And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Received: from UMF-EMDAT/SpoolDir by flint.umich.edu (Mercury 1.43);
19 Apr 99 09:26:46 -0400
Received: from SpoolDir by UMF-EMDAT (Mercury 1.43); 19 Apr 99 09:26:25 -0400
Organization: The University of Michigan - Flint
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 09:26:21 EDT
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
Ish....this is a two-parter.
1. The letter appeared in the Sunday (April 19, 1999) issue of the Flint
Journall, our local newspaper. It took me several times of reading it to
fully
appreciate the letter writers thinking. The man who wrote this letter is
John W.T. Wells, and he lives here in Flint, but I have never met him or heard
of him. I think, however, that he is someone I would like to meet, and to
shake his hand, and say 'thanks.'
2. The article in the Sunday (4-19-99) issue of the Flint Journal addresses
the
large-scale imprisonment of "American Behind Bars.". My only problem with the
article is that it never references statistics or information about American
Indian or Latino people. It focuses strictly on presenting statistics and
information about African-American prisoners. It would have been a much more
compelling article had the American Indian and Latino people been
represented.
None-the-less, the article is stunning with its information. I am only going
to furnish specific pieces of information because the article is rather long.
Catherine Davids
Flint, Michigan
******************************************
In response to The New York Times report, "Experience or bias? Police
profiling
questioned," (April 9, Page A5): I happen to believe that racial profiling is
an excellent crime-fighting tool. My only complaint is that it cannot be used
retroactively. If only the indigenous peoples of the Americas, Africa,
Australia, and Asia would have had access to this unbiased tool based on
experience, could one imagine how many rapes, murders, kidnappings and wanton
destructions of lands and peoples perpetrated by the white people from Europe
could have been avoided.
Perhaps if these original criminals had been dealt with in the same manner
their modern-day progeny demands, i.e. the death penalty, we would not have a
crime problem nor need racial profiling.
Oh well, such are the benefits of civilization that the people who were
kidnapped and whose lands were stolen are overrepresented in prisons of the
thieves.
John W.T. Wells, Flint
****************************
America behind bars
(the article is reprinted from Economist Newspapers Ltd.
Alexis De Tocqueville originally traveled to the United States in 1831 to
study
prisons. They were an object of great curiosity in Europe because the United
States had embarked on a bold experiment to rehabilitate criminals through a
strict regime of solitary confinement, silence and hard work in a newly
created
institution, the "penitentiary." Tocqueville was not impressed by what he
found. He noted that social reformers believed that prisons "were a remedy
for
all the evils of society."
Bureau of Justice Statistics
The nations prison population has increased by 4.4% to 1.8 million (June1998)
The United States prison population is nearly equal to the entire American
Indian population. The United States prison population outnumbers the number
of residents of several states.
From the Bureau of Census, July 1, 1998:
American Indians number about 2.2 million people
There are less than 1.8 million people in the following states: Alaska,
Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Maine, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico,
North Carolina, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, Wyoming.
The prison population continues to grow at such a steady pace even though
rates
of reported crimes have fallen for each of the past six years.
The United States has locked up more people than any country in the world.
The scale of imprisonment in the UnitedStates is now unmatched in any
democracy, and is sgreater than even most totalitarian governments have ever
attempted.
1998: One of every 150 United States residens (children included) was behind
bars. 668 inmates per 100,000 residents. This is 5 to 10 times the rate of
countries in Western Europe, 6 times the rate in Canada, and 20 times the rate
in Japan.
The number of Americans in prison has quadrupled since 1980 and more than
doubled since 1985.
Crime has decreased nationally snce 1991 but the drop came after a 7-year rise
in crime even though the prison population expanded by 77% during the
sameperiod.
The level of violent crime in the United Stastes is about the same as in the
mid-1980s when 1 million fewer people were in prison or jail.
Arrests for murder, rape, and robbery have declined sharply between 1990-1996.
Prison & jail sentences have soared NOT because the police are catching more
criminals but because judges and juries are lengthening sentences & probation
has been severely curtailed.
Imprisonment due to "illegal drug use" has failed abysmally. Tougher drug
laws
(federal & state level) have meant the number of people imprisoned for illegal
drug use or trafficking has quadrupled...this is twice the growth rate for
violent criminals.
More than 400,000 people are imprisoned for drug offenses...a larger number
than those in prison for all crimes in England, France, Germany, and Japan
COMBINED.
And yet....despite such large-scale imprisonment, the number of people using
drugs has not changed since 1988. About 14 million use drugs & about 600,000
had smoked crack cocaine. This figure from the National Household Survey on
Drug Abuse was taken in 1997 and the figures are nearly identical to the same
survey taken in 1987.
Prison budgets have squeezed out spending on education and other social
programs in states throughout the country.
Blacks comprise 12% of the United States population but represent nearly
50% of
the prison population. The incarceration rate for black men, is 8 tims that
for white men. 1 of every 12 black men between ages 25 and 29 is currently
behind bars: 10 times th rate among whites. Many are there (not for violent
crimes) for breaking the drug laws which seem aimed directly at blacks.
The penalty for possessing 5 grams of crack cocaine, the form most widely used
in black districts, is the same as the penalty for possessing 100 grams of
the powdered variety of cocaine, the form most widely used in white districts.
It is impossible to establish a link between any single policy of social
reform and the overall crime rate because so many factors influence the level
of crime: demographic, economic, cultural, social, etc.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit)
Unenh onhwa' Awayaton
http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
