desert helps with enforcement. But no matter how many resources we put into it, people will always come as long as Mexico can't provide jobs for its people.

Chris:

You've put only one shoe on--they'll come as long as we have menial jobs we don't care to do.

>There are too many people in prison.

Auschwitz never had an overcrowding problem.

Ken, while I appreciate the reductio ad Hitlerum, we used to execute people for a lot more offenses than particularly aggravated and gruesome murder, and we used to do it quicker than after 15 years of appeals, postconviction relief, habeas proceedings, and other assorted nonsense. Lawyers (including judges) have made a fetish of protecting the obviously guilty. The Supreme Court won't allow it any time soon (because they're the fount of all wisdom and lawful authority, you know), but a significant expansion and acceleration of capital punishment would be (1) more just and (2) better at deterring crime in general than the current catch-and-release scheme.

From Chris Rock's "How Not to Get Your Ass Kicked By the Police"

"First, Obey the Law...."

Its not like we decide at the begining of the year how many people to imprison or not -- its not a quota. The people in prison are in prison because they commit crimes. If that means that more people go to prison last year than the year before, so be it.

Whether certain conduct, which carries a criminal penalty today ought to in the future is a different argument altogether. Make specific proposals and we can all debate them.

Drug laws (if you know your history) were originally designed for minority suppression. They are still doing a good job.

Why tthe government should punish people seeking pain relief is beyond me. But it is coming to that if it wasn't that way already. Doctors who treat pain with too many opiates are going to jail. Where are the Republicans speaking out on this? Where is the party of compassion I've heard so much about?

Ashcroft is going after sick people using pot. Ok they are misguided in your eyes. So what. Aren't there enough heroin smugglers to fill the jails? (Well actually no. If the drug war depended on fighting hard drugs alone there wouldn't be near enough jobs to go around. Pot, which is probably less harmful than alcohol, makes up 80% of dope arrests.) Would Jesus really prefer sending sick people to jail? Well according to Ashcroft.

Say aren't the Israelis and Brits finding all kinds of medically useful chemicals in pot? Just more proof that pot has no proven medical benefit as our drug czars like to tell us. Do they think we are that stupid?

Yes.

Why?

Its working.

AML,

There are 25 million users of illegal drugs in America. Minimum. If my calculations are correct re: confiscations of weed (When they used to announce them. Notice the yearly drug siezure numbers are no longer proudly announced?) There are probably 45 million regular weed smokers in Amera (1 oz per month).

With this large of a pool of "criminals" to choose from why wouldn't the justice system have quotas? They would be nuts not to. If they didn't limit the number of drug busts there would be no time for rapists or robbers and very little for murderers.

Since there have to be quotas the crime then becomes political. Typically it is most heavilly enforced against the poor and minorities. Do you suppose they don't notice?

When science proves (there are indications) that chronic drug use is caused by chronic pain are you guys ever going to get lambasted for persecuting the sick and the lame. Jesus? Never heard of him.

No kidding.

M:

Your doctor will give you drugs for pain.