Why Are So Many Americans in Prison?
Activist groups claim a biased criminal justice system has put too many people behind bars. The solution, they say, is to drastically cut the prison population. Even now, some states are using the coronavirus pandemic to double down on granting early release to thousands of prisoners. Rafael Mangual, Deputy Director of Legal Policy at the Manhattan Institute, urges caution: most people are in prison for a good reason.
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Script:
The U.S. does have a very large prison population—not because too many innocent people are incarcerated, but because too many people commit serious—usually violent—crimes. With rare exceptions, that’s why most people are imprisoned in America. Period. Full stop.
Before presenting the facts, let me add these caveats: It’s unacceptable that any innocent person is behind bars. Punishment must always fit, not exceed, the crime. We should do everything we can to reduce the rates of recidivism—committing more crime after release. And finally, everyone in prison should be treated humanely.
But let’s not fool ourselves that our prisons are full of people who shouldn’t be there. That’s simply not the case.
Let’s start with those convicted of drug offenses, the source of so much of the “mass incarceration” myth. While it’s true that about half of federal prisoners are incarcerated on drug charges, federal inmates constitute only about 12% of the American prison population. Almost nine of every ten prison inmates are in state facilities. And very few of them—less than 15%—are there for drug-related offenses.
Four times that number are behind bars for one of the following serious crimes:
Murder—14%
Rape or sexual assault—13%
Robbery—13%
Aggravated or simple assault—11%
And burglary—9%
In short, violent criminals make up the clear majority of the state prison population. What’s more, drug offenders who do end up in prison don’t actually serve very much time—almost half are released within a year.
The truth is that most criminals probably spend less time in prison than you think—even for the most violent crimes. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, almost 40% of released state prisoners served less than a year in prison. Even 20% of murderers and nearly 60% of those convicted of rape or sexual assault served less than five years of their sentences in prison.
What explains the short stays? Answer: plea bargaining.
Most prosecutions never go to court. Instead, a deal is made between the defendant’s attorney and the prosecutor to avoid going to trial. These negotiations often involve the offender agreeing to plead guilty in exchange for a reduced sentence, or dropping or downgrading the most serious charges. As a result, a prisoner’s conviction record often understates the crime that landed him behind bars in the first place.
For example, an armed burglar who, when arrested, was found to be in possession of illegal drugs might go to prison not for his worst crime—the armed burglary, but for a plea-bargained charge of, say, trespass and drug possession. But the media and the activists don’t tell us about this rather important detail. Instead, all we hear about is the poor fellow who’s serving time “for selling a small amount of cocaine.”
This assumes, of course, that the convicted criminal does any time at all. Studies done by the Justice Department show that only about 40% of felony convictions lead to a prison sentence. Yes, many are given probation, sentenced to home confinement, or given credit for time served in pretrial detention. But most of the time, convicted criminals don’t go to prison.
For the complete script, visit https://www.prageru.com/video/why-are-so-many-americans-in-prison
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My bestfriend was found guilty of manslaughter and he is innocent the whole town knows who really did it but the detectives refuse to investigate any other leads. How can i help him?
Fun Fact: You can use selective data to “support” your argument.
What we need is harsher sentences for violent crimes. We should also stop allowing violent criminals from pleading down. When an aggravated rapist can plead down to battery and assault , we have a problem. The simple fact that rapists and pedophiles spend less than 5 years in prison is sickening. Anyone who is against the quick death penalty of a pedophile should immediately be investigated.
This Video Is So Undeniably Incorrect.
Lies and dam lies
Prager would have us believe that Americans are among the most violent and criminal in the world, and that America is the most efficient in the world at convicting and sentencing as many people as possible.
OR, maybe incarceration rates shot up when we re-defined crime and increased mandatory minimums WITHOUT a corresponding decrease in crime. MAYBE prisons work to debase a person so thoroughly that recidivism rates have shot up, actually intensifying the problem if they're released to begin with. Maybe bail is used as a tool to force confessions, and charges are stacked by re-defining crimes so that a person who kills once is simultaneously guilty of Murder 1, Murder 2, and Murder 3. Maybe the way we handle prisons is corrupt, incompetent, malicious, and fully misapprehensive of the causes and conditions of crime.
Can we first ask why “too many people commit serious and violent crimes.”
America 🇺🇸 prison started to get full in the 70s
The numbers don't add up. Sounds like this video is covering up for putting people with drug medical problems into prison. This is where I totally disagree with the right wing.
I consider myself to be quite liberal. I don't like capitalism in its current form, I'm pro-choice, atheist, and I don't think it should be legal to get ridiculously rich off of healthcare, education, water, justice, or housing. With that said, I agree almost entirely with this video. We are far too soft on violent crime. No one with 10 felony convictions should ever be allowed out of prison. It's as infuriating as seeing someone with 15 DUIs finally kill someone on the 16th DUI. They should have never been allowed to drive again. Maybe they shouldn't have even been out of prison after their 10th DUI
No more plea bargains.
How about the real reason that prisons are overcrowded with violent criminals? It’s because Democrats are encouraging them to “fight back against whitey” rather than get educated and jobs. As they become slaves of the state doing forced labor while incarcerated, their baby mamas become welfare voter slaves. Democrats vowed revenge for the Civil War taking their slaves away and they’re getting it as democratic socialists corrupt our nation. Now, they persecute citizens who defend themselves and import illegal aliens to replace their slaves.
Worst tourism advertisement ever. So PagerU is saying it’ll be safer to holiday in Afghanistan!
Crimes will continue, the punishment needs to be harder.
You guys aren’t fooling anyone any more.
American legal system is a joke. Real convict running free while the real hard working people go to jail for no reason. Dumb. American legal system need big time reform immediately. You can go to jail for anything in America
There may be a small percentage of people that can’t be rehabilitated but most can
Once poor people can make laws on politician's, government and the rich then they would committ suicide. Because our laws passed will not affect us because we are poor.
Here's another statistic.: This generation of young people have a better chance of ending up in prison than owning a home. We have a big problem in America and it's called the War on Drugs. Black market drug sales support a multitude of society damaging issues and violation of civil rights.
Loss of liberty and autonomy, gun rights, organized crime, illegal search, street gangs, illegal seizure, unsupervised detox in jails, surveillance, entrapment, and couersion by plea bargain are all products of our drug laws. Unregulated quality of street drugs is killing 100,000 people every year. This truly is a case where the cure has become worse than the disease!
He just stated the remedy for mass incarceration: STOP COMMITTING CRIMES !!!
America does nothing to help ex inmates succeed outside when they are "free". Alot of people who go to prison have problems holding down a job which is not a crime but is being treated as a crime. The American prisons just throw them out on the street with no housing or financial help. So these people find it easier to just go back to prison then live under a bridge its not rocket science. Prager is wrong. America needs to give ex inmates stable free housing and a basic income for their needs I think this would lower the recidivism rate by a big percentage. America is a very wealthy country we can afford to help people.
I can't believe people actually listen to these guys. PragerU is the Buzzfeed of the right.
Brought to you by the private prison industry currently being traded on Wall Street! Prager U is a joke 🤣
What is your Long Term goal By locking them up?