Minorities and the poor: to war or prison

War and prisons. We love spending money--big money--on war and prisons. As long as it's poor or minority people--or both--we don't mind throwing them away. After all, it's their fault, right? From Truthout, yesterday: Our Prisons Don't Do Us Justice Monday 02 August 2010 by: William A. Collins Lock the prisons, Toss the key; Just don't send The bill to me. Prison numbers are tough to pin down. There is the federal system, there are 50 state systems, and no one is just sure how many local jails or military brigs. All told, professionals estimate that one in every 100 Americans resides in one of them. To observe that this figure sounds surprisingly high badly understates the point. It's totally obscene. We have replaced Russia and China as the world's incarceration powerhouse. And whatever else you may think of some of our allies, our incarceration rate is six times that of Canada and eight times that of France. No, nothing special has happened to our actual crime rate to cause this jump. The difference is politics. President Ronald Reagan decided that wars on drugs and crime would be good vote-getters and his idea stuck. Then, to consolidate the change, along with all the new prisons came a slew of new guards. To protect their jobs they have quickly become a potent lobby against any sort of criminal justice reform. What a mess! Link to original post: http://www.truth-out.org/our-prisons-dont-do-us-justice61969