Prison Nation, putting people in jail for victimless crimes

June 21st, 2009 | By Reverend

Why is America a prison nation?

In the USA we have approximately 5% of the total world’s population.  Yet we have 25% of the total world’s prison population.
More than 80% of all of those in prison are serving time for non-violent offenses, which are mostly made up of drug offenses.

Our prohibition laws have been in place since 1937, and we are the most strict industrialized country in the world on drug prohibition, and yet our problem doesn’t get better it gets worse.  More people are using, and more people are addicted to drugs than in nearly all of the ‘free world’.

When we look at countries that have decriminalized, like Canada, Australia, Holland, etc..  These countries have less of a crime problem, less of an addiction problem, less users, etc..

Prohibition makes drugs taboo.   When people feel like they are being kept from something without justification it makes people want to use the prohibited activity more often it seems.

Here is a video that I made about how prohibition effected me.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7n2bH5YPco[/youtube]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7n2bH5YPco