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82 Comments
- joejitsu, on 07/06/2009, -2/+32You want to know who is to blame for this? Nixon with the Drugs and Reagan with his minimum sentencing. They aren't the only guilty ones. All the politicians so far have refused to change these draconian laws, and I don't see Obama doing anything either.
- inactive, on 07/06/2009, -2/+32Just another reason why throwing 3% of American citizens in jail is a horrible idea. These days is way too easy to get yourself landed in the slammer. I fear that privatizing the prison industry has something to do with the increasing incarceration rate.
- marcb83, on 07/06/2009, -4/+27Another reason to legalize weed. Putting people in jail for non violent drug offenses just costs us money and ruins out society far more then people smoking pot would.
- guytoronto, on 07/06/2009, -0/+19Prison should be a last resort to protect society from criminals.
If the criminal doesn't pose a risk to others (i.e. tax evader), they don't belong in prison. If you are looking to punish those who commit crimes, there are better alternative to prison. Prison costs too much in terms on financial costs as well as family (like this article says). - fury420, on 07/06/2009, -0/+12what exactly does this recent economic downturn & unemployment & and the recently homeless have to do with increasing rates of incarceration over the past 20-30 years & its effects on children?
Somehow it's not acceptable to think of convicts & their families lives just because some people lost lots of money when their house values collapsed? - guytoronto, on 07/06/2009, -2/+14This isn't about the criminals. It's about the kids.
- marcb83, on 07/06/2009, -0/+10yea, Weed is the only drug where it is down right wrong to have it be illegal. Other drugs such as cocaine and heroin I can see why they are illegal but I still think that society would be better served making them legal. It is not like if heroin were legal a bunch of people would start doing it, but the ones who did use would have a safer product, access to needles and we could spend the enforcement/incarceration money on prevention, education, and the treatment of addicts.
- EddiePotato, on 07/06/2009, -0/+9Better advice: don't marry a worthless POS. And if you're not capable of determining whether or not someone is a worthless POS while you're dating them, spay or neuter yourself.
- ZenMojo, on 07/06/2009, -5/+14Or have a crappy lawyer. Or get caught in a system that punishes children as adults. Or not be white (since you're far more likely to be convicted or serve a longer sentence for the same accusation if you aren't). Or any number of other things that contribute to Prison Planet, USA.
- guytoronto, on 07/06/2009, -0/+8It has nothing to do with being anti-Christian. I has to do with being anti-humane.
- Barackalypse, on 07/06/2009, -1/+8What percentage of these incarcerated parents were actually a part of their children's lives? In other words, is there any measurable difference between a deadbeat dad that walks out on his kids and a dad in prison? I suspect they're roughly equivalent.
- niczar, on 07/06/2009, -0/+6Not all prisoners are violent offenders. And here's one fact: the US has 10 times more prisoners per inhabitant than Western Europe. 10 time. Not 2%, not 10% more, but 900% more. In fact, it has more prisoners per inhabitant than any other country in the world. More than China. More than any dictatorship.
- johndi, on 07/06/2009, -2/+8It not just criminals ending up in prison these days. Check out the Innocence Project.
- RungeKutta, on 07/06/2009, -10/+15Well thank you Einstein. Your comment was well thought out and addresses the problems of the article in an intelligent and articulate manner. I can tell you are highly educated.
- twiztidsinz, on 07/06/2009, -4/+9Oh yes... two people who hate eachother but stay together for the kid(s) is REALLY going to make him/her feel good..
- BottledViolence, on 07/06/2009, -2/+7Wait, its the prison to blame when a criminal's child turns into a criminal? How about putting the blame where it belongs, with the person who committed the crime that made that child grow up fatherless. Having grown up in neighborhoods with a high rate of single parent homes, trust me when I say its not the prison, its the father that causes these kids to grow up that way. A good father in prison is still better than a father on the outside still slinging dope and not raising his kids.
- marcb83, on 07/06/2009, -0/+5I would think you were being sarcastic, but most sarcastic people are smart, and based on your terrible spelling(this is coming from a bad speller) you are an idiot thus not being sarcastic thus dugg down.
- bungoman, on 07/06/2009, -0/+4Some jurisdictions already do that. Even for minor non-white collar crimes. So long as you show up every evening you're let go every morning to go to work.
- inactive, on 07/06/2009, -0/+4How do you block comments from someone?
- Mujokan, on 07/06/2009, -0/+4Not a simple issue, but it's nuts that the US has the highest absolute and per capita imprisonment rates in the entire world.
"But what about growing up with a criminal parent? That's bad too!" It's not so easy. Who is the single parent most likely going to hook up with next? And having a parent that shoplifted isn't necessarily worse than having no parent there at all -- being a criminal doesn't mean you're a monster to your kids. Just the disruption leads to stress, and a high-stress childhood leads to reduced levels of empathy and to thrill-seeking behavior (could be an evolutionary thing). You can't just look at it in isolation, though. It's one factor among many giving kids too much stress in their childhood.
The system doesn't have the time and resources to look in detail at every offender, and decide whether they could benefit from some other path than a long sentence (sentences in the US are longer than comparable countries). But in the end this approach ends up costing more money. Once you're in prison, you fall behind in skills and experience, not to mention the disadvantages you face from the stigma as an ex-con. If you have a job in prison and get trained, when you come out you have to compete against all the people who are still inside working for cents an hour. You can't get a job and end up turning to crime again. Prison rates only go up. - S7aind, on 07/06/2009, -0/+4It's a link to a bike, safe to click if your curious like me, but no reason to.
- Countess666, on 07/06/2009, -1/+5@randyzaia : you have bigger problems then more lenient sentences.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Incarceration_Ra ...
you have 6 times the average prison population of other western nations, and even top the semi-dictatorship that is now Russia. i'm sorry to say but something is going very wrong in the US.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_incarceration ...
your sentences have become to harsh in the 1980's and as this article implies have probably created more criminals in the process. - SScottAZ, on 07/06/2009, -1/+5Other industrialized western countries seem have a lower amount of crime.
What are we doing wrong or what are they doing right? - inactive, on 07/06/2009, -0/+4So I guess this means having a parent in prison is detrimental to children.
You learn something new every day. - randyzaia, on 07/06/2009, -4/+8I feel bad for the kids of criminals. That said, the implication of the article is that sentencing for criminals with kids should be more lenient. I don't think it should be. It sucks that these kids have to deal with having criminals for parents, but there's not a whole lot anyone can do about it.
- marcb83, on 07/06/2009, -1/+4legalizing drugs(mainly pot) would create far more jobs then we would lose in the prison industry, while at the same time drastically reducing the government spending on enforcement and incarceration of criminals
- MacParrot, on 07/06/2009, -1/+4No, he's saying that yes it sucks that your dad or mom is a criminal, but exactly how is it fair that some guy who commits a crime gets a better sentence that another guy who doesn't?
If your parents are on drugs and committing crimes, how exactly is it better that they're still around the house? - Gloogle, on 07/06/2009, -0/+3The worst thing is that society ***** over these kids over. And when they are adults they ***** em twice as hard. I know, I'm one of them!
- randyzaia, on 07/06/2009, -0/+3Well, I think by legalizing drugs that problem can be solved, and I'm all in favor of that.
- inactive, on 07/06/2009, -0/+3Here's the solution:
Free everyone from the prisons! Make everything legal! With no crimes, there will be no criminals!
/$ - inactive, on 07/06/2009, -0/+3Methinks you may have missed the sarcasm
- Jaime2000, on 07/06/2009, -0/+3And the mother is not at fault? Let us distribute the blame equally.
Neither let us forget the huge number of people who are in jail for breaking stupid laws. Arrested for smoking pot when beers and cigarettes are allowed? Sure, that makes sense... - BotchaMcCoola, on 07/05/2009, -4/+7If we can stop all the politicians wasting our money we can up our charity for these good works.
- inactive, on 07/06/2009, -0/+3You can have people making money and paying tax or you lock them up, pay tax for their share of the tax and the tax you need to pay for the locking up...
I would rather drugs were legal and monitored openly than trusting bureaucrats with silly policy and incompetent government. - jaymzdean, on 07/06/2009, -1/+3Obama laughs...
http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=7042 - inactive, on 07/06/2009, -1/+3how about making white collar criminals sleep in jail but allowed to work.
- faskippy, on 07/06/2009, -1/+3So, what are the odds that a child would experience that unfortunate fate and worse by being tethered to a habitual dirtbag who just can't stay out of trouble?
- fragMasterFlash, on 07/06/2009, -8/+10So many of my friends walked away from their marriages because they thought the deserved better and now their kids are teens taking advantage of the split home situation to get into trouble. Don't breed unless you plan to put the kids first even if your soulmate turns out to be a worthless POS.
- okcomputer1982, on 07/06/2009, -0/+2YA STERILIZATION PROGRAMS!!!! It works in the Holocaust...surely it's about time America joined the party.
- faskippy, on 07/06/2009, -1/+3Can you go with them, please?
- Barackalypse, on 07/06/2009, -3/+5I'm going to go out on a limb and say any parent doing things that gets them sent to prison isn't going to have a very positive impact on the upbringing of their child under any circumstances, whether free or incarcerated.
- kd1s, on 07/07/2009, -0/+2Not the year 1978 as the benchmark when things started shooting off the charts. That's when the DEA got police departments interested in drug interdiction.
Then in the 1980's we saw the rise of the Drug War under Reagan. So is it any wonder we lockup more people than pretty much any other country in the world? - JoeParanoid, on 07/06/2009, -0/+2Nothing sells at election time better than those BS "get tough on crime" slogans. Every prosecutor feels that finding more ways to put people behind bars is the greased slide to higher office. No one's in favor of crime, but we've got way too many ways to lock up poor schmucks forever (3 strikes, f'rinstance) and too few ways to deal with the white collar criminals who are robbing our country blind. And many people in our prison system are elderly and infirm who could easily be released but for our vindictiveness. Ultimately, it will be the fact that we can't afford to spend tax dollars on more prisons that will bring a little sanity to a system out of control. We'd rather spend money on prisons than on schools: that's how f'ed up we are.
- mbelrose, on 07/06/2009, -0/+1Actually, this time they accounted for this in the article:
"Scholars agree that in some cases children may benefit from a parent’s forced removal, especially when a father is a sexual predator or violent at home. But more often, the harm outweighs any benefits, studies have found."
They didn't cite these studies properly, but the point still stands, it's the *type* of crime, not simply the existence of crime. - MacParrot, on 07/06/2009, -0/+1@ng
He missed it because he was smoking pot at the time. - fury420, on 07/06/2009, -2/+3its quite legible really once you realize that "ruins out society" was meant as "ruins our society"
- frenchaccent, on 07/06/2009, -0/+1I don't disagree with you there, but Mr. Scott, the gentlemen and father chosen by the New York Times to be the Poster Dad for this story, is an Heroine addict (still to this day apparently).
Personally, I would prefer seeing a detailed break down of their findings classified by the types of crimes those fathers were incarcerated for.
As it stands, this short article just generalizes too much, and it requires us to trust the journalist both in his technical abilities and in his intent, as all his conclusions are based on carefully hand-selected statistics from several studies -- stripped from their original contexts. - okcomputer1982, on 07/06/2009, -0/+1You clearly don't know anyone who is in jail. It ends up that crimes happen just as much because of circumstances outside of someone control as they are because they "just *****." Said as someone who has had friends and family behind bars, some recovering on release, others not.
I recommend you go find out who the people are that you are talking about first. Otherwise you just sound like ignorant. - gkiltz, on 07/06/2009, -1/+2Hopefully we, as a society will finally get it through our heads that there is not a shred of compelling evidence showing that punishment positively impacts behavior. There is, however overwhelming evidence dating to the Roman Empire that punishment only makes people more angry and scared, and makes them act out all the more!!!!
Unless and until we finally figure that out, there can be no reform!!! - OverZealousHobo, on 07/06/2009, -0/+1This is true, and I have heard that information before...though I personally believe that this line of thinking comes down to practicality verses principality...It seems reasonable to assume that the majority of those who are thrown into the slammer, are not that suitable of parents to begin with. (obviously not in all cases) My opinion is not necessarily that all of these people should even be in prison for non-violent crimes, rather I doubt that the parents jail time is the only culprit in creating troubled children, as a result of a missing parent. I believe that in the majority of the cases children are simply in a bad situation, either with the parent or in their absence. As far as the statistics, they are valid...and alarming when in reference to non-violent offenders. However "In the industrialized world, the U.S. undeniably ranks high in violence. The U.S. homicide rate stands at around five deaths for 100,000 people. This compares with .7 in England, 1.4 in Canada, 1.5 in France, 1.5 in Japan (but 32 in Mexico). "
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,8 ...
we earn at least a few of those statistics... -
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