Re: [Bulk] [TruthTalk] baptism

[Terry Clifton]

Caroline Wong wrote: Then, why does America have a higher recidivism rate than Canada? Your jails are more comfy than Mexico's but ours are more comfy than yours. How should we get people to stay out of trouble and out of prisons?   Dean J. Champion, Ph.D. Professor and Chair, Department of Criminal Justice, Minot State University wrote. "The number of state and federal prisoners in the United States quadrupled during the 1980s and 1990s, increasing from about 319,000 in 1980 to 773,000 in 1990 and 1,302,000 in 1999. Another 523,000 people were in jail. Today, one in every 150 people in the United States is in prison or jail. Individuals convicted of drug offenses constitute the largest group of inmates in the United States, representing nearly 60 percent of all federal prisoners and 21 percent of all state prisoners. In Canada, the number of prisoners has remained fairly steady over the past decade. In 1998 federal prisons in Canada contained approximately 14,100 inmates. Canadian provincial and territorial prisons accommodated another 7,000 inmates. Canada’s incarceration rate in 1998 was 135 per 100,000 persons, less than one-fifth the U.S. rate." and... "Recidivism among state and federal parolees in the United States has remained at a fairly constant rate of about 65 percent for the past two decades. This means that almost two-thirds of those released from prisons are convicted again for committing new crimes. Recidivism rates among Canadian offenders are substantially lower. About 40 percent of Canada’s released inmates were subsequently convicted of new crimes, while 20 percent were later convicted of a violent crime." =================================================================================== At the risk of sounding like a racist, let me point out that we have a much higher percentage of blacks and Mexicans than you, both groups more prone to violence and drug use than others.  If our population did not have those groups, we would have sixty percent fewer inmates.  Of the remaining forty percent, two percent would be Asian and three percent would be Jewish.  The rest would be bikers and rednecks with a sprinkling of white collar types.  When you offer what the prison offers to people who sleep under bridges and eat from dumpsters or sleep with fourteen other people in one bedroom and eat beans and rice every meal, the prison is not a fearful place.  It is a refuge. Terry