[LINK] NYT: Snowden is a whistleblower and should be offered a plea to return home

[Scott Howard]

On Wed, Jan 1, 2014 at 9:21 PM, Rick Welykochy <rick at vitendo.ca> wrote:
>
> Note that the US prison system has been privatised and is run for
> profit. This has resulted in a higher incarceration rate.
>

Actually the number of prisoners has been steadily reducing since 2009.


The incarceration rate is nearly 1 per 100 head of population, definitely
> 1% for the
> adult population. By far the majority of inmates are black.
>

The incarceration rate is around 626 people per 100,000, or much closer to
half a percent than "definitely 1%". Black prisoners make up roughly 38% of
all prisoners (ie, far from the "majority"), with white prisoners at 35%
and Hispanics at 21%. Black and Hispanics do make up a disproportionate
number of prisoners relative to the general US population.

Probably the most telling figure is that 53% of all prisoners are
incarcerated for violent crimes, and over 12% of all prisons are in for
murder (not including manslaughter).

(All figures taken from the U.S. Department of Justice 'Prisoners in 2012 -
Advance Counts", http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p12ac.pdf)

  Scott