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Thursday, February 23rd, 2012

Obama Budget: Grow Prisons and Keep Gitmo

Author:     JAMES RIDGEWAY and JEAN CASELLA
Source:     Mother Jones
Publication Date:     Wed Feb. 22, 2012 3:00 AM PST
 Link: Obama Budget: Grow Prisons and Keep Gitmo
Stephan:   This is shameful, and wrong for so many reasons. The American Gulag has grown as much under Obama as it did under any conservative. Keeping Gitmo open is a violation of a campaign pledge. The whole thing is nasty and sad. I do so wish there was a viable third party. I find the Republican Presidential candidates embarrassing, and am glad I have no overseas travel this year on my schedule until after the election. It would be too excruciating to sit through dinner parties and social gatherings having to answer the questions of the other guests: 'Stephan, can you explain to us how is it possible America could even consider a man like Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich or Mitt Romney for the Presidency?' 'What has happened to the United States?' 'Are there that many haters in your country?' And so on... and so on... I will hold my nose and vote for Obama. But I will not be happy.

President Obama’s budget request for fiscal year 2013 includes cuts to everything from Medicare and Medicaid to defense and even homeland security. But federal prisons are among its ‘biggest winners,’ according to an analysis by the Federal Times. The Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is seeking a 4.2 percent increase, one of the largest of any federal agency, which would bring its total budget to more than $6.9 billion.

So what kind of criminals are we spending all this money to incarcerate? If you’re thinking terrorists and kidnappers, think again. According to the Sentencing Project, only 1 in 10 federal prisoners is locked up for a violent offense of any kind. More than half are drug offenders-hardly surprising, since federal prosecutions for drug offenses more than doubled between 1984 and 2005. The 1980s also produced mandatory minimum sentences, which meant we were not only sending more people to prison, we were keeping them there far longer-a perfect formula for an exploding prison population.
‘Increasing funding for more prison beds has been shown to be a self-fulfilling prophecy,’ notes the Justice Policy Institute. ‘If you build it, they will come.’

Indeed, the federal prison population ballooned from fewer than 25,000 inmates in 1980 […]

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