From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@yahoo.com)
Date: Tue Jul 30 2002 - 09:58:16 MDT
--- Samantha Atkins <samantha@objectent.com> wrote:
> Randall Randall wrote:
>
>
> > According to
> http://www.bop.gov/fact0598.html#Offense , at least
> 64.2
> > percent of the people that are in federal prison
> right now are there
> > for nothing I would consider a crime. They are
> just like you or me.
>
>
> And this, of course, is the most serious crime of
> all. Our
> government not only is not "serving" us, it is not
> only eating
> away at our basic freedoms and our wealth, it is
> also locking up
> significant numbers of *us* for no worthy reason.
> Yet most of
> the time most Americans seem not to notice or to
> want to know.
> There is a mechanism at work here that is
> interesting and that
> we need to understand and counteract.
I'd have to contest Phils blanket assertion of this
64% figure. This applies to ALL drug related offenses
and does not detail what proportion of this group are
also in on other truly criminal charges, or have prior
records for which, IMHO, they should never have been
let back out on the street to use drugs in the first
place. Samantha and Phil are imagining this 64% being
all peaceful and harmless Grateful Dead listening
potheads and acid trippers, a rather improper
stereotyping that does a disservice to their arguments.
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