(Sorry) State of the Union…

Crime's Climb

Other than to poke fun at stupid criminals in my occasional Weird, Wild, and Wacky columns (or to expose what should be classified as criminal actions in our own FDA), I haven't written a whole lot about crime lately…

But a recent Associated Press article has reminded me of the importance of mentioning once again just how much we're inching toward "Hell in a hand-basket" status in this wonderful country of ours. According to that article, statistics compiled and released by the U.S. Justice Department revealed some very sobering new statistics about the prevalence of criminality in America.

Most disturbing among their findings:

• More than 3% of the adult U.S. population (1 in every 32 Americans) is either currently in prison, on parole from a prison sentence, or still roaming free on probation for imprison-able offences (they aren't being incarcerated because of overcrowding)…
• The number of women incarcerated over the last year has increased at a rate more than 36% higher than men - a 2.7% jump over the previous year for the wild gals, as opposed to a 1.9% year-over-year increase for the bad boys. Seven percent of all prison inmates are now women…
• Fully 49% of the dramatic growth in American incarceration over the bulk of the last 10 years (1995-2003) is due to drug-related offenses…

These numbers are probably not even anywhere near the whole picture, as they do not take into account inmates in local jails - only those in state and federal penitentiaries. But they're certainly enough to show a trend toward an increasingly lawless nation.

In the interest of full disclosure, the Associated Press article summarizing the Justice Department statistics also quotes pretty heavily from a Washington-area group bent on "criminal justice reform" (translation: legalization of marijuana). Their beef is with the incarceration of most drug-related offenders, the vast bulk of which they argue are non-violent.

Now, I'm not saying the figures are suspect - they're from public records, not some policy institute's PR firm - and I'm certainly not trying to open up the "legalization" debate about drugs (my opinions might surprise you). I'm only performing my due diligence in informing you that much of the debate about things like prison overcrowding, criminal justice reform, and the state of American crime is now being driven by the pro-drug crowd, which includes the media.

I'm also trying to point out that no one in the mass media ever seems to report favorably on the "try 'em and fry 'em" side of the crime argument. 'Nuff said.