zlacker

Never heard of it, but sounds dangerous helping out rapists and murderers and such.

>>sowww+(OP)
Perhaps, but unless you want a permanent under class of people unable to find real employment, there needs to be an on-ramp. Either someone is too dangerous to have in public (which case they should still be imprisoned), or they have served their sentence and their punishment is over.

>>Karuna+M
To add to this, 45% of people in federal prison are there for a drug charge.

https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_offen...

Only a little over 1/3rd are actually in prison for violent crime.

>>Karuna+M
Exactly. I truly hope sowww doesn’t find themselves on the wrong side of the law for the million dumb reasons a person can get arrested and jailed for.

>>Sohcah+k3
That table looks like it sums to 100%, which is confusing. Many prisoners have been convicted of both drug and weapons charges. How is that represented?

My understanding is that while the rate of prisoners with drug charges is high, the rate of prisoners with only drug charges is a lot lower.

>>Sohcah+k3
>Only a little over 1/3rd are actually in prison for violent crime

On that chart, I was a little bit surprised to see the percentages for:

    - category (g) (Homicide, Aggravated Assault, and Kidnapping Offenses) and
    - category (l) (Sex Offenses) 

...are as high as they are (although probably not that high in absolute numbers) for federal prison. I wonder where one could find a breakdown of the offenses? I'd have thought the only way to get a federal rape or murder sentence would be to commit the act on an FBI agent or other on-duty federal agent (Secret Service, US Marshals, Postman, others?). But I guess maybe soldiers who have been court-martialed end up in federal prison? That might explain most of those? And maybe kidnapping becomes a federal offense if you cross state lines?

>>Sohcah+k3
That's a stat for Federal prisons - it's a completely different set of laws and crimes than state and local laws, and only 10% Americans incarcerated are in federal prisons.

Here's a breakdown by most serious offense for my state's prison system:

https://www.doc.sc.gov/research/InmatePopulationStats/ASOF-M...

Which has 16% drugs, but also:

26% homicide, 12% Robbery, 11% Burglary, 9.5% Rape/Sexual assault, 6.6% Kidnapping, 6.4% Assault.

I wrote an blog post a while back about how prison populations skew so much towards the most violent crimes.

http://braino.org/essays/why_so_many_people_in_prison/

>>Karuna+M
well said

if you had some free time to volunteer and wanted a mission reach out here....

https://www.underdogdevs.org

and on Twitter @UnderdogDevs

>>Karuna+M
> Perhaps, but unless you want a permanent under class of people unable to find real employment, there needs to be an on-ramp. Either someone is too dangerous to have in public (which case they should still be imprisoned), or they have served their sentence and their punishment is over.

That's not how the "criminal justice system" works. Not in the US and not in most of the rest of the world, especially the "first world"/"Western world".

Prisoners are NOT release only once they are deemed no longer dangerous. They are release once their allotted prison time is over. They can still be dangerous and released, and they can be not dangerous at all from they one and still go to prison.

Also: Choosing to like someone and dislike someone else, choosing whom you assist when not obligated by law and whom you don't, choosing who gets your time and who doesn't - all of this is not part of the punishment people are sentenced to by the state court system and thus it is not "over" in any sense or way once they are release from prison. You, I, and Mr. sowwww are free to volunteer our time, money and efforts towards whom and what we'd like and we're under no obligation to assist people we don't like just because "they have served their sentence and their punishment is over".

>>conioh+RW
In the future, please note the existence of the word "should" before posting angry screeds against something I didn't say.

>>daniel+zj
Prison populations skew toward violent crimes because the sentences for them are longer. They aren't representative of the number of convicts.