QI facts on American prisons.

[Farneyman]

These are some stats that Stephen Fry spoke about on QI that I spotted online...Cant sort the link but in nutshell.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPZed8af9RI

Some other links worth checking out.


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.

Whats your thoughts on that?

 

[Grogger]

Makes it sound like a holiday camp!!

 

[Farneyman]

Makes it sound like a holiday camp!!

Depend on how you look at it...

 

[pogle]

Since QI doesn't always get things right - just Google it, I'd like an independent source of these "facts" before I believed them.

 

[Farneyman]

Since QI doesn't always get things right - just Google it, I'd like an independent source of these "facts" before I believed them.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/uk/06/prisons/html/nn2page1.stm

https://www.aclu.org/prison-crisis

http://www.prisonstudies.org/highest-to-lowest/prison-population-total?field_region_taxonomy_tid=22

http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-pr...es-big-business-or-a-new-form-of-slavery/8289


Prison watch link
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Pri...

And another link
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/ind...

11 Stunning facts link
http://thinkingaboutphilosophy.blogsp...


The more you look the worse it gets.

 

[Hobbit]

1. Andrade had been in and out of State and Federal prisons for 13 yrs for a number of other crimes before he was convicted of the tape thefts. Harsh without a doubt, but the guy was a serial criminal, and the previous incarcerations obviously hadn't cured him.

2a through to 7 inc. Maybe Americans have less respect for the law. Comparing them to other societies/countries isn't a fair comparison.

8 & 9. Using prisoners as labour; as long as it isn't beyond a 40hr week or in a dangerous working environment, what's the problem? It may appear as though they are being paid peanuts but they are getting free room and board.

10. Solitary for refusing to work; no problem. How do you punish them for refusing to work? Send them to prison? Extend their sentence?

11... really? I guess that means UK prisoners are also slave labour. They are paid £4 per week unless they are employed outside of prison, for which they are entitled to at least the national minimum wage.

American citizens know how their justice system works. They've made the choice to commit crimes knowing that... I don't have a problem with their sentencing.

 

[Tashyboy]

A prison governor in a southern state has been championed for his treatment of prisoners. Basically he takes no crap. Some of the inmates were complaining about the heat they were expected to work in. He said "US marines are fighting in temperatures (Afghanistan) hotter than his prisoners, and they ain't whinging".

 

[williamalex1]

Reminds me of an old Paul Newman film.

 

[Tashyboy]

Reminds me of an old Paul Newman film.

Cool hand Luke, one of my all time favourite.

 

[williamalex1]

Cool hand Luke, one of my all time favourite.

Shakin it boss, shanking it more like .:smirk:

 

[SocketRocket]

Cool hand Luke, one of my all time favourite.

I think that film was 'Brubaker'

 

[williamalex1]

I think that film was 'Brubaker'

That stared Robert Redford in the lead roll , another good prison film, plus the Shawshank redemption.

 

[Doon frae Troon]

I was aware that the USA, the land of the free, imprisoned one in every hundred of it's citizens.

 

[Norrin Radd]

like the old saying says
if you cant do the time ,
dont do the crime .

thay are prisoners they shouldnt have any easy ride .

 

[QuadBogey]

When you put all this information together like this, you realise that something is very wrong with the world today

 

[Captainron]

You know the law and the penalty for breaking the law. America just sees it through unlike here.

 

[Simbo]

I don't see a problem with it tbh, if you don't like it don't go back, prison is meant to be a punishment not the Hilton.

 

[virtuocity]

I don't see a problem with it tbh, if you don't like it don't go back,

Would love to see the world in such a way. Unfortunately, having even a narrow understanding of the nuanced factors of social, economic and health inequalities just make this comfortable assumption impossible to subscribe to.