Prison Industrial Complex

It's old news now, but the U.S. leads the world in prisoners. NY Times has a hard to read graphic detailing the world prison make up. Wikipedia has an easier to read comparison though. In the world view, the United States is the "Most Free Country" in the world... but it has the largest prison population. The U.S. also ranks high in executions. The other countries that rank high on both lists are countries that we Americans are taught or told are evil countries (axis of evil) or "backwards middle east" countries.

Prisons are a growth industry in the US. There is money to be made, and most of this is due the "The War on Drugs". There are crime fighting units that fund themselves solely with asset forfeiture. The truth is that the war on drugs is big business for government as well as government contractors. In any war, the people that take on the risk of war are the soldiers that fight the war. In the war on drugs, there is no risk to the warriors, leaving the losers U.S. citizens. We declared war on ourselves! From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_war#Government.27s_war_against_the_people

Government's war against the people

In their book Multitude, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri oppose the view that the use of the term "war" is only metaphorical: they analyse the War on Drugs as part of a global war of a biopolitical nature. Like the War on Terrorism, the War on Drugs is a true war, waged by the US government against its own people.^[50]

Richard Lawrence Miller's Drug Warriors and Their Prey draws detailed comparisons of the War on Drugs in the United States today with events in 1930s Germany that led to Hitler's Third Reich and the attempted destruction of the Jewish people. Miller writes that "authoritarians are manufacturing and manipulating public fears about drug use in order to create a police state where a much broader agenda of social control can be implemented, using government power to determine what movies we may watch, determine who we may love and how we may love them, determine whether we may or must pray to a deity. I believe the war on drug users masks a war on democracy."^[51]

Alcohol prohibition was a failure, and only increased violence during that time. From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_in_the_United_States#Repeal

At the end of Prohibition some supporters openly admitted its failure. A quote from a letter, written in 1932 by wealthy industrialist John D. Rockefeller, Jr., states:

When Prohibition was introduced, I hoped that it would be widely supported by public opinion and the day would soon come when the evil effects of alcohol would be recognized. I have slowly and reluctantly come to believe that this has not been the result. Instead, drinking has generally increased; the speakeasy has replaced the saloon; a vast army of lawbreakers has appeared; many of our best citizens have openly ignored Prohibition; respect for the law has been greatly lessened; and crime has increased to a level never seen before.

Here is a quote right from law enforcemnt agents themselves:
"After nearly four decades of fueling the U.S. policy of a war on drugs with over a trillion tax dollars and 37 million arrests for nonviolent drug offenses, our confined population has quadrupled making building prisons the fastest growing industry in the United States. More than 2.2 million of our citizens are currently incarcerated and every year we arrest an additional 1.9 million more guaranteeing those prisons will be bursting at their seams. Every year we choose to continue this war will cost U.S. taxpayers another 69 billion dollars. Despite all the lives we have destroyed and all the money so ill spent, today illicit drugs are cheaper, more potent, and far easier to get than they were 35 years ago at the beginning of the war on drugs. Meanwhile, people continue dying in our streets while drug barons and terrorists continue to grow richer than ever before. We would suggest that this scenario must be the very definition of a failed public policy. This madness must cease!"

Law Enforcement Against Prohibition: http://leap.cc/cms/index.php

We talk about personal responsibility, and not wasting American tax payer money. Can you imagine saving 69 billion dollars a year? This is a complete failure and absolute waste of money.

Stop the Drug War: http://stopthedrugwar.com/

Educate yourself and find out about whats really going on...

War on Drugs (The Prison Industrial Complex)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=864268000924014458
The war on drugs has been going on for more than three decades. Today, nearly 500,000 Americans are imprisoned on drug charges. In 1980 the number was 50,000. Last year $40 billion in taxpayer dollars were spent in fighting the war on drugs. As a result of the incarceration obsession, the United States operates the largest prison system on the planet, and the U.S. nonviolent prisoner population is larger than the combined populations of Wyoming and Alaska. Try to imagine the Drug Enforcement Administration erecting razor wire barricades around two states to control crime and you'll get the picture.