

Why do we lock up so many people? - sgaither
http://newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2012/01/30/120130crat_atlarge_gopnik

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chmielewski
_"Prison rape is so endemic more than seventy thousand prisoners are raped
each year that it is routinely held out as a threat, part of the punishment to
be expected. The subject is standard fodder for comedy, and an uncoöperative
suspect being threatened with rape in prison is now represented, every night
on television, as an ordinary and rather lovable bit of policing. The
normalization of prison rape like eighteenth-century japery about watching men
struggle as they die on the gallows will surely strike our descendants as
chillingly sadistic, incomprehensible on the part of people who thought
themselves civilized."_

I found that quote to be particularly insightful.

Ron Paul thinks it would be a good idea to pardon all non-violent (violence
includes theft) drug offenders.

