That doesn't make sense.

[thebitterguy]

Okay, does anyone out there know why we have so many fewer people in prison up here than they do in the US?

I'm just curious.

Comments

[noizangel.livejournal.com]

My guess is it's 'cause our systemic racism doesn't necessarily involve locking people up?

ETA: Due to good points below, I amend to racism and/or classism.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

My thoughts exactly. The ultimate answer is that you folks live in an actual civilized nation, while those of us down in the US, don't.

[noizangel.livejournal.com]

Not that civilized.

http://www.hiddenfromhistory.org/

[heron61.livejournal.com]

Certainly. The problem is that for the last 30 or so years, Canada has been getting better about human rights issues, and overall, the US has been getting worse.

[mouseferatu.livejournal.com]

Partly, it's because our government here in the US seems to think that locking people up for 25 years for taking a puff of marijuana, and spending billions of dollars on fighting drugs that are less harmful than alcohol and cigarettes, is justifiable exercise of power.

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

Drug laws and enforcement.

[thebitterguy]

So I guess this means you're winning the war on drugs?

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

Sort of like Sisyphus is winning when the boulder is almost to the top.

[robin-d-laws.livejournal.com]

[brand-of-amber.livejournal.com]

Noizangel has a good point.

Also, I'm tempted to say something about the desperation that comes with a combination of lower minimum wage and very limited public health care. Despite America in general being wealthier, the working poor in America make less money than the working poor in Canada, and when that gets combined with having to pay $600 anytime you need to go to the emergency room, it's easy to get really desperate really fast.

And institutionalized desperation and a country whose leaders run everything based on fear leads to stupidity responded to with brutality.

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

People love making grand statements like that but I want to see a breakdown by tax bracket first. My observation of how the system works in all-white areas like the rural Northeast against how it operates somewhere like Boston indicates that systemic racism is not a direct factor.

But class, on the other hand? A major one.

[brand-of-amber.livejournal.com]

True.

Living in Los Angeles I saw both, and sometimes it wasn't easily possible to say which was which at the moment.

In general, my point was more about class than race. I think they both play roles, but the working poor squeeze is something that happens to Americans of lots of colors.

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

I'd love to break down Census data by tax bracket. I suspect we'd see some pretty nasty truths in there that people don't want to discuss.

[zenten.livejournal.com]

Drug convictions. Also a lower number of murders and other similar violent crimes.

[brand-of-amber.livejournal.com]

Murders yes, violent crimes, however, are often closer than you'd think.

Like, moving from LA to Toronto I became 1/20th as likely to be murdered, but only like 5% less likely to be stabbed as a result of a robbery.

(These numbers may have changed in the years I've lived here, but I recall that being pretty much the score 5 years ago.)

But yea, fewer murderers to jail for sure.

[thebitterguy]

But isn't the chance of being killed with a machete much, much higher?

[brand-of-amber.livejournal.com]

About five times as high, yep.

[rodshark.livejournal.com]

1: Cananda has a lower population density. The more people you have crowded together, the more stress and anger that builds up.

2: A much greater rift between the "haves" and "have nots"

3: Larger organized crime and street gangs.

4: The CIA, police, Stock Exchange, and organized crime making billions of dollars a year on the illegal drug trade, the laundering of drug money, the confiscation of money, items, cars, and homes belonging to drug users and dealers.

5: A Judicial system dedicated more towards imprisionment and fines than rehabilitation.

6: No health care for most citizens and a capitolistic medical and drug industry that uses the fact that they are an indispensable commodity to price gouge the public (oh and the legislative offices that make doctors and hospitals have malpractice and negligence insurance, but doesn't regulate rates so that the insurance companies price gouge doctors and hospitals REALLY bad as well).

7: Fewer parents actually taking care of their kids and instilling in them discipline, ethics, and responsibility. They are either a household that has parents that are working two jobs each just to get by, or single parents who have to work two jobs to get by.

[zenten.livejournal.com]

1: Cananda has a lower population density. The more people you have crowded together, the more stress and anger that builds up.


Not really. Most of Canada's population lives in high population density areas.

[thebitterguy]

Yeah, but they have our entire population squeezed into California.

I am continually amazed with how many people live down there.

[uhlrik.livejournal.com]

I don't think of my home state of California being crowded. I prefer to think of it as an XP-rich environment.

[easyalchemy.livejournal.com]

Yeah, we have a lot of land, but we're all pretty much crammed into the most temperate parts of it.

[gamera-spinning.livejournal.com]

Because the US is the Land of the Free? Wait, that doesn't make any sense.

I got nothing.

[thebitterguy]

Apparently you have a lot of poor people who do drugs.

[creativedv8tion.livejournal.com]

As everyone's pretty much established, in a nutshell it's the War on Drugs; instead of spending almost half as much to put people in a mandatory confinement drug rehab program (most programs of that sort only having a recidivism rate of 30ish percent), America would rather spend more money to put them in a prison, with no treatment, and a 60+% recidivism rate.

Add to that the very common 3 strikes/habitual offender laws, and then you have people doing large bids of time for it. Contributing to the younger members of the same families falling into similar situations... it's a replicating cycle.

[autobotsrollout.livejournal.com]

A lot of people have already (correctly) blamed differing tolerances for low-end drug offenders, but the other big cause isn't racism or America being just-more-violent or anything like that; it's simply that Canada has a social services net to help people in need, and America for the most part does not.

Our net, frankly, isn't nearly as big as it could be - blame Mike Harris and "common sense" politics for exploding the homeless population, for a start - but we don't turn to the prison system as a de facto end solution for all social ills.

[rodshark.livejournal.com]

Leave it to Optimus Prime to put it all in perspective :)

[elizard100.livejournal.com]

1) Our population is much lower therefore fewer criminals to begin with and then fewer crowded big cities where crime is prevalent.
2) We're Canadians.
3) They're Americans.

Nuff said.

[uhlrik.livejournal.com]

2 and 3: that was narrow and not helpful at all.

[elizard100.livejournal.com]

You don't know me, nor my sense of humour and therefore could not have known that points 2 & 3 were meant in jest. May I recommend that in future you leave comments you don't understand to the people they are intended for so that you are not further unnecessarily troubled by the comments of strangers.

[uhlrik.livejournal.com]

Oh, I got the humor and that it was how it was meant, I just didn't find it funny. Don't assume that someone didn't get a joke just because they didn't appreciate it.

*shrugs*

As you say, we don't know each other. Moving on.