> Now demonstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt, with vast supporting evidence, that most of those people shouldn't have been in prison for the crimes in question.
"Shouldn't have been" is a value judgment; by my values, anyone in prison for a non-violent drug "offense" should not be there.
Just did a quick search, and for federal crimes, looks like the drug-related prison population is a whopping 46% of the total, at just under 70k inmates. Not sure what the violent vs. non-violent breakdown is, but even if the violent ones are 75% of those, 17k people () is still a lot. If we assume that the federal prison population is composed similarly to all the state prisons, that's 250k inmates for non-violent drug crimes.
Yes, I know I made some guesses and assumptions around those numbers, and if anyone has some better figures, I'd be happy to correct myself, but there's 250k people should not be in prison in the US, based on my values.
"Shouldn't have been" is a value judgment; by my values, anyone in prison for a non-violent drug "offense" should not be there.
Just did a quick search, and for federal crimes, looks like the drug-related prison population is a whopping 46% of the total, at just under 70k inmates. Not sure what the violent vs. non-violent breakdown is, but even if the violent ones are 75% of those, 17k people () is still a lot. If we assume that the federal prison population is composed similarly to all the state prisons, that's 250k inmates for non-violent drug crimes.
Yes, I know I made some guesses and assumptions around those numbers, and if anyone has some better figures, I'd be happy to correct myself, but there's 250k people should not be in prison in the US, based on my values.
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