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ScandalousBanshee t1_jeb6fuz wrote

So the for-profit prison industry is really the only winner of the “war on drugs.” Absolutely shameful.

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JPAnalyst t1_jeb7j7i wrote

Beautiful visualizations! Very informative, and the aesthetics are nice.

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Bthejerk t1_jeb80a5 wrote

If you want to get rid of overpopulation in prisons, outlaw for-profit prisons. It’s that simple.

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tessthismess t1_jeb8em7 wrote

dataisdepressing, but I do appreciate an information-dense infographic.

I'll always share this site. If you take the time to go through it all it's depressing but very informative.

For people interested in a long video. He doesn't get into the modern for-profit-prison system really BUT this does get into how long this has been going on. How, post-civil war, prisons were used to keep black people in shackles (based on charges like "not having a job") and it never really stopped.

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D34TH_5MURF__ t1_jebaecm wrote

This is exactly as designed. Prisons make money by exploiting the prisoners. For profit prisons are as dumb as for profit education and for profit medicine.

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CalciteQ t1_jebahc8 wrote

Vermont's black to white ratio number lol

Vermont is also the whitest state in the country. There's all of like 10 black people in the whole state. If one is imprisoned, that's like 10% of the population lol

Also hyperbole obv, but the state actually is the whitest, I believe it's like 97% white? And then all other races share that last 3-ish percent.

Source: my experience as a mixed race (B+W) person traveling in Vermont.

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AdVoke t1_jebb2k1 wrote

Well at least it means the crime rate is low right?

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DemonicDevice t1_jebbayf wrote

The racial proportionality in the south was unexpected

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DNA_n_me t1_jebbpmh wrote

Finally something Mississippi is leading…insert sad trombone noises here. But it would be great to see overlays of metrics that incarceration is meant to resolve, eg safety/quality of life metrics. It would also be cool to see race normalized and/or correlated with the obvious punchline of states with more POC have higher rates, but there might be some insights from places with equal numbers of POC but drastically different rates

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Semple-Y t1_jebe1um wrote

How is the number of inmates per 100,000 of the entire US 629, while the highest number for a state is 584/100,000?

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libertarianinus t1_jebe72x wrote

This is only federal inmates from BOP (federal). Crime was very bad in 1980 with 10.4 murders per 100k. Now its about 7.6. In 2010 it was 4.4. If just 2% are super bad people who cant be rehabilitated thats 6,800,000 people in US. What do we do with them? This is a problem of us as a society that we need to figure out.

https://www.ppic.org/publication/crime-trends-in-california/

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cbarrettg OP t1_jebgmsh wrote

The dataset used to compare the United States to other countries is a few years older than the dataset used for comparing the states to each other, which is something I didn't notice before, good catch!

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Justme100001 t1_jebhcna wrote

Something tells me the US are not going to survive longer than say the Roman Empire...

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k75ct t1_jebi3qf wrote

Also serves to disenfranchise a certain population

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Kahless01 t1_jebia6f wrote

its not a crisis. its working as designed.

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Suspicious-Feeling-1 t1_jebjf63 wrote

I mean 2% is probably way too high of an estimate. We clearly put way too many people in prison in the US. Other countries have lower crime and lower incarceration rates. We need to take ownership of this problem as a society - it's immoral and just inefficient.

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LouSanous t1_jebjx0s wrote

I love how the color arbitrarily changes just after Russia and China so they can appear to be in a worse category.

There are 15 counties in Russia's color group and they are 24th overall. There's 68 countries in China's group. Unless these colors groups are at specific and arbitrary intervals and China and Russia just happen to barely be on the one side of the threshold, then it means that this is an intentional decision meant to mislead.

Edit, yeah. Egypt is 117 and China is 119. Totally just made the decision to put China in a worse color for no reason. Why not make the cutoff a nice round number like 125 or 120, but no. 118. Brilliant.

Edit 2. If you divide 629 by 6, you get 104.8. multiples of that number should have been the cutoffs for these colors.

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deeseearr t1_jebk33e wrote

You've found the loophole in the thirteenth amendment.

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boomchakaboom t1_jebkznu wrote

The high rate of black incarceration in Vermont points more to the fact that there are hardly any black people in Vermont than that Vermont is racist. I wonder how many incarcerated blacks in Vermont were Vermont residents at the time of arrest, or miscreants from MA and NY.

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jake_the_tower t1_jeblzwj wrote

This is the most impactful infographic I've seen in a while. Thanks for sharing! And on drugs topic, just say no🤣

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Suspicious-Feeling-1 t1_jebml3f wrote

Look man I don't really want to get into it, I think it's fair to say you and I don't agree on who should be imprisoned in perpetuity. I'm definitely on the side of the argument that most people who are repeat offenders would rather not be repeat offenders. They aren't super bad people so much as folks who have had their opportunities greatly diminished by past mistakes/desperation.

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cbarrettg OP t1_jebmmi2 wrote

The colors are not arbitrary, each map has 6 color groups that contain an equal range of values. For the global map, the rates are 0-629 so the color group changes whenever the rate goes up by ~104 inmates per 100,000. That is just where the two countries happen to fall in the dataset.

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libertarianinus t1_jebq24x wrote

I just know my little sister was raped and the person is still walking in the streets after 2 years in prison. Well 8 months rest was in county. We dont have accountability. I was asking for solutions to the people who prey on people. Murderes rapists child molesters. Watch local news. Every night 2 people killed, thats 2 people who should not be alive. Eye for a eye, a tooth for a tooth.

I ask, where you are in life, are you there by circumstances or by the choices you made?.

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GongTzu t1_jebrojz wrote

Prison billionaires is a thing. Just sad. Something’s definitely wrong when US is on top of the bandits in Rwanda.

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Casey090 t1_jebtgdv wrote

Better than in Germany, we pay the criminals more than many minimum wage workers earn. XD

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Temporary-Alarm-744 t1_jebu6bm wrote

Not for any good reasons. That trend happened after the criminal reform act and the only reason that went through was to increase the labour force. The for profits systems started to affect the pool of cheap labour to exploit

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Whatchab t1_jebweet wrote

By design: Modern day slavery and criminalization of the poor

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PompiPompi t1_jebxi9v wrote

Portland is what happens when you think the prison system is rigged, and many people are in prison should not be there.

Reducing imprisonment did not reduce crime in Democrat city that it was tried, it actually made it worse.

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DevinCauley-Towns t1_jebxqkk wrote

Hmm, I’m not sure that fully explains the difference between the state level data and the national view. The nation was 629 “a few years earlier”, yet somehow the state average is around half of that. Did the country really reduce their total inmate population by ~50% in a few years?

Assuming the other country data remained the same over that same time span then the US would now be ranked ~20th globally rather than 1st. That seems like way too big of a difference to just be caused by a few years difference in the data.

As others have mentioned, is the state data ignoring federal prisons? Could they be defining populations in different ways? It’s tough connecting the two datasets without fully understanding why they are so different.

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auricularisposterior t1_jebyhx2 wrote

I wouldn't be surprised if this has to do with how poverty is more widespread across both black and white populations in those states. There is some correlation between poverty and crime. I'm not saying that wealthy people don't commit crimes, but often by the nature of their crimes, selective crime enforcement, and well-paid lawyers, they are less likely to be convicted or given long prison sentences.

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libertarianinus t1_jebypkf wrote

I believe if people want to they will, but addiction is a major problem. 75% of people reoffend but if you put them in the same place where they came from, they have no chance. Drug users are gonna use, gang bangers are gonna Bang. It is what it is. I believe in personal responsibility, Decriminalize all drugs, But criminalize those who do bad things to get those drugs. Europe and Vancouver, Let's addicts trade in there needles but they have to be accountable. Here in the States we just give them the needles But don't let them be accountable. We just ease them into death. My homeless brother just passed away last January alone in his Van. He had a blood alcohol level of 4.5. I miss him very much.

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JeaneyBowl t1_jebzwub wrote

Did you de-dupe the offenses? and how? people can be convicted of several offenses of different categories.

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Vito_The_Magnificent t1_jec1tax wrote

Clever to use federal prisons for the offense breakdown.

70,000 people in federal prison for drug crimes looks like it's the driver of incarceration generally.

But there are 158,000 people sitting in state prisons for murder. 163,000 for sexual assault, 132,000 for robbery, 146,000 for assault, 80,000 for burglary.

That doesn't make a graph that makes drugs look like the driver though. Gotta exclude state prisons if you want to present it that way.

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gdmg001 t1_jec5dc8 wrote

Land of the free and home of the brave.

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10xwannabe t1_jec9pfr wrote

OP,

Just a couple questions just to make sure I am understanding a few of these maps correct...

Are they saying that despite states with HIGH incarceration rates (Ex: LA, AR, MS) there are more whites being incarcerated in those states? If so that is interesting as the ratio is per 100,000 population of same race living there. So it takes into account disproportional number of sample sizes in the populations.

Also, any idea on the breakdown on the drug offenses that led the federal prison sentences? Are they distribution? Possession? Both? Are they marijuana? Are they more "hardcore" drugs, i.e. cocaine, heroin, fentanyl, ectacy, speed, etc...?

Thanks in advance.

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Meanteenbirder t1_jec9xga wrote

Winooski has the only significant black population in the state. Is second whitest behind Maine, I think the state is like 94% white. Even UVM with a massive diversity push can only get to 15% non-white, and it’s been stagnant the past few years. Racism dominates the state more because of being around POC being so different for many than having a more-expected right-wing racism mindset.

Source: went to UVM from 2018-2022

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AstralDragon1979 t1_jece9c8 wrote

Presenting the federal prison data with the rest of the information on this graphic is misleading, and perpetuates the myth that prisons in the US are full of low level drug offenders.

The vast majority of prisoners in the US are incarcerated through state prison systems, which are omitted in your breakdown of federal prison inmates. Crimes like murder, rape, robbery, etc. are overwhelmingly handled through state justice systems. That’s why those violent offenses barely appear in your federal prisoner bar chart. About half of the prisoners in the US are incarcerated for violent offenses (murder, rape, etc), and about 14% are there for drug offenses. Also, at the federal level, the drug offenders are generally not people who were busted with a dime bag of cannabis, but rather guilty of more serious crimes like drug trafficking.

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mcmur t1_jechgly wrote

The US prison system is a human rights abuse at the very least, and I would argue could meaningfully constitute a crime against humanity.

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somedudevt t1_jecjjta wrote

Vermonts numbers are heavily skewed by a high proportion of prison residents who are not Vermont residents. A large portion violent crime in the state is committed by people from surrounding states trafficking drugs. For instance Burlington had 5 murders last year, all 5 were committed by POC 3 against POC, and of the 5 committing the crime only 2 were a Vermont resident2. The others were from cities. A 4th one was a resident but only because they were on probation for a drug crime they committed in VT but came from Brooklyn.

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GamingRanger t1_jecnk4f wrote

Prisons are great for humanity and mass incarceration in the US has saved many lives.

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IJourden t1_jecocre wrote

“We’re number 1! We’re number 1!”

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Late-Storm-5283 t1_jecsi4i wrote

Sad that drug offenses make up that much of federal inmates

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oakteaphone t1_jectrxe wrote

You'd think with all the prisons, the US would have fewer mass shootings. But they're a major outlier for both, way off the charts.

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GOEAMElol t1_jecw1o9 wrote

I'm surprised by many Balkan countries

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DevinCauley-Towns t1_jecz4o6 wrote

Right, but no where on this infographic does it mention the federal inmates are ignored from the state statistics. The state graphic simply says “inmates”, it doesn’t specify that it is only a subset of inmates physically housed within each state. You can easily look up the number of federal inmates located within each state or even facility, so it isn’t impossible to find the information. OP didn’t even seem to realize the datasets were that different, so that’s likely why it wasn’t called out in the graphic (and also why it should’ve been, since it’s not clear at all).

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OblongAndKneeless t1_jeczyxf wrote

The black to white ratio is interesting. Vermont is one of the highest yet has one of the smallest populations of black people. Is there a better way to illustrate this info?

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ManWearingSandals t1_jed4pq5 wrote

The OP is calculating a ratio of the two rates. The rates already normalize for population sizes. 1.2% of black population vs. 0.1% of the white population gives a ratio of 12x. One thing to note: this data does not seem to include federal incarceration statistics for the state comparison maps.

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ckh27 t1_jed77c7 wrote

In a capitalist democracy where democracy has been subverted by lobbyists and wealth to rewrite laws, encoding imbalance into the system that has allowed said wealth to form in the first place without the society destroying itself… everything is for sale. There’s money to be made so in America they throw peoples lives away in prison for pot. Because it makes tons of money especially for private prison owners. So many corrupt fingers in the pot, a booming industry. Lots of payroll to keep up.

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auricularisposterior t1_jedcxi1 wrote

Well according to this map, much of those south eastern states have low income and high inequality. What does that really mean in terms of people though? Does that mean there are lots of white and black people that are similarly poor and a relatively small proportion of very wealth people living in the state (with not as many people in between)?

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ReadySte4dySpaghetti t1_jedhdf9 wrote

Yep, here is an infographic showing the breakdown of those incarcerated on drug offenses. Most are in local jails, then state prisons, then federal prisons.

Federal prisons may have the highest proportion, but they have the lowest amount of people total in them for drug uses.

One in 5 people who are incarcerated are incarcerated on drug offenses. While it may not be the 45% percent of federal prisons, it’s still hundreds of thousands of people, and you could still make the argument that drug users are flooding prisons, (as one of the above comments claimed was not the case) depending on what you think flooding means.

This is the most comprehensive thing ever with even more really good graphics.

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Misinfoscience_ t1_jedj7se wrote

Another day another misleading visualization with a likely agenda

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tensai7777 t1_jedkzlp wrote

Bad data. Also, it's a crime crisis, not prison crisis.

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BeebleBopp t1_jedkzvv wrote

Crisis? If you want to see a crisis, just totally ignore what they did to get in there, prioritize feeling good about yourself for doing so, let 'em all out, see what happens.

After all the dead bodies have been cleared away, you can feel stupid for having repeated history because you ignored it.

Also probably ruining the society your children are growing up in.

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Illest7705 t1_jedmm27 wrote

Jim Carey - Stop breaking the law Asshole!

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Northstar1989 t1_jedngkm wrote

>Clever to use federal prisons for the offense breakdown.

>That doesn't make a graph that makes drugs look like the driver though. Gotta exclude state prisons if you want to present it that way.

Bull.

State prisons, and jails, have huge numbers of drug offenders in them too: which you conveniently leave out of your add-up...

When you add federal, state, and local together; drug charges are still the #1 cause of internment.

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Hello_iam_Kian t1_jedt5m2 wrote

Wait, they are putting people in prison because of illegal immigration?

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Swivel_Z t1_jedu6df wrote

So, basically there's more white people jailed in the south, where most jailed people seem to be; and there are more black people jailed up north, where there are overall less people jailed.

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Swivel_Z t1_jeduc3k wrote

It's like looking at the inverse of the map. Whatever state has a lot of inmates per 100,000, generally has fewer Black inmates in ratio to White, and the opposite is true too.

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timwolfz t1_jedwqke wrote

only 5.7mil out of 332mil, i thought the number would be larger, am i miss reading something?

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Freebandz1 t1_jedx51i wrote

Yes let’s trust the rest of the world to dutifully report their inmates. Also, when it’s shown the amount who are on probation the amount incarcerated is about a third of percent of the population.

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Future-Tomorrow t1_jedzx0n wrote

“Wrongful imprisonment” is a common term and depending on where your collective news about the US comes from it seems that due to advances in DNA testing and uncovering of methods and processes used in the 80s, 90s and 2000s, someone is being released every other month for a crime they did not commit.

I’m not clear on what the last line about drugs in your comment is supposed to mean as tampering with evidence or planting it are commonly responsible for wrongful imprisonment cases. Please Google Zach Webster, and he’s by far not the only one.

Police and FBI planting drugs on innocent people or in their homes is a thing.

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brainfreezeuk t1_jee2ske wrote

So I see using humans for profit hasn't gone away yet then.

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Cocobham t1_jee4eji wrote

It is shameful. We have a serious problem with fentanyl poisoning in this country and we are not treating the individuals trafficking it in like the terrorists they are. In any other country, they’d be tried and executed. But in this country we think “social programs” can fix the demand issue.

Ok, have your social programs. And eliminate the need for prisons by making it impossible for the offenders trafficking the poison to ever offend again.

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offaseptimus t1_jeeacyw wrote

This is really bad data display designed to mislead.

Talking about federal drug prisoners when they only make up a small percentage of total prisoners is the most obvious attempt to mislead. But overall it tries to avoid pointing out that 70% of prisoners are in for violent or sexual crimes.

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SilentHackerDoc t1_jeeb2gi wrote

This is kinda true... It might have amazing benefits too, but the only reason it actually made it through was corporate benefit. Our government makes decisions for big businesses and self-protection now, political power is purchased. Doesn't help people follow and listen to companies whose sole job is to peddle certain beliefs so they get paid by those big businesses.

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SilentHackerDoc t1_jeebue3 wrote

I'm not trying to be a dick but what evidence do you have for that? The people above broke down total numbers and drug offenses were literally top if not second place. I'd say that's still pretty 'full of drug pffenses' to me. And considering there are hundreds of arrests for drug users for every single arrest for a 'dealer', it's fair to say prisons are at least overly filled with low level drug offenses for what is necessary. People who use drugs do not benefit from jail and they harm no one (given they didn't break any other crimes).

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SilentHackerDoc t1_jeecumv wrote

Your sentence doesn't make sense? If socioeconomic class is as important as racial then you have to imply southern states are more equal, especially considering the better proportion of black to white incarceration. I don't know why this southern racism thing still exists, Alabama and Louisiana are the only places I feel like there was a bit of 'racism' and those cops were just shitty in general. I mean unless anyone has any other hard data the only thing we can pull from this is that yes southern states law systems are less racists. Honestly places like Atlanta and Florida are very friendly to black people and people just exist together. In states up north there is still obviously some unconscious racism and the groupems are more separate. The further south you go the more than you realize black and white people share the culture together and it is now it's own thing. I really don't find it ironic that more republican states are friendlier to black people and more fair. Sure, there are some Confederate flag people and some people who believe black shouldn't date white, but they are also just very friendly and fair to everyone. Or at least that's the culture and systemic racism may still be an issue but the culture in the south is much more connected. People up north are much bigger assholes and act on differences in opinion and looks way more often. The southern propaganda thing is all bullshit fed to you by media because of stereotypes and politics. People would really be surprised if they ever visited the south. Course people sometimes say more racist things and directly call people out or hold political opinions linked to racism, but they do believe in fairness and equality and act on that. In the north there are tons of hidden racists who act on their beliefs every single day and treat people different. The south is more like I hold these beliefs but I also treat everyone equally and fairly and with respect because that the key to life.

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corpusapostata t1_jeeeeex wrote

The immense number of people on probation is made worse when you consider that many of these people are paying a corporation for the privilege of reporting to a probation "officer" who is a contracted employee of a corporation, not a member of any police department. People have to pay hundreds of dollars a month for probation, keeping them poor and in many cases, sending them right back to jail for something they can't afford to pay for. All for the sake of corporate profit.

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katecrime t1_jeehzuc wrote

This is very informative but stop with the private prisons - these hold fewer than 5% of incarcerated people (excluding ICE detainees) and their use is on the decline.

It’s just not a thing.

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StealyEyedSecMan t1_jeeu66w wrote

Solve the "prison crisis" and "labor crisis" in a weekend, let the drug and immigration offenders go free. Probably be good for the court backlog, police overwork, and budgets everywhere.

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kompootor t1_jeewjbt wrote

Terrific job with attribution on the image! (In case you haven't been here this month, I'm kinda big on this.) What I particularly like is that you note the different years for data being used on each chart, which is a detail that is frequently omitted in this sub. (Although it appears you forgot to do this for the map at the bottom of prisoners/100k; it's not a huge deal because that stat is widely published, and the rest of the charts are dated; no visualization or other work gets everything perfect without multiple reviews anyway.)

The graphical layout seems more appealing to me than I'd expect. Normally I'd be put off by such a monochromatic color scheme, but since all your charts are displaying raw or scaled N with color (Except the top right, which doesn't do the gradient), it's actually an appropriate use. It looks aesthetically well-balanced taken from a distance, which is impressive for having 6 charts in there.

I do think the text is excessive however. Descriptions in plain-size font can be fine and great. (That is long as your users are reasonably expected to be able to read it -- so a visualization like this would be have a modified form if put into a slideshow, say, probably by separating each chart onto individual slides and reducing/summarizing the side text as full-size bullet points.) However, I think your descriptions are unnecessarily lengthened with your own interpretations of the data that may not be clearly demonstrated within the visualization alone, especially the introductory text. What you state affirmatively on the visualization should be reasonably supported by what is presented, and of course, since it's a visualization, you want a maximum of "show, don't tell". (There are several arguments you make that can only be supported by a detailed analysis going far beyond the charts given here; if you really feel the need to reference one or two of those arguments it would be more authoritative if you write something like "... and this is likely caused by such-and-such [Smith & Payne 2015]", or a numerical superscript, with additional source cited in the corner (a shorthand citation is fine for this kind of thing).)

Hope this can be useful. Very nice job overall.

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dmshoe t1_jef8agn wrote

Some of the data doesn't add up? The bottom map shows the US leading the world with 629 inmates per 100k nationwide, but the middle-left map shows the highest number per 100k in each state is 584. How can the nationwide average be higher than the highest state average? Or am I missing something?

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JaredAnders t1_jefdrku wrote

Most incarcerated country on the planet, both in totality and in proportion. Now that's freedom defined by america 🇺🇸

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JaredAnders t1_jefe5e2 wrote

Blue laws, sex work, marijuana cigarettes, motor vehicle laws, excessive parking tickets, Blockbuster video late fees. This guy gets it alright. You don't get a prison population like this unless you're enforcing arbitrary laws which mean nothing about safety.

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GRANDxADMIRALxTHRAWN t1_jeffort wrote

Right, I agree with your statement. But the idea that was stated pertained to the correlation between low income and criminal conviction rates. So in this instance we see a disproportionately higher rate of criminal convictions for people of color in New York, but a significantly more equal conviction rate (racially) in Southern States. These two things suggest that the socioeconomic racial inequalities are worse in the North East than in the South East. We're not talking about general income disparities. Again, from what the commenter said, it would basically suggest that the racial proportionality (Black/White) of low income households is more equal in Southeastern states than Northeastern states.

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Valbertnie t1_jeg1gdh wrote

Did you miss the part that this is a chart of Federal Prisons and federal crimes, not state prisons with other crime types? It's literally in the chart.

Do you know the difference between federal crimes and state crimes? Focusing on federal crimes and prisons without looking at state prisons and convictions is only giving a small portion of the big picture.

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wesman21 t1_jegj72v wrote

I should become a criminal attorney.

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Daydream_Meanderer t1_jegvjpl wrote

Probation system is to milk money that the poorest of us don’t have mostly due to addiction and nonviolent crimes, something that should have never been penalized punitively in the first place, but these demons make too much money to give it up, if you can’t pay? Monetized slave labor in a for profit prison for you.

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mcmur t1_jeh18yn wrote

So you’re telling me there are hundreds of thousands more people locked up in prison for victimless offences and that this is only a “small portion” (your words) of folks locked up in the US prison system?

And you think that’s a good thing? The US locks more people for then any other country on earth by a long shot including the Soviet Union at its height.

Ok enjoy lol.

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