Overcriminalization of life in America has been a frequent topic on this blog.
Mark Perry’s post places the topic in perspective.
A truly civil society would find a better way.
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I don’t agree with Mark’s undelying premise that the U.S. is more repressive than countries such as Tunisia, Iran, Libya, Mexico, Columbia, Iraq, Egypt, Yemen and Pakistan. Most of these countries do not have an established rule of law or a functioning police infrastructure. I would bet you that the overall murder rate in any of those other countries is higher than in the U.S. and the percentage of unsolved murders in those countries is FAR higher than in the U.S. I would also guess that the rates of other unsolved crimes in the U.S. are much lower than in the other countries on that list.
One reason the U.S. arrests and incarcerates so many people is that we can afford to. Now that we are beginning to enter into an era of limited governmental resources we will most likely see incarceration rates fall.
Very interesting and disturbing information.
Also interesting is the large number comments on his blog from people who seem to be concerned that
we aren’t treating those incarcerated harshly enough. I know they’re mostly conservatives (AEI),
but still!
A truly civilized society WOULD find a better way,
but a truly civilized society would have more enlightened leaders who would recognize that prevention is much less costly than making so many things crimes.
Society doesn’t want this, special interests do.
I’m glad you bring this up. The privatization of the prison system has led to the prison population being used for profit. I’m very much for the outsourcing to the private sector for increased efficiency but there are certain things the Government should be in charge of and outsourcing of the judicial system is not one of them IMO.
“Society doesn’t want this, special interests do.”
Agree, it is special interest but the people don’t truly care, otherwise they would learn from history and change their beliefs and expectations of government.
“it is special interest but the people don’t truly care, otherwise they would learn from history and change their beliefs and expectations of government.”
The public-at-large always prefers nonsense to
sense, so the uninformed are easily conned by the special interests.
The informed sector of voters does care, if surveys can be trusted. Time and time again, they
favor enlightened policies – but until we have publicly financed elections, we will continue to have politicians who pay little, if any attention
to anyone except their corporate masters.