Stephen Fry on American Prisons Facts

Click on the description for all the facts listed here
Stephen Fry on American Prisons, from the TV show QI
The prison facts mentioned here,

I'll start with a fact everyone(well nearly everyone) knows.

1. Three "strikes" and you get life in jail. Even for trivial crimes, Leandro Andrade is serving 2 consecutive life sentences for shoplifting 9 video tapes with a value of $153
2a. 1% of Americans are in jail(2.3million)
2b On a per capita bases this equates to twice as many in South Africans, more than 3 times Iran and 6 times China's prison population.
3. No society in history has imprisoned as many people as America.
4. 1 in 30 men aged 20 - 34 in in prison.
5.1 in 9 black males are in prison.
6. There are more 17 year old black males in prison than in college.
7. 5% of the world are American...25% of all prisoners are American.
8. America prohibits importing goods made through forced labor or prisoners...
YET...
...American prisons produce 100% of all military helmets, ammunition belts, bullet proof vests,
9. 93% of domestically used paints, 36% of home appliances, 21% of office furniture, which allows America to compete with factories in Mexico.
10. You get solitary confinement if you refuse to work!

11. Thus America has successfully reinvented the slave trade.

Prison watch link
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Prison_System/Prison_System.html

And another link
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090529202727AAud3zf

Keep up with Jim Rogers latest project to create a system that will hold politicians feet to the fire, and to put shackles on lobbiers so that they can no longer control the system. One day we might have a system that controled by the people and is for the people.

http://www.govathome.com/

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[vnslykrx]

@e7l13 is better, but the UK isn't all that great either. We all have our downfalls and I know I'm not changing peoples mind, but I'd rather not be bashed because I was born in the US. My favorite TV shows are British, I love them. Hell, Bill Bailey is hilarious! People just think we're all dimwits when some of us are actually pretty damn intelligent.

[vnslykrx]

@e7l13 Yes, there are less murders, but it is also much harder to get a firearm or other deadly weapon in the UK. We don't arrest people for just stealing biscuits either, but we put many more people in prison than you do for nontrivial matters. I have heard many stories of drug user being just let go, where as in the US, you won't get let go. I don't think the UK is bad at all, I just hate when people say US SUCKS, blah blah blah. Sometimes people are just ignorant. I'm certainly not saying US

[e7l13]

@vnslykrx im pretty sure there's less murders and stuff though. it seems like different places have different sorts of crimes.

and we dont set them free all the time, we just dont arrest people for stealing biscuits.

[99NuttY]

gotta love Jimmy Carr

[vnslykrx]

@Snarfoidosis Per every 100,000 people, there are 183,419 drug crimes in the UK, where in the US, it's 560.1 per 100,000. New York has a population of over 8,000,000 people, and London has 7,000,000. London's crime rate is 7 times the rate of New York's. The reason there are more people in prison per capita is because we prosecute and actually do put them in jail, not just set them free all the time.

[Jessica616ify]

So much for land of the free..

[ismaithliombainne]

Wow, astoning statistics alright. I'd like to find out more about them though.

[Snarfoidosis]

@vnslykrx When it comes to crime it isn't that there is simply more crime, it's obvious that the more populous the area the higher the crime rate will be. It's that there's more crime per capita, and a higher percentage of citizens in prison.