DoesnÂ’t this make us safer?

For the first time in the nationÂ’s history, more than one in 100 American adults is behind bars, according to a new report.

Nationwide, the prison population grew by 25,000 last year, bringing it to almost 1.6 million. Another 723,000 people are in local jails. The number of American adults is about 230 million, meaning that one in every 99.1 adults is behind bars.

But wait. If these folks are, in fact, committing real crimes against real people, it strikes me that this is a good thing. I want the violent folks, the thieves, and the drunk drivers off the streets.

Don Surber pegs it.

Question: What does 1 in 100 Americans behind bars mean?

Answer: That the other 99 of us are safer. Look the reason so many black men are behind bars is that so many black people are beat up, raped or murdered by black men. When one-eighth of the population suffers nearly half the nationÂ’s homicides, the problem is not that so many members of that eighth are behind bars, but that you suffer so many homicides.

The black men who should be saved are not the ones behind bars but the ones in coffins.

IÂ’m tired of my students being crime victims. IÂ’m tired of their relatives being crime victims. LetÂ’s start worrying about the victims instead of the victimizers.

Posted by: Greg at 03:25 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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