{"id":618,"date":"2009-04-29T13:27:03","date_gmt":"2009-04-29T17:27:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/2009\/04\/5-population-25-prison-population-us.html"},"modified":"2025-06-13T20:03:47","modified_gmt":"2025-06-14T00:03:47","slug":"5-population-25-prison-population-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/2009\/04\/5-population-25-prison-population-us.html","title":{"rendered":"5% population, 25% prison population: U.S."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\r\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/templates\/story\/story.php?storyId=103521020\">Senator Jim Webb of Virginia met with people who work in prisons:<\/a>\r\n<blockquote>\r\nBut once we were inside the presentation room, where about a dozen people who work in corrections and social services had assembled to talk about the criminal justice system, Webb&#8217;s evident passion and fluency with the issues created a palpable bond with the attendees. &#8220;We have 5 percent of the world&#8217;s population and 25 percent of the people in prison,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Either we&#8217;re the most evil people on earth, or we&#8217;re doing something wrong.&#8221; As for the imprisonment of nonviolent drug offenders: &#8220;I saw more drug use at Georgetown University Law Center when I was a student there than I&#8217;ve seen anywhere else in my life,&#8221; he said, to knowing laughs. &#8220;And some of those people are judges.&#8221;\r\n<p>\r\nWebb then listened as attendees enumerated the various dysfunctions, injustices and perverse incentives created by the metastasizing prison-industrial complex: &#8220;I can get $600,000 from the state for a new jail,&#8221; said Fredericksburg Mayor Tom Tomzak, &#8220;but I can&#8217;t get $40 for Healthy Families.&#8221;\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\nWe need to change that.\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Senator Jim Webb of Virginia met with people who work in prisons: But once we were inside the presentation room, where about a dozen people who work in corrections and social services had assembled to talk about the criminal justice system, Webb&#8217;s evident passion and fluency with the issues created a palpable bond with the [&hellip;]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[40,1888,12],"tags":[2039,2040,2041,1903,2038,1928,2042],"class_list":["post-618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy","category-incarceration","category-politics","tag-drug-offenders","tag-georgetown-university-law-center","tag-healthy-familes","tag-incarceration-2","tag-jim-webb","tag-prison","tag-prison-industrial-complex"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Gj0O-9Y","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=618"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9785,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618\/revisions\/9785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}