Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: A Shocking Number Of Non-Violent Americans Will Die In Prison

http://www.businessinsider.com/a-shocking-number-of-non-violent-americans-will-die-in-prison-2013-11
 
 
A Shocking Number Of Non-Violent Americans Will Die In Prison
 
THE ECONOMIST NOV. 17, 2013, 9:43 AM 1,460 8
 
LANCE SALTZMAN did not like the way his stepfather, Toni Minnick, 
settled arguments with his mother, Christina Borg. Once Mr Minnick fired 
a gun into a wall beside her. A couple of weeks later, says Ms Borg, he 
threatened to shoot her.
So Mr Saltzman went into his stepfather’s bedroom and took the gun. He 
sold it to a friend, who used it in a burglary. Mr Saltzman was charged 
with burglary, theft and being a felon in possession of a firearm — all 
for taking a gun from his own house — as well as with the burglary 
committed using the gun, in which he says he took no part. He was 
sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole. He was 22.
 
Mr Saltzman was mauled by a pit bull as a toddler and is "not altogether 
upstairs all the time", says his mother. In his teens he got hooked on 
drugs and was convicted of marijuana possession, trespassing and petty 
theft. He was then jailed for a burglary he committed when he was 16, 
and this was his undoing. He stole his stepfather’s gun within three 
years of his release; under a Florida mandatory-sentencing law for 
re-offenders, the judge had to lock him up for ever. Given Florida’s 
Stand Your Ground laws, Ms Borg believes that her son would probably be 
free if he had shot his menacing stepfather instead.
 
Mr Saltzman is one of at least 3,278 people serving sentences of life 
without parole for non-violent crimes, according to a new report from 
the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Around 79% of them were 
convicted of drug crimes. These include: having an unweighably small 
amount of cocaine in a shirt pocket, selling $10-worth of crack to a 
police informant and mailing small amounts of LSD to fellow Grateful 
Dead fans. Property crimes that earned offenders a permanent home in 
prison include shoplifting three belts, breaking into an empty liquor 
store and possessing stolen wrenches.
 
When judges can’t judge
A hefty 83% of such sentences were mandatory. That is, a state or 
federal law barred the judge from exercising any discretion (or indeed, 
common sense). Some were triggered by "three-strikes" laws, which demand 
a severe penalty for a third crime, no matter how minor, if the 
defendant was previously convicted of two others. Sometimes, those 
"priors" can be from the distant past.
 
http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/52861aeaecad040d47ac94f3-290-263/a2dd076cf8e64c7b1312bce43487982d.gif
 
 
Sylvester Mead, for instance, earned life without parole for slurring 
drunken threats at a policeman while handcuffed in a patrol car; he had 
convictions for battery and burglary six and 16 years previously. Mr 
Mead’s last crime, public intimidation, usually carries a sentence of no 
more than five years. The judge said it "does not warrant, under any 
conscionable or constitutional basis, a life sentence", but explained: 
"I have no choice."
 
Clarence Aaron had no rap sheet: he is among the one-fifth of 
non-violent life-without-parolers in the federal system serving time for 
a first offence. While a student at Southern University in Louisiana, he 
acted as a middleman in a drug deal. He neither bought nor sold the 
drugs in question, but when arrested he refused to testify against his 
co-conspirators. They did not return the favour. Consequently, all but 
one of them have been released from prison (the last is due out next 
year), while he is almost 20 years into a life sentence.
 
Like most prisoners serving life for non-violent crimes, Mr Aaron is 
black. Racial disparities among non-violent "whole-lifers" exceed even 
those of the prison system itself. Among federal prisoners, blacks are 
20 times more likely to receive such sentences: they are 65% of the 
national total, compared with 18% for whites and 16% for Latinos. In 
some states the numbers are yet more skewed: blacks are 91% of 
non-violent life-without-parole prisoners in Louisiana, 79% in 
Mississippi and 68% in South Carolina.
 
Perpetually warehousing petty criminals is expensive. The ACLU estimates 
that life-without-parole sentences for non-violent offenders add $1.8 
billion to the cost of incarcerating those to whom they apply. Jennifer 
Turner, who wrote the ACLU’s study, says that the number of 
life-without-parole sentences (including those for violent crimes) is 
growing faster than life-with-a-chance-of-parole. In the past 20 years, 
it has quadrupled, even as violent crime has declined.
 
Long sentences have not made drugs harder to buy or Americans less 
likely to get high. Evidence that they reduce crime is skimpy; the vast 
sums spent on them would surely reduce crime more if spent instead on 
detective work, drug treatment and rehabilitation.
 
The cost to prisoners and their families, meanwhile, is impossible to 
calculate. "I’ve lost my son. I’ll never have grandchildren with him. 
He’ll never see the outside world," says Ms Borg. She adds: "I can’t 
sleep. I can’t function. I’m 87 pounds. I look like a walking skeleton."
 
Several states have started to retreat from ultra-tough sentencing. So 
has the federal government. Texas and Arkansas are opting to treat some 
non-violent drug offenders instead of jailing them. Eric Holder, 
America’s attorney-general, announced in August that federal prosecutors 
would no longer charge low-level, non-violent drug offenders with crimes 
that trigger such sentences.
 
Ms Turner is encouraged, but notes that "the devil is in the details." 
Relying on the leniency of prosecutors is no substitute for getting rid 
of mandatory minimums. And recent reforms do nothing for Mr Saltzman or 
any of the other Americans who have spilled no blood but are condemned 
to wither and die behind bars.
 
-- 
Namib
.....
Земля - колыбель человечества, но нельзя вечно жить в колыбели
(Константи́н Эдуа́рдович Циолко́вский)

 
http://www.businessinsider.com/a-shocking-number-of-non-violent-americans-will-die-in-prison-2013-11
 
 
Grazie, compagno Namib! Ancora una volta punti l'indice contro la barbarie della capitalista america, dove spadroneggiano le lobby, prima fra tutte quella delle identita' (cioe', sionista) e -colmo di ogni schifezza- c'e' un negro al comando! E' lo schifo della cosiddetta civilta' capitalista ed urbana.
Mica come noi, frugali arabi di campagna, che per secoli ci siamo dedicati al compassionevole mercato degli schiavi (noi si' che sappiamo come trattare i neri, altro che farli presidenti!). Le nostre prigioni sono ben diverse da quelle della crudele america, dove comandano i banchieri, i sionisti, ed i giudei! 
Ecco qua un articolo che spiega cosa succede nelle carceri umanissime e misericordiose gestite della Autorita' palestinese, in piena applicazione della nostra costituzione, che prevede appunto il riferimento alla Sharia! 
http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Eleven-Palestinians-have-died-under-PA-Hamas-detention-313905
 
stei iumanne!!!

 Mica come noi che per secoli ci siamo dedicati al compassionevole mercato degli schiavi
 
dici bene, kibbutznik. In Brasile e nelle colonie olandesi la facevate da padroni assoluti.

 In Brasile e nelle colonie olandesi la facevate da padroni assoluti.
 
sanno tutti che gli ebrei sono stati attivi nel commercio degli schiavi perche' la loro religione razzista glielo permette! E anche il sionismo ha l'obbiettivo di renderci schiavi tutti! Ribellatevi! Unitevi alla lotta dei contadini della Galilea contro il sionismo invasore e razzista! Stabiliremo in Palestina uno Stato con la legge ispirata alla Sharia e il rispetto dei diritti umani, quindi le dottrine razziste come il falso ebraismo verranno proibite! E chi le segue verra' incoraggiato ad abbracciare ideologie meno tribali ed identitarie
Stei iumanne!!!!!

 sanno tutti che gli ebrei sono stati attivi nel commercio degli schiavi perche' la loro religione razzista glielo permette! 
 
visto che non erano gli unici, evidentemente c'è un virus che accomuna i monoteisti.