How many people we kept in jail LAST YEAR

[azmax]

"That tranlates to hundreds of millions of people at 30,000 dollars a year to house."

Well, since the number of people incarcerated last year, as posted at the top of this thread, was said to be a little over 2 million, I would guess that 1/5 of the total population would be somewhat less than hundreds of millions.

Oops, sorry Math was a little off.

400,000 prisoners (non-violent)* $30.000 per year=$12,000,000,000
That's right, 12 Billion Tax payer $$$$$$$'s and we let out mr child molester or monster whatever you prefer out after 2 years. And this math is not wrong. I did double check though LOL

BTW This is the kind of crap I speak of ! Totally ass backwards!

What I really like is releasing child molesters who have no mandatory minimums so that we can keep the likes of the old hippies in jail who do have a mandatory minimum for growing a garden in their basements.

 

[Fred Hansen]

Not ONE heroine addict I have ever met thought he was going to become addicted (shoulda been obvous though) and almost all of them want to stop.

One litmus test I use to generally sort out liberals from conservatives is just how much credence a person will give to statements like the one above. Now sometimes it's just a product of the person in questions naivete. Other times it is a function of their intellect, and seemingly other times it is a function of just how much crap a person is willing to swallow in order that their world view not get out of joint.

I don't know which category you happen to be in, and frankly I just don't care. This I do know. Everything that comes out of an addict's mouth is a lie. Everything. I know because I lived in the world of alcohol addiction (heavy) for 14 years. I've heard it all. It's all the same.

If a person wishes to wallow in addiction there is absolutely nothing on Earth that will get them out of it that does not come from inside the person in question.

So hey, if somebody needs to go to Canuckistan to get their fix I say Godspeed. I'm sure that life with our enlightened brethren to the north will be as idylic as a small non-specific little town in England somewhere in which miracles were worked by pumping poison into some poor unfortunate's vein. God bless and keep them. One less dirtbag addict in my neck of the woods. And who knows? Perhaps after an influx of the U.S.'s best and brightest the Canuckistanians will enjoy a new renaisance.

All I know is that if a person is abusing drugs they better steer well clear of me. I won't put up with that garbage.

 

[Garand Illusion]

Instead of letting them do their silly @ssed drugs and tax them somewhere in the neighborhood of $3 - 5 TRILLION DOLLARS. Kind of puts the whole thing in perspective if you ask me.

The math showing this to be crazy was already shown above, but even so ...

there wouldn't REALLY be anymore taxes collected. These people would steal the $$ for drugs from the rest of us, forcing us to take write-off or else just buy less legal stuff.

I could live with legalized pot. But I have been to Amsterdam, and I can tell you that legalized pot DOESN'T make for nice neighborhoods. The drug culture there brings down the whole city.

 

[9mmsnoopy]

smoke a joint, go to jail. sneak into the country illegally, get free healthcare and educations.


is that messed up or what?

 

[TimRB]

"400,000 prisoners (non-violent)* $30.000 per year=$12,000,000,000
That's right, 12 Billion Tax payer $$$$$$$'s and we let out mr child molester or monster whatever you prefer out after 2 years. And this math is not wrong. I did double check though LOL"

Yep, I checked it too, and it's correct (the decimal point notwithstanding). Let's continue...

I don't know the population of the US anymore, but I think it's around 250-300 million. That being the case, suppose that there are 100 million taxpayers.

12 billion dollars / 100 million taxpayers = 120 dollars per taxpayer

Now I dislike paying taxes as much as anyone, and here in California, possibly more than most. But 120 dollars is a small, small part of my yearly tax bill, and if the government wants to use it to keep criminals away from me, I think it's a good investment.

I'm not swayed by the "fact" that these criminals are "nonviolent". I have been burglarized and vandalized; it's expensive and heartbreaking. Frankly, I don't want drug addicts living in my neighborhood, either, even though they evidently are lovely, nonviolent people.

Tim

 

[novus collectus]

So hey, if somebody needs to go to Canuckistan to get their fix I say Godspeed. I'm sure that life with our enlightened brethren to the north will be as idylic as a small non-specific little town in England somewhere in which miracles were worked by pumping poison into some poor unfortunate's vein. God bless and keep them. One less dirtbag addict in my neck of the woods. And who knows? Perhaps after an influx of the U.S.'s best and brightest the Canuckistanians will enjoy a new renaisance.

And how are they going to get there if they are spending all their money on drugs. They are here, they are going to stay here and when they go to prison they are coming back to a town near us. So lets deal with them and help to make them a productive member of society and save money by not having to encarcerate them when they are clean.
Yes I am a liberal but I have been on your side of the fence (in more than one way). I have great convictions on this issue because I have seen things that work that are not being done and I see our society suffering (you probably do too but from a different perspective than me, obviously).
If all addicts are lying when they speak then what about the man who was an alchohlic for 14 years? Id he still lying years after he cleaned up? As far as most heroine addicts wanting to quit and not one wanted to get addicted I speak the truth. When addicted they go through withdrawals sometimes 4 or 5 times a day and it gets old for them.
The methadone program in this country is working and so we would not need to give them heroine. Methodone programs don't getmuch more than half of them clean the first time but that is still the other half that now pay taxes and stop stealing.

12 billion dollars / 100 million taxpayers = 120 dollars per taxpayer

That is just the direct everyday costs associated with keeping people in jail. You have money spent on building new prisons, court costs and time, and Drug offenders and related that are not paying taxes while encarcerated adding up to a drain on society. I would gladly spend a few exrta hundred dollars a day to keep ALL child molestors in jail for a very very long time and it is overburdening our society to keep the drug abusers and related in jail. So why don't we do something better with the drug abusers (and related) so that we DON'T have to spend more tax dollars to keep both them and molestors in prison?

Amsterdam is a bad example. They do not regulate the pot use like they should. We have lagalized alchohol for 70 years or so and and we have adapted to having a few liquor stores in our neighborhoods. (not saying that alchohol is not harmful to some but pot is a lot less harmful than alchohol)

 

[Fred Hansen]

Id he still lying years after he cleaned up?

I will presume you mean "is" rather than "Id".

One of the steps to dealing with one's addiction is to be brutally honest with oneself and others. An addict that says he wants to quit is a liar. Wanting is meaningless. Doing is all that matters. But hey, if addicts think that telling folks they want to quit will get them more free dope from the bleeding heart types; then that's what they'll do. Looks like it works like a charm on most folks.

And how are they going to get there if they are spending all their money on drugs.

A one time bus ticket north seems like an excellent investment to me. Sending those darlings into the loving arms of our socialist brothers to the north seems to be a perfect solution. The addicts will be surrounded by the warm fuzziness that is socialism, and they get free heroin. What could possibly be better?

 

[Wallew]

TimRB,

Want to try it again? It may also be useful to estimate the cost of having 1 million drug users out and about. I've heard that sometimes those guys, as fun-loving and happy as they all are, sometimes even steal things.

LET ME BE EXTREMELY CLEAR.

Of those one million people in jail on drug charges, MOST of them are ALSO CHARGED with OTHER CRIMES. Owning a weapon, flight from police... the list is a long as the number of inmates you want to discuss it with.

HAVING SAID THAT, there are one million people in jail for drugs.

THAT MEANS THERE ARE AT LEAST 29 MILLION PEOPLE WHO DO DRUGS DAILY THAT ARE NOT IN JAIL. They lead normal lives and pay taxes and etc.

So, thirty million people into $2 trillion is ??? I'm getting too old to do the math. The point is simple. We spend TRILLIONS of dollars on the war on drugs, and not just in our country. DEA, FBI, NSA, federal, state and local PD forces all have to deal with the 'fall out' of someone doing drugs.

FOR EVERY ONE OF THOSE ONE MILLION in jail for drug charges, there are TWENTY NINE people who are not in jail and STILL DOING DRUGS. For every one of those people that are currently serving time for drug charges, there are probably 100 people that the police caught, but our judicial system released. Our prisons do NO GOOD for people that won't respect our laws.

So, like alcohol, do we continue prohibition at a HUGE expense or do we WISE UP and start making all those DRUG USERS tax payers. When was the last time you saw someone selling bathtub gin on the street corner? Ok, I don't live in Kentucky or Tennessse, but you know what I mean.

LAWDOG,

I steal your entire savings account by way of forgery, and it's classified as a non-violent offense.

And what makes you think these types of people actually do any serious jail time? I can name two people who were defrauded of $100K EACH. After the guy doing the con admitted it, he went to county jail in Texas to await trial. Three months later, he pleaded GUILTY to FELONY Fraud (can't remember the exact wording) and then the JUDGE let this @hole go with 'time served'. So it seems that conning people out of their LIVES SAVINGS is a pretty sure bet to STAY OUT OF PRISON.

As a side note about this incident, one of the guys defrauded of $100K lost his wife to cancer because he had 'cashed in' his insurance policy. The other guy involved, when he found out he was conned, had a heart attack and spent almost a month in the hospital. Again with no insurance, for the same reason (he cashed it in). His hospital bills alone topped $100,000 (so he lost almost $200,000 total). Again, the guy responsible for all this spent about three months in the county lock up and then was released for TIME SERVED. I almost hunted him down and killed him myself, but was restrained by several friends and my wife.

 

[TimRB]

Nevermind. I'm tired of arguing.

Tim

 

[novus collectus]

One of the steps to dealing with one's addiction is to be brutally honest with oneself and others. An addict that says he wants to quit is a liar. Wanting is meaningless. Doing is all that matters. But hey, if addicts think that telling folks they want to quit will get them more free dope from the bleeding heart types; then that's what they'll do. Looks like it works like a charm on most folks

Let me clarify what I meant by "want". Of course if they could keep doing smack w/o the withdrawals a few hours later then they most likely would not "want" to quit. But that is mostly because of the chemical change and conditioned behaviour associated with heroine addiction. But when they have been clean from junk long enough and when they have a stable life they wish they had never even thought of starting (I'm not talking bout stopping heroine for a month or so I mean a year or a couple of years). The bleeding hearts in that city in England actually made them get treatment in order to keep getting their prescription. Eventually they were taken off the drugs. They were even kicked off the program if they used additional drugs other than their prescription drug. It worked there why not here if it can save our wayward children before they go to prison and learn to become hardcore or violent criminals.

 

[novus collectus]

Nevermind. I'm tired of arguing.

Actually I am too TimRB. Im pretty sure everyone who spoke up in this thread is tired of beating there heads against a brick wall. Either side of this argument probably won't be swayed here. I may think that the oposing side will not change their minds until the day that a family member that they thought was a good person gets sent to jail for drugs, or similar, for ten years and comes out a worse person with aids (after being raped by a violent prisoner). But the opposing side may think that I will change my mind when a junky breaks into my house and steals my life savings (then takes one of my guns he stole and kills my grandmother with it). We shall have to wait to see which side is right and just hope for the best no matter who was right.


I'm out too

 

[kjm]

One more post.

I have a few criteria that help me make a decision if called to jury duty:

1. Did this person hurt anybody (I mean directly, not hurt somebody's feelings or other wishy-washy definitions)?

2. Did this person deny a person access to their property?

3. Did this person interfere with the exercise of libery by another?

If none of those are met, I will vote not-guilty every time.

I don't care if he was a felon in posession of a pre-ban AK-47 (NFA), and a bale of marijuana, and a car with no muffler or catalytic converter installed and a bumper sticker defaming tree-huggers in downtown San Fransico. Possession is not a crime. Crimes are committed by actions that hurt somebody (again, not hurts feelings, or makes their mothers' sad, I mean cause bodily damage), deny liberty or property.

You let me sit on a jury of somebody who broke into a house to support a drug habit, and I'd say they crossed the line and I will hold that jury there until I get a conviction or a hung jury. I have no sympathy whatsoever for crimes of property, liberty, or real injury. None.

I just don't recognize that possession of anything is a crime.

 

[azmax]

Well let's back to a subject we all agree on. GUNS! I do think its cool how super liberals like novus and snacktrack and other's im sure have a valued opinion here. Is that not so great! God, we live in a wonderful country. Only in America can civilized humans have a debate like this and at the end, still respect each other.

God Bless America. and all that it stands for.

 

[kjm]

Yes- God Bless America and all those who make it so great!

I love this place. Betcha wouldn't find a board like this in Germany!