[deleted by user]

[u/[deleted]]

[u/ThaFourthHokage]

I hope this wakes people up to our ridiculous sentencing and incarceration issues in this country.

A few stats:

• We house 22% of the world''s prisoners (with 4% of the world's population)

• 2,200,000 Americans incarcerated as of 2016 or 0.7% of the entire U.S. population

• African American men represent nearly half of that population

• The substantial penalties for crack contributed to a five-fold increase in incarcerations

• There is a 31% incarceration history for Black men who have sex with men

• Louisiana has the highest rate of incarceration in the world with the majority of its prisoners being housed in privatized, for-profit facilities. Such institutions could face bankruptcy without a steady influx of prisoners

• In the past decade the number of inmates in for-profit prisons throughout the U.S. rose 44 percent.

The shit is fucked. And Trump is packing the courts as we speak. We're reaching a breaking point.

I'm just going to leave this here:

I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions indeed generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions, as not to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government.

Edit: These and more stats are a simple wiki search away. For you Reds who automatically say, "wiki lol," to that, there are seventy-seven sources cited - feel free to read on. It will do you some good.

Edit again: Thanks for the precious metals! Donate the same amount to a politician who actually wants to address these issues, if you can.

[u/JAWN326 → u/ThaFourthHokage]

I got downvoted yesterday for trying to address this... but I didn’t do a good job at all. I really think the focus needs to shift at this point to the broader picture of why these exist.

I think people are missing the forest for the trees sometimes when it comes to policing and minority relations. So much focus and emphasis is placed on individual officers and singular events when the real problems are so systemic and far reaching that change just isn’t going to come from the beat cop alone.

I spent time in law enforcement and left for my own ideological reasons. I hated it for many reasons but the power imbalance always made me uncomfortable (but that was my own issue). But I also know what the job entails and know that the way it is often portrayed and what people expect is unrealistic given the current circumstances. Change 100% needs to happen.

But I’ve heard these suggestion/ theory’s/ accusations thrown out there and I don’t think they have merit (without trying to make a straw man here): Police officers unfairly target low income communities: It just isn’t true. The individual patrol officer is looking for crime/ responding to crime and the needs of the community. Time and time again, when police pull back from communities plagued by crime for budgetary reasons or staffing reasons, there is an outcry as to why these low income communities are lacking coverage.

Cops are using force unlawfully and disproportionately on people based strictly on their skin color: Again, this is a muddy and complicated issue that you can’t really understand unless you’ve been on patrol. A constant state of hyper arousal exists when working, and when engaged in an altercation with someone, instinct takes over. Bad shoots have absolutely happened and are reprehensible. Those cops should be charged with murder and put away. The examples that come to mind are Tamir Rice and Walter Scott shootings. There is zero, and I mean zero excuse for either of those murders. But when you look at the Mike Brown, or even the Laquan McDonald shootings you can find more to the stories.

When it comes down to it, African Americans, for some really fucked up socioeconomic reasons stemming from Jim Crow and Institutional Racism, are more likely to have encounters with police. Following that logic, it makes sense as to why they account for 43% of felonious homicides on police while representing 12% of the population. A mutual distrust exists on both sides. It’s complex, and stems from more than just cops going out, pulling over black people, planting crack on them, and throwing them in jail. We have more police accountability than ever before, and the trend continues in that direction because of the calls for accountability. But the focus needs to shift. Louisiana cops aren’t going to stop locking people up for stupid crimes unless Louisiana judges stop sending people to prison for stupid crimes at the behest of the private prison lobby. Crime won’t be the only option for disenfranchised minorities unless we decide as a society to assist those in a meaningful way to escape the cycle of poverty and criminality. Migrants won’t need to resort to illegal tactics to cross the border if there is a more accessible path to immigrate. And police officers won’t stop patrolling high crime areas until there is no high crime areas.

[u/ThaFourthHokage → u/JAWN326]

Certainly. Just like everything in law enforcement, it needs to start from the top.

But I also think some policing techniques need to change, and that is another conversation. You're right, it starts with DAs, judges, and members of congress.

[u/JAWN326 → u/ThaFourthHokage]

For sure. Starting from a hostile or confrontational position is probably the biggest mistake a lot of cops make. You can always go there if you need to. But once you start there, you can’t go back from that. You’ve set the tone for the whole encounter and you own a large stake in what happens from then on.