I am an Asian Aspie who seeks to further my studies in the US.
I was shocked by widespread overcriminalzation in the US.
One of three African American males who flunk high school would spend sometime in jail.
The incarceration rate for whites are eight times of the incarceration rate thirty years ago,while the Latino and African Americans suffer more.
Every year more behaviours are defined as crimes and even felonies.
Fighting in school could result in staying in jail.
Why do private prisons exist?

I agree that the prisons are getting overpopulated, but crimes tend to lead to prison sentences, not flunking high school.

someone stupid enough to flunk high school leads to crimes, because they can't get a job. The vicious cycle of the poor. We throw money at it, community centers at it, police at it, welfare at it, when really it's education, and educational environment. To which we say "they cannot be taught."

Toss in a charter school and suddenly those same kids don't grow up to be failures. The public school system is a joke. If the Republicans want to privatize anything it should be education.

I don't think there are uneducatable humans.
The Czech Republic doesn't offer Romani people proper education and then talk about the so-called "Romani stupidity",which doesn't exist at all.
There are also so-called "Romani crimes" in the Czech Republic.Poverty might cause crimes,while being a Romani does not.Inadequate education and the vicious cycle of poverty result in the Romani's overrepresentation in the prisons in the Czech Republic.
60% of prisoners in the Czech Republic are Romani people.

The prison system in the US is a business and it seems like it is designed to have returning customers. When one is released on parole in CA, one of the conditions of release is that you find work during the initial two-three weeks. Now, they return you to the community you are from, which for the average incarcerated person that community is going to be one of high unemployment. Add the stigma of being a criminal and the chances of landing a job are slim, so you fail your parole and go back to prison. Prisons creates criminals by stigmatizing and traumatizing people. I've been on probation for nearly a year and still have three months to go, was sentenced to fines and community service, and spent a night in jail (where the police roughed me up a little). All because I put the dying words of Christ on a wall, a lot for such a petty crime.

The US is on track to become a police state at least as disgusting as China, following the Nazi rise-to-power playbook to the letter.

Actually, no nation on earth has ever made their own children and elderly submit to genital fondling just for the privilege of traveling. So in terms of dehumanization, we are on track to be the worst police state in history.

Sure, *real* crimes should lead to prison. Rape, murder, theft, white-collar money crimes, embezzlement, ect.

But should people be sent to prison, or become felons, for smoking a litte weed? (BTW, I dont use MJ myself)

Of course not, but the entire "war on drugs" keeps the DEA, the police, the parole officers, the prison-industrial complex, the courts and the lawyers employed and making lots of money, so it continues on, no matter how senseless it really is.

And once a felon, they can forget about making a decent living in the US for many years, if ever. So it's back to a life of
REAL crime in order to survive, for these people. What a revolving-door "criminal justice system" we have in the US.

Well,the US is incarcerating its children for accidentally bring a knife to the school without hurting anyone.
That is more disgusting.
I'd like to compare US with Stalinist Soviet Union.
The Soviet Union could incarcerate people for nothing because the state,KGB,gulag and gulag officers could gain profit from prisoners.
So does the US.
War on the drugs is a failure.It makes more people prisoners and it couldn't solve the drug problem.
Those who abuse narcotic drugs should be treated,not jailed.

The prison guards in CA is earning more money than professors in CA.

can we point a finger at "fatherless homes" or at least throw this into the equation? Look who has "raised" all of these criminals? Women. Who taught them in elementary school? Women. Who belittled men, called dad every name under the sun, and USED the courts to keep "daddy" away from kids? Women. Who was a piss poor role-model to these boys, who became men...and THEN criminals????? Women.

It isn't "purely" a racial thing. It's the courts keeping "sancho" and "LeRoy" in his place, subserviant to a broken justice system

Thats quite true for lots of states, as far as I know.

Pulling down 100K is easy for for lots of these thugs in uniform.

Yuppers.

What a wonderful country..............NOT!

college professors in California for the state system are the highest paid professors on average in the USA btw. If you enter "academia" your focus should be the students, not the pay. I feel little sympathy for the professors in California. They are part of the problem of "why" the UC system and the Cal / JC system is broken, and cannot reign in costs. UC San Diego just gave the new Dean of Faculty 100K more than the previous one who just left. The pensions for California professors of the state system are the highest in the USA.

If you have a degree in Criminology...why are you being paid 75K per year to teach at a college level, and not even at a UC? A college professor should be paid well....but why are the UC Regents and other administartors making well over a million per year....when the system cannot sustain such a level? Why does a professor at Stanford (a private university) make on average 15K less? Pigs at a public trough is the answer.

It's definitely not a racial thing.
It is about the American justice system.People from any race suffer from this.
They just want to keep people in jails and calling it a racial thing could make the problem a citizen vs citizen problem which is harder to be solved.
It is a citizen vs prison-industrial complex problem.

This is true but the cost of living out in Cali is outrageous as well. I know the $85K house I am currently living in here in the Southeast would sell for at least a quarter million out there, if not closer to a half mil.

And that is adjusting for the price drop after the housing bubble collapse.


True, it is more of a class thing. Impoverished people from the ghettos of inner cities are powerless easy pickings for the prison-industrial complex. But a disproportionate number of them are minorities for a number of reasons, many of which do involve racism... at least the legacy of racism in bygone eras if not current.