For the first time in history, more than one in every 100 adults in America is in jail or prison, according to a new report released Thursday. The report by the Pew Center on the States’ Public Safety Performance Project said 2,319,258 adults were held in American prisons or jails at the beginning of 2008, which is one out of every 99.1 adults. That's more than any other country in the world. ... One in 30 men between the ages of 20 and 34 is behind bars, according to recent U.S. Department of Justice data, which also shows that men are about 13 times more likely to be incarcerated than females. However, the data shows, the female population is expanding at a faster pace. ... The report said the United States leads the world in incarcerations, far ahead of more populous China with 1.5 million people behind bars. full story

That last part is the most telling. The United States has more people behind bars than China. Not just more people per capita, more people period. It's beyond shameful how many people in the "Land of the Free" aren't free.

Turner Broadcasting System has accepted full responsibility for the guerrilla marketing campaign that caused a security scare across Boston Wednesday. WBZ-TV's Dan Rea spoke with Mayor Thomas Menino Friday morning and Menino said that the company had agreed to pay about $250,000 for the costs created by the scare. Phil Kent, Turner's C-E-O, issued an apology in full-page ads in Boston newspapers Friday for "the confusion and inconvenience" caused as highways, bridges and river traffic were shut down. Peter Berdovsky, 27, and Sean Stevens, 28, were released Thursday on $2,500 bail each after pleading not guilty pleas to charges of placing a hoax device and disorderly conduct. full article

If this is accurate, it changes my mind about the situation. Turner should not get off with a bribe. I still believe Berdovsky and Stevens deserve to face charges, but many others deserve to face charges as well. If the city of Boston is not going to prosecute the people at Turner and Interference who orchestrated the stunt, the city has no business persecuting the bottom-level guys who did their employer's dirty work.

I would like to note that this does not change my conviction that the police did a fine job. This is on Menino, not the police.

gryffyn gave goldmourn and me a ride up to London, where I caught the bus back to Boston. In short order I screwed up boarding the bus and spilt my entire cup of coffee (a lot of it going on my skirt).

However, things seemed to go a bit better until we reached the border. Compared to the security personal at the Canadian border, the Americans are fascist assholes. Someone in front of me put his hands in his pocket while waiting for the border guard to confirm his identification, for which he received the threat: "WE'RE NOT PLAYING GAMES! DO YOU WANT TO GO TO JAIL RIGHT NOW?". His was hardly atypical treatment. Greyhound had scheduled 15 minutes to cross the border. However it took us over an hour to get through security, and there was no one ahead of us. The imagery reminded me more of the check points in the old Soviet Bloc rather than something I'd hope to expect from the United States. How times change.

Luckily the hold up at the border didn't cause me to miss my connection at Syracuse. Other than losing an inexpensive article of clothing, the rest of the trip went smoothly — I walked out of the bus station the exact moment purpleglitter was pulling into the parking lot.

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I didn't do my normal voice post updates during this trip, because the entire LiveJournal voice post system was down the entire trip.

The smoke from burning marijuana leaves contains several known carcinogens and the tar it creates contains 50 percent more of some of the chemicals linked to lung cancer than tobacco smoke. A marijuana cigarette also deposits four times as much of that tar as an equivalent tobacco one. Scientists were therefore surprised to learn that a study of more than 2,000 people found no increase in the risk of developing lung cancer for marijuana smokers. "We expected that we would find that a history of heavy marijuana use--more than 500 to 1,000 uses--would increase the risk of cancer from several years to decades after exposure to marijuana," explains physician Donald Tashkin of the University of California, Los Angeles, and lead researcher on the project. But looking at residents of Los Angeles County, the scientists found that even those who smoked more than 20,000 joints in their life did not have an increased risk of lung cancer. full article

With the recent debunking of the marijuana kills brain cells myth, there is now no known health risks associated with marijuana. With the legalized status of alcohol, it is obvious that simply being an intoxicant is not sufficient to warrant prohibition. What is more, alcohol has many well known and verified health risks, is known to dramatically increase violence, and is physically addictive; all of which make it a much more dangerous substance. There is simply no good reason for marijuana to be illegal at this point.

The crazed war on drugs is what has lead to the outrageously high levels of incarceration in the United States. In the in the 1920's United States prohibition of alcohol did not stop people from drinking, but instead lead to organized gangs of criminals terrorizing the inner city streets of places such as Chicago and New York, as well as creating a countryside full of producers and smugglers. Sound familiar? History tends to repeat itself. It's time to legalize marijuana and start focusing on real threats that we face today.

According to newly released statistics by the United States government, 1 out of every 136 U.S. residents are in prison and jails; the highest percentage on the globe.

That's sick enough, but almost 12% of black men aged 25-29 are prison or jail. The rate far beyond anything that happened in South Africa during apartheid. Anyone who would say that 12% of black men deserve to be in prison is not only an idiot but also a racist. There is no excuse for that. None.

Furthermore there are currently over 450,000 UNCONVICTED United States Citizens in jail awaiting trial dates in the slow and overburdened court system. There is no right to a speedy trial, no due process, no protection from excessive bail. The constitution does not apply.

The great majority of the people in jail and prison are there for non-violent victimless crimes. The United States IS a police state NOW. Fascism is alive and well here, it just goes under the name "tough on crime". Freedom is a joke in the United States. A fucking joke. When do we storm the Bastille?

If you have a drink in an Austin bar or restaurant, and you do something out of the ordinary, you could go to jail. The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission says they can spot people who've had too much to drink, just by looking at them. It's an issue creating a lot of controversy. It's also creating a lot of arrests. THE TABC sting operation has increased arrests by 95 percent. Agents are going into bars and restaurants looking for folks who are a danger to themselves or others. When they spot someone drawing attention to themselves, that person is likely headed to jail. "Don't do anything more than anyone around you in a bar is doing," TABC spokeswoman Carolyn Beck said. The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission are sending agents into bars to ticket people who have had too much to drink. How can they tell? Simply, they look at you. "You may be arrested and taken to jail and get a citation as well, It's the officer's discretion," Beck said. full article

It is absurd to be arrested simply for drinking "too much" at a bar. Government invasiveness in one of it's finest forms. Furthermore, the completely arbitrary nature of the enforcement (the officers tell by looking at you) makes discriminatory enforcement against minority groups almost a certainty.

There needs to be some consistency needs to be built into the United States legal system.

If a 14 or 15 year old can be tried as an adult, then they should be consistently treated as an adult. They should be able to drive, vote, and buy cigarettes and alcohol. They should be able to make their own choices when it comes to psychiatric and medical care, just like an adult. They should be granted all the rights of adulthood, not just the penalties. Either that or don't try them as adults.

If a extremely poor person commits a petty crime and can't afford to pay the fine they go to jail, often for 10 to 30 days or more. They have done nothing worse than a person with the money that commits the same petty crime. The jail time is a much harsher punishment than someone who can pay the fine. And if the person paying the fine is rich, it isn't really much of a punishment at all. If the crime is concerning enough to throw the impoverished in jail, it should be concerning enough to throw anyone in jail. Do away with the fine, and make it a flat out jail sentence. Either that or weight the fine to the persons income and wealth.

If a person would not be considered mentally competent enough to be be responsible for their own actions and decisions in criminal matters, they should be able to choose what if any psychiatric care they want to receive. Forcing medication, elctroconvulsive therapy, residential programs, and other "treatments" on people who can make their own competent decisions is a travesty of civil liberties.

I could go on with examples like these for quite some time. The claim of consistency is often used to defend the American legal system, but that's absolutely not the case. It is so unfair and inconsistent it literally reeks. Change needs to be had.

not as happy drunk
sort of depressed
sad
i almost checked myself in earlier today
didn't on merryperseis's advise
she told me to go if i needed to
but said she'd take care of me
a hospital stay sounds like it might be a good idea right now
i'm falling fast
self destructive
suicidal
too much going on at once
can't check myself in when i'm drunk, though
they'll just say sober up
so i guess i'll consider it tomorrow
among other things
hospital stays suck
but they keep me safe when i really need it
and there are less worries
it's like a vacation
only it's not one
it's like being in jail
only not like being in jail
it's precisely like being in the psych ward
doesn't really help my decision making process much

I got together with Shawn and his new boyfriend last night at the Diesel Café. Shawn's an old roommate. He's back in Massachusetts living with his mom. He disappeared for three months, because he apparently spent three months in an L.A. jail. He's so burnt out now. He's not nearly as bad as Ozzy, but the excessive drug use has definitely worn on him, both physically and mentally. It's sad to see the changes, but at least he's cut out a lot of his harder drug use and he's happy with his new boyfriend. Hopefully this move back to Massachusetts will help him put his life back together and keep it together.