the webmaster notes our elected officals are using the police to reduce the unemployment rate and make them look good - well i dont know you make the decision on that
Arizona Republic
Wednesday, March 15, 2000
Page E3
Prisoners don't count
The strong economy has pushed U.S. joblessness to the lowest levels in three decads.
But a grim factor also is helping improve the numbers: A record 1.7 million people are imprisioned in the United States.
Prisoners are excluded from unemployment calculations. And because most inmates are economically disadvantaged and unskilled, jailing so many people has effectively taken a big block of the nation's least employable citizens out of the equation.
The proportion of the population behind bars has doubled since 1985, note labor economists Lawrence Katz and Alan Krueger. If the incarceration rate had held teady over that period, they suggest, the current 4.1 percent unenployment rate would be a less-robust 4.3 percent.
the webmaster notes that the 1.7 million number for the number of Americans in jail is probably a little low. several other articles in my web site say that as of march 1, 2000 that 2 million american are in jail making america the number one police state in the world.
america now has a higher percent of its population in jail more then any other country in the world.
and this isnt a brand new figure. its been that way for many years. i have been talking this line since 1996. the american police state percentage wise jails almost twice as many people as russia and china. and only third rate dictator ships like iran, iraq, and cuba even get near the percentage of people in jail in the american police state. and civilized courtrys in europe, canada, and mexico jail just a small fraction of the amount of people that america does.
these numbers are from a united nations study on the number of people jailed.
last most of the stuff i have read says that two thirds of the americans in jail are in their for non violent victemless drug crimes. not real crimes.