Ending the war on drugs entirely would be a huge step.
The degree to which drug-profits propel corruption on a global scale is vast, hard to describe - entire countries wind-up destroyed by this (Mexico, Afghanistan, etc).
Let's not forget the millions and millions of American lives totally destroyed by this, too: often the most vulnerable people in our society, most in need of care and protection.
America imprisons its ethnic minorities in inhumane conditions at a rate 17x greater than China, per capita, even counting China's 1M+ re-education camps. (China has A LOT of people, but the war on drugs has imprisoned a WHOLE LOT of American minorities.)
What’s more, having for-profit prisons is a nice boost to the economy. Just think how many jobs are created by the “need” to round up, prosecute, and incarcerate people. Then charge them (or rather their loved ones) obscene rates for phone calls (look this up; it’s truly awful).
We could reassign money to do community outreach, pay for jobs that provide mental health services, etc. But there are a lot of people who currently have a financial interest in maintaining the status quo.
>What’s more, having for-profit prisons is a nice boost to the economy.
No, they are economically inefficient the same way slavery is inefficient or how tying HIB to employers is inefficient. By putting a "leash" on people you prevent them from doing the most productive work they could have done without the leash. Paying a ward to reduce the economic output of an individual who merely needs rehabilitation is a pure waste of money. It's a net loss for the economy.
I wouldn't agree that 8.4% of the prison population is "tiny".
"Statistics from the U.S. Department of Justice show that, as of 2013, there were 133,000 state and federal prisoners housed in privately owned prisons in the U.S., constituting 8.4% of the overall U.S. prison population. Broken down to prison type, 19.1% of the federal prison population in the United States is housed in private prisons and 6.8% of the U.S. state prison population is housed in private prisons. While 2013 represented a slight decline in private prison population over 2012, the overall trend over the preceding decade had been a slow increase." [0]
8.4% of the American prison population is comparable to the total prison population for a european country. finnish are 53 folks per 100k, americans are 655 per 100k...
US's prison system is a human rights catastrophe. China rightly gets lots of criticism for their prison system, and they only have 121 per 100k [0]. Really puts things in perspective. Or look at the total numbers: In china, 1.7 million people are in prison. In the US it is 2.1 million [1]. Yet China has 4.3 times the population of the US...
Yeah, it absolutely blows my mind that you can watch Jim Belushi growing weed on the Discovery Channel, meanwhile people are still being arrested and their lives ruined for growing and smoking it. Those people are skewed minority. NJ citizens have voted to legalize weed and people there are still being arrested there for it. It's insanity, and it needs to end.
The degree to which drug-profits propel corruption on a global scale is vast, hard to describe - entire countries wind-up destroyed by this (Mexico, Afghanistan, etc).