See this report  http://www.pewcenteronthestate…..8022803016

At pg. 5- "At the start of 2008, there were 1,596,127 adult americans in state
or federal prison custody and another 723,131 in local jails, making the total
adult inmate count 2,319,258. the number of adults in the population was just
under 230million making the actual incarceration rate 1 in every 99.1 adults."

(this doesn't even begin to count those under 'correctional supervision' of
some kind)

at pg. 35-a chart comparing the usa to european countries with
the highest prison rates: how many people do these countries have in jail per
100,000 citizens (counting adults&kids for total population statistics):

NUMBER OF INMATES PER 100,000 RESIDENTS:
USA 750
POLAND
236
CZECH REPUBLIC 186
SPAIN 147
SCOTLAND 142
NETHERLANDS
128
PORTUGAL 120
TURKEY 112
GERMANY 93
GREECE 91
BELGIUM
91
FRANCE 86
SWEDEN 79
NORWAY 75
ITALY 67

Why?

Can you imagine the societal costs of having 1 in 100 americans in jail??

 Instead of out taking care of themselves, living their own productive, happy lives,

it creates a pretty serious financial burden on the other 98 adults who aren't locked up
(must also account for the cost of putting the prisoners through trial, not
merely room&board…. also how about the children, the dependents of the
people locked up? somebody has to pick it up when they can't)….another
obstacle/burden for the remaining free people to shoulder …..

just to throw in my two cents, I believe that
all people are born with desires of their own….to have a nice life…. and
without any desire to go to jail and without any desire to harm their fellows by
committing crime.

I Don't think people here are any different, fundamentally, from people in the above-referenced countries, so Why does the US have such a high % of citizens in jail?

For one thing, the U.S. has too many laws aimed at 'victimless crimes!!'  ie. drug laws pertinant to
drugs that TYPICALLY don't send people out on crack-fueled murder sprees at
random…. this report acknowledges that the us has more petty drug offenders
locked up than any other nation By Far…. but I think thats just part of it.

Some laws seem facilitated by corruption…. see, congress makes the laws based

off what the lobbyists are paid by corporations to tell them…. in fact, congressmen are

elected based on having well funded campaigns provided by corporations….at least,

 the amounts that profitable corporations can contribute toward election campaigns

 usually Swamps any contributions that can be raised among private citizens or nonprofit groups.

Corporations do not represent people…. and they aren't people…
all they like to do is make profit by exploiting the labors of people…. the
law doesn't give them any right to Vote, so why are they allowed to influence
the laws in this way??

Take these new internet streaming laws for
example…. the music movie and television industries have Alot of Profits,
which they made by promoting certain artists and writers/actors, etc…
ultimately keeping a very large portion of the value generated by those artists
and the writers and the employees who worked to support them for 'the
corporation'…. now they use those profits to facilitate aggressive initiatives
in congress that lead to the hunting-down-and-prosecuting of our own
citizens…. the artists/writers/employees whose labors support the profits of
those corporations have no say about any of this….. the rights to their music,
likeness and film belong to the corporation that has an exclusive monopoly over
choosing which artists will receive 'promotion' enough to get popular, editing
the artists stuff so it will 'sell more' and it telling the artist to play at
concert venues that charge fans $12 for a beer and sell tickets through
ticketmaster with a $25 service charge (exploitation of fans).
…and of course if they don't protect their monopoly over these things how will they
continue to exist and reap such giant profits? Thus the money goes to support
internet streaming laws. once the laws are in place somebody has to enforce 'em
(oh but corporatons don't pay for that, taxpayers do….)

ya think laws against petty drug offenses are there to protect the pharmaceutical interests?
or to facilitate locking up minorites because of the way those laws can be
selectively enforced and prosecuted (as the above-cited report's statistics
that the rate of incarceration for certain age-ranges of certain 'minority' groups is way out of proportion to what it should be.Definately suggest some prejudicial selective-enforcement and prosecution is at
play here)… maybe both???

Why does the U.S. have to be the 'enforcer' among nations, promulgating laws against

copywrite infringement and prosecuting them through different nations across the globe??

Those laws are ONLY enforced on behalf of LARGE corporate entities like FOX and Time Warner….

You will Never, Never find federal actions prosecuting copywrite infringement against a private citizen on behalf of another private citizen (possibly self-published?)….. so the laws and enforcement mechanisms are exclusively in favor of corporations and against the citizens.

why why WHY is our country doing this to us??? lets send them a message to STOP MAKING US INTO CRIMINALS!!!!!!

Like, They WONDER why big companies are taking jobs away from us?  ha ha ha ha, who would want to base their global business here and hire from us, when we have these high criminal statistics?  Our government does not seem to think much of us, so why should anyone else?