Largest prison population both in absolute size AND per capita. Also, random fact, their constitution allows prisoners to be forced into slave labour. Also, another random fact, their prisons are run for profit. None of these facts are related of course!
Not to nitpick but not ALL prisons in the US are for-profit. They should be illegal though.
Fun fact - other countries that have for-profit prisons include Australia, Canada, France, the UK, Israel, South Korea, and New Zealand.
This won’t do much since most of these prisons operate under state jurisdiction, but in 2021, President Joe Biden issued an executive order to stop the United States Department of Justice from renewing further contracts with private prisons.
True, however there are bs for-profit elements to even the non-for-profit prisons. Predatory costs to calling / commissary / etc. that still benefit companies when the US imprisons more people.
Absolutely. We need a prison reform.
Even "not for profit" prisons are lining millionaires pockets with infrastructure and maintenance contracts.
Yeah but, america bad right? How dare you point out that other countries do fucked up shit as well
Yeah but, america bad right? How dare you point out that other countries do fucked up shit as well
Because its not that fucked up?
Those countries have for profit prisons, but the big difference is that they dont incarnate one percent of their population
Next you’re going to tell me that these for-profit prisons lobby the government for harsher prison sentences for things like cannabis possession.
Only for people that are black or poor.
And house arrest is being used for mass incarceration of people being ACCUSED before conviction. The punishment can be more severe before conviction.
And many states let private companies charge accused people up to $40 a day for the ankle bracelets.
Wtf
Do they get it back if found not guilty?
Do you have a source?
Uhh...nope.
Also...about 25% of the people incarcerated in America aren't even convicted of a crime yet.
Even if they're found innocent, it's likely already cost them their job or made it so they are so far behind on bills from not working that it becomes next to impossible to climb out from under
Did you also watch that Vice documentary?
Only about 8% of the US prison population is in for-profit prisons.
And how many of these other prisons offer up their prisoners as extremely cheap labor to businesses that ARE for profit?
Listen I live in the USA, but if thats your best pushback to all those facts - should tell you what a dire state we are in. And prisons that aren't for profit still send out prisoners to for-profit industries to work, so it's kind of a moot point.
I'm also in the US and I'm aware of all of this.
👍
california spending 100k+ per prisoner but renting them out for pennies is one of the insane unsustainable aspects of the system and then going and saying "we can't afford to let them out" is mind numbing.
The whole circus is just to keep wages down and arrest anybody folks don't want in their shitty suburb.
That's still about 96,344 people. Which is nearly double the total prison population of Spain.
And yet still most Americans think everyone is trying to sneak into their country! You couldn't pay me to live there.
I'm surprised there is not more travel advisory warnings for travel to America 😮💨
The american continent is actually quite dangerous - if I remember right most of the top 10 dangerous cities are in south- or north america.
Also I once heard that the US is the country with the highest death rate which isn't in a (civil) war...
A lot of people try to get refugee status in the US, but the CBP puts them in open-air prisons in the desert. There are also are least 16 million undocumented immigrants living in the US. They don't all have to "sneak", they just overstay their visas.
The CBP was commissioned explicitly to enforce racial "hygiene" in the US. I don't understand how they weren't disbanded decades ago.
Fuck man...
Listen, a lot of people don't understand the key to the living well in the United States. It's really very simple. Just be rich. You'll have the best life ever.
If you're too stupid to be rich (or you didn't inherit a billion dollars from your parents), blame some poor brown dude for "stealing" a shitty job that you didn't actually want anyways because it's worse and pays less than your shitty job. It won't make anything better at all but at least you'll feel like you understand why everything sucks (even though you actually don't) and you'll have the benefit of living in poverty AND feeling smugly superior to someone else who also lives in poverty for stupid (racist) reasons.
And if you think about it, that sense of superiority is nearly as good (it definitely isn't) as being rich.
Appropriate reaction. I never did the whole thing, because i'm not US and suddenly had enough.
Wow.
This was incredible. Thanks for sharing.
Damn, that's a powerful message.
Holy shit....
Reminder that the US have never abolished slavery for prisoners and have one of the largest slave population in the world.
Yep... And every time there's an employment issue for the agricultural industry, they whip out the prisoners...
However to the prisoner's credit: They do an absolutely terrible job at whatever it is they're doing.
Why? What are they going to do... Fire you? Jail you? You have no incentive at all to do the job well as a prisoner.
Bonus is by doing a horrific job it makes employers less likely to actually request prison workforces.
Tha fuck are you talking about?
AMENDMENT XIII
Section 1.
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Section 2.
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
If you're convicted in the US you become a slave in waiting. Ever wonder why reds Love superfluous policing of certain communities and broken window policing? Because it's a direct pipeline to private prisons profit from legal slaves.
Personally I just want better policing so I don't have to move my family again cause our apartment got shot up thanks to collateral damage.
That's not really the same issue. Also, policing isn't going to fix that or it already would have. The states is the most over policed "democracy"on the planet. Common sense domestic gun policies, actual social security structures meant to help citizens, reverse the gutting of federal civil services like education, any I've one of these would help more than any amount of police and all of them are generally what most other democratic countries have. Dumping more money on unqualified overpaid ass sitters hoping for riot overtime for a new seadoo is how we got here.
I'm cool with everything you said, except the gun control part. Felons are disproportionately POC because of our racist police and courts. POC will be disarmed disproportionately. Now, if we do some blanket amnesty, mass decarceration, and defund, disband, or disarm the police, then maybe gun control won't be enforced in a racist way. But in a country where literal white supremacist gangs run massive police forces, like the LASD, gun control will be weaponized against minorities. Also, gun control is classist and ableist.
I agree.
I mean, I used to live in a state with some of the strictest gun laws in the country, and had a lot of progressive measures in place to help citizens. We still felt like it was too dangerous to let our children play out of the house, and was proven right when I rushed home to 9mm holes in my door and windows. They weren't actually trying to shoot at my house, it just happened to be behind who they were shooting at.
Thankfully I found a new job and moved to the other side of the country and bought a home in an area that is much safer, and decent police presence. Sad that I had to leave my home state, but I'll do what I have to do my children can grow up safe.
I'm not going to hate for doing the more immediate things to protect your kids, but it's extremely unlikely the police are the differentiating factor here.
M8, how is that relevant :| better policing isnt going to fix the economic/social/mental health conditions that lead to shoot outs...
THEY'RE TRYING TO BUILD A PRISON
THEY'RE TRYING TO BUILD A PRISON
THEY'RE TRYING TO BUILD A PRISON FOR YOU AND ME
All research and successful drug policy SHOOOWS that treatment should be increased
Law enforcement decreased while abolishing. mandatory. minimum. sentences.
Utilizing drugs to pay for secret wars around the world
Drugs are now your global policy, now you police the globe
Drug moneys are used to rig elections and train brutal corporate sponsored dictators around the world 😊
Classic song
Having to live in the US is already a punishment, being inmate is like being in a prison inside a prison.
Look the US has a ton of issues and there are people actively trying to make it worse, but there are reasons why people are or are trying to immigrate here in droves. It's, on average, pretty alright and I don't and have never felt like a prisoner inside a prison. If that's how you feel here, I'm sorry.
But I get it AMERICA BAD and let's continue the Leddit trend of taking every single opportunity to shit on everything at all times.
I've given the US tons of shit and have even done so in this thread, but I'll be the first to admit there's plenty of reason to migrate. Much of the country is an unwalkable hellhole with mediocre salaries, but there are still at least a few cities that are 1) walkable or have good public transit, 2) have salaries that even western Europe can only dream of 3) aren't all that bad with crime either.
It just sucks to be poor in the US. But if you've got a great career, it's one of the few places where hard work CAN technically result in becoming a millionaire, as a software engineer or doctor for an example. The country has a working population for 167 million and somehow has over 20 million millionaires.
Also there's so much variety of nature for one country, it's nuts.
If H1Bs weren't so hard to come by, I'd probably move and work for that sweet US software engineer salary for 5 years, then move back to my homeland that has much cheaper property lol
It just sucks to be poor in the US.
I mean sure, but also as opposed to where? Where does it not suck to be poor? The vast majority of the world is a) very poor compared to the US and b) life isn't that great when you're poor anywhere.
I get that Europe and especially the Nordic countries get brought up a lot in this argument, but relatively few places in the world actually have decent social safety nets for the poor. Especially when you consider population numbers into account and consider where most people actually live. Most of the world is, to be completely blunt, a fucking nightmare compared to the US, unless you have money.
Look, I'm not blind to our faults, the US has many, so, so many but I was born and lived elsewhere and I've traveled to other countries and talk to and sometimes get to work with people from all over the world. The US, for all its faults, is still way better to the average person than the majority of the world. And I do take a person of a random gender/identity, religion, social and monetary status, etc into account.
Also there’s so much variety of nature for one country, it’s nuts.
That's a great benefit and one that I don't take for granted, but there are so many others. You should come visit if you ever get the chance and it really isn't as dangerous or crime ridden as you may think and there's a lot more to this country than people think.
We absolutely and definitely have a ton of issues and we always have, this was always an odd experiment, but again consider the fact why people from all over come here and consider that so many great, well known people and media and inventions come from here.
Again, I get it, AMERICA BAD and it's fun to shit on fat, stupid Americans with their constant news and shootings that happen to everyone all the time and they don't even know where Luxembourg is and their big cars and you can't even walk anywhere and people are angry about it and everyone's in a constant crisis all the time. But also consider that that's not the reality for most people and maybe some people actually prefer to sit in perfectly climate controlled, tailored to them car where they can blast their own tunes vs being on a bus or a train sometimes.
I don't know, I like it here and it's generally OK.
What's up with the fact that y'all always compare your country to the third world to make it look better, rather than comparing it to other developed nations?
In fact, even in most 3rd world countries, being poor isn't penalized as much as in the US because you can't be hit with random six figure medical bills
What about comparing it to the UK which has similar problems to the US? barring medical but then again the Tory party are trying to privatize the NHS so not far off
Until your kid gets shot at school, or maybe some other kids in the next city or state... and then it happens the next week at the mall, and the week after at a church, and the week after forever and ever, and you wonder how long until it's your turn, and you think that you wouldn't have to even consider that if you lived almost anywhere else on the planet.
Despite the point you are trying to makes, the kind of events you are describing make up a very small portion of gun violence. The majority of it is crime/gang related, or suicide. Not that that’s really any better, but schools and malls aren’t being shot up every week.
I'll look into the stats, but I hear about mall/school shootings often enough that it feels like every week during the school year.
51 school shootings last year, so pretty damn close!
Out of all the listed shootings this year on that site, only one was a “mass shooter in a school”, the rest occurred outside school, in a parking lot or off campus at an affiliated program because of disputes or other gang/criminal activity as violence between individuals
Oh not quite bad enough for you?
What if I told you that I've lived here over 20 years and have been all over the country and never been around a shooting, not even once?
We have a gun problem, 100%, but it's not as prevalent as the news would like you to believe and unlike people that don't live here would like you to believe we're not all constantly getting shot all the time. It happens, it happens a lot and every single time it does it's unacceptable, but it's not really a concern for the vast majority of the people living here.
Anecdotally I've been mugged at knife point in UK.
there are reasons why people are or are trying to immigrate here in droves
If you compare yourself to third-world countries you always come out looking good. "America Bad" can definitely get circlejerky though, no denying that
No, we have a lot of Germans, Canadians, French, Ukrainians, Australians, Brits, etc here. People from all over. I'm also an immigrant and a naturalized US citizen from a "first world" country. Now why would that be? Hmmm....
Anyway happy 4th, gonna go blow up my fingers and eat like a dozen hot dogs with the fellas. Don't stay online too long, it's not good for the melon.
I have a friend who moved to Germany and now they want to come back to the USA. Grass is always greener...
I’ve had a good, privileged life here in America. I got lucky as a white male in a middle class upbringing, but to complain about my life would be wrong. I am well educated with a solid career path, great benefits, and am doing well. Have always lived comfortably, but still work hard to get ahead. I can’t imagine there is much room for improvement anywhere else in the world for me.
Cool 👍
Glad you found that cool!
Painfully obvious that the children have now also migrated here.
Have you considered that this website is primarily Americans, and thus the most complaints would be... about America when it comes to quality of life/systemic societal issues. We're the wealthiest country on the planet of course people will want to move here.
Nice to see that even here - a shitposting forum - whenever anybody posts anything negative about America, yanks can't handle it.
Must be nice not getting dronestrikes by some distant nation that is full of psychos
I love how it's full of people whining about having left reddit to escape this shit like bruh this is the fediverse
As we have all learned from Jack Nicholson, the truth is hard to handle.
They made it a business. How many places in the world have private incarceration facilities?
Many countries have private prisons.
And in how many of those is it legal for prison corporations to buy laws?
Theoretically, none, including the United States. In practice, all of them. They are all Capitalist nations, and under Capitalism companies weaponize their massive pool of wealth and resources to push for favorable laws. Thus, any nation with for-profit prisons will see those prison companies perform some type of lobbying.
Unfortunately, Citizens United essentially makes it legal. In most other developed countries, it's not nearly as simple. Not saying corruption doesn't happen, but in many countries it's punishable if it comes out. In my country an MP was investigated for buying a car because she received a discount from the dealer and thought it was normal, but it was considered a potential bribe.
Oh! Many countries do it, so it's fine! Noted.
Someone asked a question and someone gave an answer. It isn't a political commentary.
Not saying it's fine, just that stupid questions deserve stupid answers.
Then go find go find a stupid question to give your stupid answers to.
For-profit prisons are a fucking scourge, and they're way too common.
I already have though... I hope you have a better day, friend.
Ahh there it is
I’ve heard some prisons have minimum prisoner requirements, which is incredibly fucked up
How does that play out? Do they try to extend sentences? Can they try to influence intake?
I remember there was a scandal in Pennsylvania where a judge was paid to funnel juveniles into a private detention center
I dare to say it is incredibly fucked up, even more so when you consider those pieces of shit just had to pay a fine (a hefty one, sure) and didnt go to jail
Is there a community that exclusively shits on the US on the threadiverse?
-be the "first in the world"
-everywhere you go yell "USA! USA! USA!"
-sparking people's curiosity and they look into your garden
-they find a dystopian horror show, a land where billionaires are kings, millions deprived of liberty, hundred millions depraved of healthcare, an ever increasing tumour of fascists group that wish for some women and minorities to have fewer rights
-ohshit.jpg
You can't have the biggest running circus without everyone starring and complaining and debating.
Tell me you've learned everything you know about the US from 13 year olds online without telling me you learned everything you know from 13 year olds online.
he's not wrong though. like, the mass shooting yesterday was something like the 340th so far this year? the place is fucking nuts
Now remove gang violence.
hmmm so what, only like 20 then? you're right, that's absolutely an acceptable amount of mass shootings in the first half of the year.
totally normal and something every country experiences. my bad.
And of those remaining "only like 20", how many were random acts of violence?
We're so close to getting to the infinitesimally small statistical likelihood of this happening.
holy fuck the copium here is pathetic. is this honestly what people tell themselves in order to feel ok about gun violence?
"of those remaining" "take out the gang related shootings" like holy fuck you realize this is an epidemic right? bro if I'm breaking down the different mass shootings into tiers that's a fuckin problem. 1 mass shooting, regardless of your arbitrary criteria for what it takes to actually qualify as one that matters is too many. there's no other argument to make there.
the discussion isn't about what you tell yourself to feel safe. it's about the perception other countries have looking at it. the mentality you're displaying is just contributing to it: you're all fucking nuts lol.
There is no discussion lol. There is my ability to defend myself and nobody's ability to take that away irrespective of how many lunatics exist.
Regarding the perception from other countries, lol. If you want to live in crippling fear for an entirely unlikely situation to find yourself in, then go for it and don't come to the US. We don't ever think about you guys.
Oh and when you're done with that, remove cities too.
Now filter that by suicide and crime/gang related, and you will realize that the type of Maas shootings the public concerns itself about (school shootings, mall shootings etc) are a very small portion of gun violence and not as common as the media portrays them.
That measurement is ANY instance where 3 or more people are killed or injured, the motivation or background is completely removed from the data.
wait... do you really think that filtering mass shootings by use case makes the whole thought of living/visiting America a safer one? lmao
normalize it however you wantz you do you, but the rest of the world looks at this shit like wtf is going on over there?
All if the data is way more nuanced than you are willing to admit. You are very unlikely to get shot going about your daily life in america, or visiting. Just because the media hypes it up doesn't mean Americans fear for their lives everyday. You would be way more likely to get shot in Brazil, Guatemala, Mexico, Columbia, or by suicide by firearm in Canada, Australia or Germany
Lemmygrad as a whole enjoys it
Is that in between trips to the gulag or starving or?
I wonder how high these kinds of posts spiked during the migration
And potentially somewhere around half of that population is in there for non-violent crimes, with alot of inmates in for drug offenses, it's absolutely ridiculous. Focus on the people that need to be in prisons, the violent sociopaths, stop trying to turn more people into criminals.
46% at state level are for violent crimes, at the federal it is 8% for violent crimes
Jesus fucking christ, but... I'm not even surprised.
And an huge colonial empire ( europe/japan/korea )
The US isn't a colonial empire.
The US is one of the biggest colonial empires in history.
Then it should be easy to provide an example of a US colony.
Nato countries, easy.
You can't seriously believe that, come on.
You can't seriously believe that nato countries are really indipendent. The USA choose single ministers from certain countries and prime minister needs usa approval.
Do you have evidence for this claim?
It is not official ( of course ) , but very well know. Very former high official have confirmed that ( not officially of course ). The secrecy of real usa status is notorious. See what happened to Assange...
Do you have a source for that?
So you can delete the sources? Tipical american...
I am not an american (thankfully) , and what do you mean by deleting sources?
Are you implying the US chose the prime ministers of Hungary and Turkey?
Italy and Germany for sure... Even the chief of the european union.. Hungary pretends to be against, but in reality, it follows what the usa want. I don't undestand why usa don't simply aknowledge the reality of their empire instead of pretending to have allies.
You wut mate?
Look up, hmmm what's a good one... Oh oh, Northern Marianas Islands. Go go go
The Northern Mariana Islands are a US commonwealth, they voted for and easily chose it in 1975.
Gosh that sounds an awful lot like colonialism with extra steps. Check out their labor law history. It's a real fun read.
How can America have 25% of the world's prison population of the entire country doesn't make up even 10% of the world's population?
Other countries don't hold as many people in jail?
Damn u onto something
Well see, that's kinda the point of the post.
We're "the land of the free" but also the land of the most non-free people.
Non free people with the best Free speach laws
I have a bag and in it are 100 coloured tokens. 90 are black and 10 are red. What percentage of tokens are red? 10 out of 100, which is 10%.
Now I pull two tokens at random. In my hand is 1 red token and 1 black token. I can say red tokens make up 50% of the tokens in my hand. But wait? How can the red tokens make up 50% of the tokens in my hand if they only make up 10% of all the tokens in the bag?
I left Reddit to escape bullshit like this
You came to the wrong fucking place then.
Reddit moment
I don't think this is exclusively a reddit thing
And I left reddit to escape idiots like you. If I can handle being disappointed, so can you. Shut the fuck up.
Ahh there it is
Gee, I wonder why you expected people to react badly to you 🤔🤔🤔
Guess we'll never know! You have yourself a good one. And if you're American, don't forget to wave your flag today! 😘
You came to the wrong fucking place then.
Me too. The “America bad” thing got old on Reddit. I Hope it doesn’t take off here too.
If you don't want to hear about America being bad, don't go to the same places as people who live in reality.
I don’t deny the problems with this country. I vote to try and make this country better. Seeing the same posts about how horrible this country is gets old after a while. A majority of Reddit and this site would agree with the flaws of the US. The people who really need to hear this stuff aren’t on here.
Pointing out flaws in the country shouldn't be seen as a personal attack or critique. Many of the victims of America are it's citizens (e.g., the incarcerated).
Nationalism just twists the government into our personal identity to manipulate us. Making fun of the government/system is healthy.
This isn't "Americans dumb" content, which attacks the actual citizens and understandably may weigh on someone.
I’m extremely happy to see a real conversation happening. This is actually worth reading, and not just another idiotic shouting match.
There's a difference between "America has serious problems,let's get to work fixing them" and "America is inherently evil and can't be saved (and you're an idiot at best, a right-wing plant at worst for thinking otherwise)". The former fires people up to start making progess, the latter shuts people down or causes them to tune out of politics altogether.
And to be blunt, this particular meme feels like it's falling more in the second category than the first, at least to me.
The thing is, America (many Americans anyway) are continually screaming at everyone online about how America is the best country in the world and everywhere else is a shithole - despite very few measures supporting that.
If you insist on telling everyone you’re the best, when you have so many serious flaws, people are going to mock you for it.
You mean you vote to feel better about yourself, to try to sweep any guilt or bad feeling under the rug, and you feel upset when you get reminded electoral politics means jackshit in the US (and in most liberal plutocraties)
I take it as “America has good ideals that it should live up to.”
Might be pollyanna-ing… almost certainly am, but I’m trying to take this Independence Day to appreciate what we’ve got, what my ancestors came to this country for, and that the maintenance of it, and the realization of its ideals, is a lot of work we’ve got to do yet, and will always be with us.
You mean don't go to places where children spew nonsense their loser parents tell them because they also made the choice to be degenerate fucking bums their entire lives?
Then when they're middle age and still have nothing to show for it they attempt to influence the entire system to change despite not even being able to improve their own position in life?
Tell us more about how 60% of the population lives paycheck to paycheck because they're just lazy, and not because they were born to the wrong parents in a shitty system that only rewards worthless cunts who succeed by stepping on the throats of the people who do all the work.
Wait do you think people that do the work never receive the benefit and become wealthy?
Are you completely unfamiliar with how most millionaires are made?
Or are you just a useless communists that think capitalism is bad and this conversation just ends here.
What part of the information in the original post is untrue? It is true, then maybe it is ok to point out the bad things?
Hi. As a not American, I can say Americans get made fun of a lot by not Americans. We like to share these jokes with each other online, as not Americans also use the internet.
Let's hear where you're from.
Canada. I'd appreciate any joke. Personal favourites include our Prime Minister's blackface, or changing the words of the national anthem to be "our home on native land", or suggesting that we have two official languages: English and Chinese.
Never gets old
All the best Canadians left and moved down to America for a reason.
Boom roasted.
That is such a poor attempt at a joke, it's like an elderly frail person trying to have sex
Strange choice of simile.
Can't do that in Canada anymore, they've all be sent to the euthanasia line.
Because literally the first one that comes to mind is Justin Bieber.
If you're gonna bring up a musician, anybody worth mentioning in the entire entertainment industry is down here and Bieber was never all that bad.
I get it, you guys are a decade behind and it's still funny to hate on Bieber where you are, but he's definitely not the worst thing to come out of Canada.
No need to get your panties in a bunch, it was a joke lmao
See most places are bad but America should be better. It presents itself as the better. It does not always live up to that better and so those people who want us to be better keep reminding us we have a lot of work to do. I can tell you personally how horrible America can be but I don't think you want to hear that from a Lakota.
I hate to break it to you but most of the fediverse skews even more left than Reddit did.
It will, because leftists love to cry and moan on the internet.
We have that percentage because we actually lock up our criminals, unlike Sweden or Germany.
Ah yes, Germany and Sweden. The last bastions for criminals all around the world. Oh wait, I'm 6-7 times as likely to be murdered in the US then those two places (Source).
I don't agree with this person, but I also feel like I'm missing something in particular if you're asking whether this person is stupid for having that take. Am I? Is there something about those county's prison systems that is important here?
In the USA there is no welfare system that prevents or cures mental disorders, weapons are freely sold and the streets are not safe.
It is clear that the only solution there is to wait for someone to go crazy and be thrown in jail.
Fair enough
Sure. Definitely nothing to do with the fact that in your country, locking people up is SUPER profitable for prisons and a few other industries so certain institutions lobby to make sure more people keep getting locked up.
Largest prison population both in absolute size AND per capita. Also, random fact, their constitution allows prisoners to be forced into slave labour. Also, another random fact, their prisons are run for profit. None of these facts are related of course!
Not to nitpick but not ALL prisons in the US are for-profit. They should be illegal though.
Fun fact - other countries that have for-profit prisons include Australia, Canada, France, the UK, Israel, South Korea, and New Zealand.
This won’t do much since most of these prisons operate under state jurisdiction, but in 2021, President Joe Biden issued an executive order to stop the United States Department of Justice from renewing further contracts with private prisons.
True, however there are bs for-profit elements to even the non-for-profit prisons. Predatory costs to calling / commissary / etc. that still benefit companies when the US imprisons more people.
Absolutely. We need a prison reform.
Even "not for profit" prisons are lining millionaires pockets with infrastructure and maintenance contracts.
Yeah but, america bad right? How dare you point out that other countries do fucked up shit as well
Yeah but, america bad right? How dare you point out that other countries do fucked up shit as well
Because its not that fucked up? Those countries have for profit prisons, but the big difference is that they dont incarnate one percent of their population
Next you’re going to tell me that these for-profit prisons lobby the government for harsher prison sentences for things like cannabis possession.
Only for people that are black or poor.
And house arrest is being used for mass incarceration of people being ACCUSED before conviction. The punishment can be more severe before conviction.
And many states let private companies charge accused people up to $40 a day for the ankle bracelets.
Wtf Do they get it back if found not guilty? Do you have a source?
Uhh...nope.
Also...about 25% of the people incarcerated in America aren't even convicted of a crime yet.
Even if they're found innocent, it's likely already cost them their job or made it so they are so far behind on bills from not working that it becomes next to impossible to climb out from under
Did you also watch that Vice documentary?
Only about 8% of the US prison population is in for-profit prisons.
And how many of these other prisons offer up their prisoners as extremely cheap labor to businesses that ARE for profit?
Listen I live in the USA, but if thats your best pushback to all those facts - should tell you what a dire state we are in. And prisons that aren't for profit still send out prisoners to for-profit industries to work, so it's kind of a moot point.
I'm also in the US and I'm aware of all of this.
👍
california spending 100k+ per prisoner but renting them out for pennies is one of the insane unsustainable aspects of the system and then going and saying "we can't afford to let them out" is mind numbing.
The whole circus is just to keep wages down and arrest anybody folks don't want in their shitty suburb.
That's still about 96,344 people. Which is nearly double the total prison population of Spain.
Ah yes, https://mkorostoff.github.io/incarceration-in-real-numbers/
And yet still most Americans think everyone is trying to sneak into their country! You couldn't pay me to live there.
I'm surprised there is not more travel advisory warnings for travel to America 😮💨
The american continent is actually quite dangerous - if I remember right most of the top 10 dangerous cities are in south- or north america.
Also I once heard that the US is the country with the highest death rate which isn't in a (civil) war...
A lot of people try to get refugee status in the US, but the CBP puts them in open-air prisons in the desert. There are also are least 16 million undocumented immigrants living in the US. They don't all have to "sneak", they just overstay their visas.
The CBP was commissioned explicitly to enforce racial "hygiene" in the US. I don't understand how they weren't disbanded decades ago.
Fuck man...
Listen, a lot of people don't understand the key to the living well in the United States. It's really very simple. Just be rich. You'll have the best life ever.
If you're too stupid to be rich (or you didn't inherit a billion dollars from your parents), blame some poor brown dude for "stealing" a shitty job that you didn't actually want anyways because it's worse and pays less than your shitty job. It won't make anything better at all but at least you'll feel like you understand why everything sucks (even though you actually don't) and you'll have the benefit of living in poverty AND feeling smugly superior to someone else who also lives in poverty for stupid (racist) reasons.
And if you think about it, that sense of superiority is nearly as good (it definitely isn't) as being rich.
Appropriate reaction. I never did the whole thing, because i'm not US and suddenly had enough.
Wow.
This was incredible. Thanks for sharing.
Damn, that's a powerful message.
Holy shit....
Reminder that the US have never abolished slavery for prisoners and have one of the largest slave population in the world.
Yep... And every time there's an employment issue for the agricultural industry, they whip out the prisoners...
However to the prisoner's credit: They do an absolutely terrible job at whatever it is they're doing.
Why? What are they going to do... Fire you? Jail you? You have no incentive at all to do the job well as a prisoner.
Bonus is by doing a horrific job it makes employers less likely to actually request prison workforces.
Tha fuck are you talking about?
AMENDMENT XIII
Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
If you're convicted in the US you become a slave in waiting. Ever wonder why reds Love superfluous policing of certain communities and broken window policing? Because it's a direct pipeline to private prisons profit from legal slaves.
Personally I just want better policing so I don't have to move my family again cause our apartment got shot up thanks to collateral damage.
That's not really the same issue. Also, policing isn't going to fix that or it already would have. The states is the most over policed "democracy"on the planet. Common sense domestic gun policies, actual social security structures meant to help citizens, reverse the gutting of federal civil services like education, any I've one of these would help more than any amount of police and all of them are generally what most other democratic countries have. Dumping more money on unqualified overpaid ass sitters hoping for riot overtime for a new seadoo is how we got here.
I'm cool with everything you said, except the gun control part. Felons are disproportionately POC because of our racist police and courts. POC will be disarmed disproportionately. Now, if we do some blanket amnesty, mass decarceration, and defund, disband, or disarm the police, then maybe gun control won't be enforced in a racist way. But in a country where literal white supremacist gangs run massive police forces, like the LASD, gun control will be weaponized against minorities. Also, gun control is classist and ableist.
I agree.
I mean, I used to live in a state with some of the strictest gun laws in the country, and had a lot of progressive measures in place to help citizens. We still felt like it was too dangerous to let our children play out of the house, and was proven right when I rushed home to 9mm holes in my door and windows. They weren't actually trying to shoot at my house, it just happened to be behind who they were shooting at.
Thankfully I found a new job and moved to the other side of the country and bought a home in an area that is much safer, and decent police presence. Sad that I had to leave my home state, but I'll do what I have to do my children can grow up safe.
I'm not going to hate for doing the more immediate things to protect your kids, but it's extremely unlikely the police are the differentiating factor here.
M8, how is that relevant :| better policing isnt going to fix the economic/social/mental health conditions that lead to shoot outs...
THEY'RE TRYING TO BUILD A PRISON THEY'RE TRYING TO BUILD A PRISON THEY'RE TRYING TO BUILD A PRISON FOR YOU AND ME
All research and successful drug policy SHOOOWS that treatment should be increased
Law enforcement decreased while abolishing. mandatory. minimum. sentences.
Utilizing drugs to pay for secret wars around the world
Drugs are now your global policy, now you police the globe
Drug moneys are used to rig elections and train brutal corporate sponsored dictators around the world 😊
Classic song
Having to live in the US is already a punishment, being inmate is like being in a prison inside a prison.
Look the US has a ton of issues and there are people actively trying to make it worse, but there are reasons why people are or are trying to immigrate here in droves. It's, on average, pretty alright and I don't and have never felt like a prisoner inside a prison. If that's how you feel here, I'm sorry.
But I get it AMERICA BAD and let's continue the Leddit trend of taking every single opportunity to shit on everything at all times.
I've given the US tons of shit and have even done so in this thread, but I'll be the first to admit there's plenty of reason to migrate. Much of the country is an unwalkable hellhole with mediocre salaries, but there are still at least a few cities that are 1) walkable or have good public transit, 2) have salaries that even western Europe can only dream of 3) aren't all that bad with crime either.
It just sucks to be poor in the US. But if you've got a great career, it's one of the few places where hard work CAN technically result in becoming a millionaire, as a software engineer or doctor for an example. The country has a working population for 167 million and somehow has over 20 million millionaires.
Also there's so much variety of nature for one country, it's nuts.
If H1Bs weren't so hard to come by, I'd probably move and work for that sweet US software engineer salary for 5 years, then move back to my homeland that has much cheaper property lol
I mean sure, but also as opposed to where? Where does it not suck to be poor? The vast majority of the world is a) very poor compared to the US and b) life isn't that great when you're poor anywhere.
I get that Europe and especially the Nordic countries get brought up a lot in this argument, but relatively few places in the world actually have decent social safety nets for the poor. Especially when you consider population numbers into account and consider where most people actually live. Most of the world is, to be completely blunt, a fucking nightmare compared to the US, unless you have money.
Look, I'm not blind to our faults, the US has many, so, so many but I was born and lived elsewhere and I've traveled to other countries and talk to and sometimes get to work with people from all over the world. The US, for all its faults, is still way better to the average person than the majority of the world. And I do take a person of a random gender/identity, religion, social and monetary status, etc into account.
That's a great benefit and one that I don't take for granted, but there are so many others. You should come visit if you ever get the chance and it really isn't as dangerous or crime ridden as you may think and there's a lot more to this country than people think.
We absolutely and definitely have a ton of issues and we always have, this was always an odd experiment, but again consider the fact why people from all over come here and consider that so many great, well known people and media and inventions come from here.
Again, I get it, AMERICA BAD and it's fun to shit on fat, stupid Americans with their constant news and shootings that happen to everyone all the time and they don't even know where Luxembourg is and their big cars and you can't even walk anywhere and people are angry about it and everyone's in a constant crisis all the time. But also consider that that's not the reality for most people and maybe some people actually prefer to sit in perfectly climate controlled, tailored to them car where they can blast their own tunes vs being on a bus or a train sometimes.
I don't know, I like it here and it's generally OK.
What's up with the fact that y'all always compare your country to the third world to make it look better, rather than comparing it to other developed nations?
In fact, even in most 3rd world countries, being poor isn't penalized as much as in the US because you can't be hit with random six figure medical bills
What about comparing it to the UK which has similar problems to the US? barring medical but then again the Tory party are trying to privatize the NHS so not far off
Until your kid gets shot at school, or maybe some other kids in the next city or state... and then it happens the next week at the mall, and the week after at a church, and the week after forever and ever, and you wonder how long until it's your turn, and you think that you wouldn't have to even consider that if you lived almost anywhere else on the planet.
Despite the point you are trying to makes, the kind of events you are describing make up a very small portion of gun violence. The majority of it is crime/gang related, or suicide. Not that that’s really any better, but schools and malls aren’t being shot up every week.
I'll look into the stats, but I hear about mall/school shootings often enough that it feels like every week during the school year.
51 school shootings last year, so pretty damn close!
https://www.edweek.org/leadership/school-shootings-this-year-how-many-and-where/2023/01
Out of all the listed shootings this year on that site, only one was a “mass shooter in a school”, the rest occurred outside school, in a parking lot or off campus at an affiliated program because of disputes or other gang/criminal activity as violence between individuals
Oh not quite bad enough for you?
What if I told you that I've lived here over 20 years and have been all over the country and never been around a shooting, not even once?
We have a gun problem, 100%, but it's not as prevalent as the news would like you to believe and unlike people that don't live here would like you to believe we're not all constantly getting shot all the time. It happens, it happens a lot and every single time it does it's unacceptable, but it's not really a concern for the vast majority of the people living here.
Anecdotally I've been mugged at knife point in UK.
If you compare yourself to third-world countries you always come out looking good. "America Bad" can definitely get circlejerky though, no denying that
No, we have a lot of Germans, Canadians, French, Ukrainians, Australians, Brits, etc here. People from all over. I'm also an immigrant and a naturalized US citizen from a "first world" country. Now why would that be? Hmmm....
Anyway happy 4th, gonna go blow up my fingers and eat like a dozen hot dogs with the fellas. Don't stay online too long, it's not good for the melon.
I have a friend who moved to Germany and now they want to come back to the USA. Grass is always greener...
I’ve had a good, privileged life here in America. I got lucky as a white male in a middle class upbringing, but to complain about my life would be wrong. I am well educated with a solid career path, great benefits, and am doing well. Have always lived comfortably, but still work hard to get ahead. I can’t imagine there is much room for improvement anywhere else in the world for me.
Cool 👍
Glad you found that cool!
Painfully obvious that the children have now also migrated here.
Have you considered that this website is primarily Americans, and thus the most complaints would be... about America when it comes to quality of life/systemic societal issues. We're the wealthiest country on the planet of course people will want to move here.
Nice to see that even here - a shitposting forum - whenever anybody posts anything negative about America, yanks can't handle it.
Must be nice not getting dronestrikes by some distant nation that is full of psychos
I love how it's full of people whining about having left reddit to escape this shit like bruh this is the fediverse
As we have all learned from Jack Nicholson, the truth is hard to handle.
They made it a business. How many places in the world have private incarceration facilities?
Many countries have private prisons.
And in how many of those is it legal for prison corporations to buy laws?
Theoretically, none, including the United States. In practice, all of them. They are all Capitalist nations, and under Capitalism companies weaponize their massive pool of wealth and resources to push for favorable laws. Thus, any nation with for-profit prisons will see those prison companies perform some type of lobbying.
Unfortunately, Citizens United essentially makes it legal. In most other developed countries, it's not nearly as simple. Not saying corruption doesn't happen, but in many countries it's punishable if it comes out. In my country an MP was investigated for buying a car because she received a discount from the dealer and thought it was normal, but it was considered a potential bribe.
Oh! Many countries do it, so it's fine! Noted.
Someone asked a question and someone gave an answer. It isn't a political commentary.
Not saying it's fine, just that stupid questions deserve stupid answers.
Then go find go find a stupid question to give your stupid answers to.
For-profit prisons are a fucking scourge, and they're way too common.
I already have though... I hope you have a better day, friend.
Ahh there it is
I’ve heard some prisons have minimum prisoner requirements, which is incredibly fucked up
How does that play out? Do they try to extend sentences? Can they try to influence intake?
I remember there was a scandal in Pennsylvania where a judge was paid to funnel juveniles into a private detention center
https://www.npr.org/2022/08/18/1118108084/michael-conahan-mark-ciavarella-kids-for-cash
I dare to say it is incredibly fucked up, even more so when you consider those pieces of shit just had to pay a fine (a hefty one, sure) and didnt go to jail
Is there a community that exclusively shits on the US on the threadiverse?
-be the "first in the world" -everywhere you go yell "USA! USA! USA!" -sparking people's curiosity and they look into your garden -they find a dystopian horror show, a land where billionaires are kings, millions deprived of liberty, hundred millions depraved of healthcare, an ever increasing tumour of fascists group that wish for some women and minorities to have fewer rights
-ohshit.jpg
You can't have the biggest running circus without everyone starring and complaining and debating.
Tell me you've learned everything you know about the US from 13 year olds online without telling me you learned everything you know from 13 year olds online.
he's not wrong though. like, the mass shooting yesterday was something like the 340th so far this year? the place is fucking nuts
Now remove gang violence.
hmmm so what, only like 20 then? you're right, that's absolutely an acceptable amount of mass shootings in the first half of the year.
totally normal and something every country experiences. my bad.
And of those remaining "only like 20", how many were random acts of violence?
We're so close to getting to the infinitesimally small statistical likelihood of this happening.
holy fuck the copium here is pathetic. is this honestly what people tell themselves in order to feel ok about gun violence?
"of those remaining" "take out the gang related shootings" like holy fuck you realize this is an epidemic right? bro if I'm breaking down the different mass shootings into tiers that's a fuckin problem. 1 mass shooting, regardless of your arbitrary criteria for what it takes to actually qualify as one that matters is too many. there's no other argument to make there.
the discussion isn't about what you tell yourself to feel safe. it's about the perception other countries have looking at it. the mentality you're displaying is just contributing to it: you're all fucking nuts lol.
There is no discussion lol. There is my ability to defend myself and nobody's ability to take that away irrespective of how many lunatics exist.
Regarding the perception from other countries, lol. If you want to live in crippling fear for an entirely unlikely situation to find yourself in, then go for it and don't come to the US. We don't ever think about you guys.
Oh and when you're done with that, remove cities too.
Now filter that by suicide and crime/gang related, and you will realize that the type of Maas shootings the public concerns itself about (school shootings, mall shootings etc) are a very small portion of gun violence and not as common as the media portrays them.
That measurement is ANY instance where 3 or more people are killed or injured, the motivation or background is completely removed from the data.
wait... do you really think that filtering mass shootings by use case makes the whole thought of living/visiting America a safer one? lmao
normalize it however you wantz you do you, but the rest of the world looks at this shit like wtf is going on over there?
All if the data is way more nuanced than you are willing to admit. You are very unlikely to get shot going about your daily life in america, or visiting. Just because the media hypes it up doesn't mean Americans fear for their lives everyday. You would be way more likely to get shot in Brazil, Guatemala, Mexico, Columbia, or by suicide by firearm in Canada, Australia or Germany
Lemmygrad as a whole enjoys it
Is that in between trips to the gulag or starving or?
I wonder how high these kinds of posts spiked during the migration
And potentially somewhere around half of that population is in there for non-violent crimes, with alot of inmates in for drug offenses, it's absolutely ridiculous. Focus on the people that need to be in prisons, the violent sociopaths, stop trying to turn more people into criminals.
46% at state level are for violent crimes, at the federal it is 8% for violent crimes
Jesus fucking christ, but... I'm not even surprised.
And an huge colonial empire ( europe/japan/korea )
The US isn't a colonial empire.
The US is one of the biggest colonial empires in history.
Then it should be easy to provide an example of a US colony.
Nato countries, easy.
You can't seriously believe that, come on.
You can't seriously believe that nato countries are really indipendent. The USA choose single ministers from certain countries and prime minister needs usa approval.
Do you have evidence for this claim?
It is not official ( of course ) , but very well know. Very former high official have confirmed that ( not officially of course ). The secrecy of real usa status is notorious. See what happened to Assange...
Do you have a source for that?
So you can delete the sources? Tipical american...
I am not an american (thankfully) , and what do you mean by deleting sources?
Are you implying the US chose the prime ministers of Hungary and Turkey?
Italy and Germany for sure... Even the chief of the european union.. Hungary pretends to be against, but in reality, it follows what the usa want. I don't undestand why usa don't simply aknowledge the reality of their empire instead of pretending to have allies.
You wut mate?
Look up, hmmm what's a good one... Oh oh, Northern Marianas Islands. Go go go
The Northern Mariana Islands are a US commonwealth, they voted for and easily chose it in 1975.
Gosh that sounds an awful lot like colonialism with extra steps. Check out their labor law history. It's a real fun read.
Why the negativity and sarcasm?
The US is a huge colonial empire.
Lmao what
There's a few things missing from behind the mask
@Mr_Bott@lemmy.world
Then join them in 'solidarity'.
How can America have 25% of the world's prison population of the entire country doesn't make up even 10% of the world's population?
Other countries don't hold as many people in jail?
Damn u onto something
Well see, that's kinda the point of the post.
We're "the land of the free" but also the land of the most non-free people.
Non free people with the best Free speach laws
I have a bag and in it are 100 coloured tokens. 90 are black and 10 are red. What percentage of tokens are red? 10 out of 100, which is 10%.
Now I pull two tokens at random. In my hand is 1 red token and 1 black token. I can say red tokens make up 50% of the tokens in my hand. But wait? How can the red tokens make up 50% of the tokens in my hand if they only make up 10% of all the tokens in the bag?
I left Reddit to escape bullshit like this
You came to the wrong fucking place then.
Reddit moment
I don't think this is exclusively a reddit thing
And I left reddit to escape idiots like you. If I can handle being disappointed, so can you. Shut the fuck up.
Ahh there it is
Gee, I wonder why you expected people to react badly to you 🤔🤔🤔
Guess we'll never know! You have yourself a good one. And if you're American, don't forget to wave your flag today! 😘
You came to the wrong fucking place then.
Me too. The “America bad” thing got old on Reddit. I Hope it doesn’t take off here too.
If you don't want to hear about America being bad, don't go to the same places as people who live in reality.
I don’t deny the problems with this country. I vote to try and make this country better. Seeing the same posts about how horrible this country is gets old after a while. A majority of Reddit and this site would agree with the flaws of the US. The people who really need to hear this stuff aren’t on here.
Pointing out flaws in the country shouldn't be seen as a personal attack or critique. Many of the victims of America are it's citizens (e.g., the incarcerated).
Nationalism just twists the government into our personal identity to manipulate us. Making fun of the government/system is healthy.
This isn't "Americans dumb" content, which attacks the actual citizens and understandably may weigh on someone.
I’m extremely happy to see a real conversation happening. This is actually worth reading, and not just another idiotic shouting match.
There's a difference between "America has serious problems,let's get to work fixing them" and "America is inherently evil and can't be saved (and you're an idiot at best, a right-wing plant at worst for thinking otherwise)". The former fires people up to start making progess, the latter shuts people down or causes them to tune out of politics altogether.
And to be blunt, this particular meme feels like it's falling more in the second category than the first, at least to me.
The thing is, America (many Americans anyway) are continually screaming at everyone online about how America is the best country in the world and everywhere else is a shithole - despite very few measures supporting that.
If you insist on telling everyone you’re the best, when you have so many serious flaws, people are going to mock you for it.
You mean you vote to feel better about yourself, to try to sweep any guilt or bad feeling under the rug, and you feel upset when you get reminded electoral politics means jackshit in the US (and in most liberal plutocraties)
I take it as “America has good ideals that it should live up to.”
Might be pollyanna-ing… almost certainly am, but I’m trying to take this Independence Day to appreciate what we’ve got, what my ancestors came to this country for, and that the maintenance of it, and the realization of its ideals, is a lot of work we’ve got to do yet, and will always be with us.
You mean don't go to places where children spew nonsense their loser parents tell them because they also made the choice to be degenerate fucking bums their entire lives?
Then when they're middle age and still have nothing to show for it they attempt to influence the entire system to change despite not even being able to improve their own position in life?
Tell us more about how 60% of the population lives paycheck to paycheck because they're just lazy, and not because they were born to the wrong parents in a shitty system that only rewards worthless cunts who succeed by stepping on the throats of the people who do all the work.
Wait do you think people that do the work never receive the benefit and become wealthy?
Are you completely unfamiliar with how most millionaires are made?
Or are you just a useless communists that think capitalism is bad and this conversation just ends here.
What part of the information in the original post is untrue? It is true, then maybe it is ok to point out the bad things?
Hi. As a not American, I can say Americans get made fun of a lot by not Americans. We like to share these jokes with each other online, as not Americans also use the internet.
Let's hear where you're from.
Canada. I'd appreciate any joke. Personal favourites include our Prime Minister's blackface, or changing the words of the national anthem to be "our home on native land", or suggesting that we have two official languages: English and Chinese.
Never gets old
All the best Canadians left and moved down to America for a reason.
Boom roasted.
That is such a poor attempt at a joke, it's like an elderly frail person trying to have sex
Strange choice of simile.
Can't do that in Canada anymore, they've all be sent to the euthanasia line.
I thought it was the worst ones.
Because literally the first one that comes to mind is Justin Bieber.
If you're gonna bring up a musician, anybody worth mentioning in the entire entertainment industry is down here and Bieber was never all that bad.
I get it, you guys are a decade behind and it's still funny to hate on Bieber where you are, but he's definitely not the worst thing to come out of Canada.
No need to get your panties in a bunch, it was a joke lmao
See most places are bad but America should be better. It presents itself as the better. It does not always live up to that better and so those people who want us to be better keep reminding us we have a lot of work to do. I can tell you personally how horrible America can be but I don't think you want to hear that from a Lakota.
I hate to break it to you but most of the fediverse skews even more left than Reddit did.
It will, because leftists love to cry and moan on the internet.
We have that percentage because we actually lock up our criminals, unlike Sweden or Germany.
Ah yes, Germany and Sweden. The last bastions for criminals all around the world. Oh wait, I'm 6-7 times as likely to be murdered in the US then those two places (Source).
Are you stupid?
You didn't have to ask
I don't agree with this person, but I also feel like I'm missing something in particular if you're asking whether this person is stupid for having that take. Am I? Is there something about those county's prison systems that is important here?
In the USA there is no welfare system that prevents or cures mental disorders, weapons are freely sold and the streets are not safe. It is clear that the only solution there is to wait for someone to go crazy and be thrown in jail.
Fair enough
Sure. Definitely nothing to do with the fact that in your country, locking people up is SUPER profitable for prisons and a few other industries so certain institutions lobby to make sure more people keep getting locked up.