Incarceration

God is a criminal
(God created time, and time kills people)

Incarceration means being locked up, either in jail or prison. It is a lack of freedom, and sequestration from society, as punishment for criminal behavior with the goal of hopefully making people who go there to never want to come back, and thus refrain from future criminality. That is how I see it.

legal definitions
PRISON - A correctional, detention, or penal facility. 18 USC A legal prison is the building designated by law, or used by the sheriff, for the confinement, or detention of those whose persons are judicially ordered to be kept in custody. But in cases of necessity, the sheriff may make his own house, or any other place, a prison. 2. An illegal prison is one not authorized by law, but established by private authority; when the confinement is illegal, every place where the party is arrested is a prison; as, the street, if he be detained in passing along.

This is the definition used in the words "imprisonment" and "prisoner", and can refer to jail or prison, I suppose. I don't actually know. Aren't police departments and sheriff departments different? Police can obviously imprison, as well.

JAIL -Jails are places that confine persons accused of crimes and awaiting trial or convicted of a crime. Jails exist on the local and county levels.

PRISON-Prisons exist at the state and federal levels. The Federal Bureau of Prisons aims to ensure the physical safety of all inmates through a controlled environment which meets each inmate’s need for security through the elimination of violence, predatory behavior, gang activity, drug use, and inmate weapons. Through the provision of health care, mental, spiritual, educational, vocational and work programs, inmates are prepared for a productive and crime free return to society. Inmates are classified into these different facilities based on the inmate's needs and the custody (security risk) of the inmate.

It took me 6 links under "legal definitions" to get this. The first 5 did not even have jail or prison listed! And these aren't even official definitions. You would think the legal world would get it's shit together.

So who goes to local, county, state, and federal jurisdictions, and why? Are there 4 (overlapping) sets of laws, in addition to civil and criminal, for a total of 8? Should I, as God, write one law for everybody?

Anyway, More than 5.6 million Americans are in prison (?) or have served time there, or 1:37 adults, says the Christian Science Monitor in a 2003 article. During his or her lifetime, blacks have a 1:3 chance of going to prison, hispanics 1:6, whites 1:17. 1:3 incarcerated women are there for drug offences. By 2010, 7.7 million Americans are expected to either be or have been in prison, or 3.4% of the U.S.

http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/20080228_us_adult_incarceration_rate_highest_ever/CP2/ says 1:100 (adult population) or 1:130 (total population, including children) Americans are incarcerated. The author seems to think the "war on crime" is a bad thing, or that increased incarceration rates should reflect increased crime, rather than an increased percentage of criminals, which I think is ridiculous. Then again, I have an anarchist streak, and maybe there shouldn't be any prisons. (But that itself would be a law. The status quo has arisen from anarchy. Creating a law is a fascist act. You know, for all the historical high-sounding political rhetoric, I never did sign any social contract).

Immigrants in California are far less likely to land in prison than their U.S.-born counterparts, a finding that defies the perception that immigration and crime are connected, according to a study released recently. Foreign-born residents make up 35 percent of the state's overall population, but only 17 percent of the adult prison population, according to the Public Policy Institute of California, which conducted the research. This doesn't surprise me. America is a harsh place, in my view, with skewed priorities, and obsessed with crime and celebrity and Jesus, and I generally like the Mexicans I meet, in the mexican taqueria markets (yum), such as the hardworking farmworkers in cowboy hats. My spanish isn't up to snuff.

In a recent New York Times article, it says:
Nationwide, the prison population grew by 25,000 last year, bringing it to almost 1.6 million. Another 723,000 people are in local jails. The number of American adults is about 230 million, meaning that one in every 99.1 adults is behind bars, the highest percentage in our nation's history, in a nation that has the highest incarceration rate in the world.

The costs are interesting. On average, states spend 7% of their budgets on incarceration. It cost an average of $23,876 dollars to imprison someone in 2005, the most recent year for which data were available. But state spending varies widely, from $45,000 a year in Rhode Island to $13,000 in Louisiana.

So 23,876x25,000 is a guesstimate at increased costs (for one year). Rhode Island appears to be the place to be incarcerated, if you're shopping for a place to commit a crime. $46,000 is the 2007 PPP (purchasing power parity) U.S. GDP per capita, which is only 1k more.

To read the article, go to: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/us/28cnd-prison.html

In the past 20 years, according the Federal Bureau of Investigation, violent crime rates fell by 25 percent, to 464 for every 100,000 people in 2007 from 612.5 in 1987.

Has the cost per prisoner (jail and prison) gone up or down, since 2005? I would guess up, because of mental health needs. Does prison work? What is the recidivism rate? 52% of released prisoners are re-incarcerated (95% of prisoners are released).

About recidivism: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0933722.html

More than half of prisoners are estimated to have mental health issues, and only a third of those are getting treatment. This means at least one third of prisoners have mental health issues that are not being addressed. My needs are being met for 60 dollars a day, which is about 2000 dollars less than the cost of incarceration (2005). Remember, half the world lives on around a buck a day.

About mental health in prison: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/06/AR2006090601629.html

I think prisons should be places of scholarship and literary activity. It's the best way for them to escape their world, and maybe productively enter ours. Library resources should be extensive, in my opinion, maybe with a digital device that has access to the library of congress, or what have you. But that's just me. I like to read. Maybe there could be a system of prison libraries, that mail approved books out by request.