Legal Commentary

Thoughts for a Sunday

By Tom Kirkendall

The NY Times' Adam Liptak has penned a couple of interesting articles recently (here and here) on a frequent topic of this blog (here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here) -- the troubling incarceration rate in the United States.

With only 5% of the world's population, the U.S. now houses almost a quarter (2.3 million!) of the world's prisoners. One in 100 adults in the U.S. is now behind bars and 751 people are in U.S. prisons or jails for every 100,000 in population. The only other major industrialized nation that even comes close to that rate of incarceration is Russia with 627 prisoners for every 100,000 people. England’s rate is 151, Germany’s is 88 and Japan’s is 63. Among other things, these numbers certainly makes one wonder why on earth we are sending folks like Jeff Skilling, the NatWest Three, the Merrill Four and Jamie Olis to prison?

Meanwhile, in this five-part LA Times debate, Reason's Jacob Sullum takes on the Heritage Foundation’s Charles Stimson over one of the main reasons for the high U.S. incarceration rate -- drug prohibition. At least in this first installment, Sullum makes a much more compelling case than Stimson.

Full post as published by Houston's Clear Thinkers on April 27, 2008 (boomark / email).