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From: edhall@randvax.UUCP (Ed Hall)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Gun Control
Message-ID: <2269@randvax.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 22-Jan-85 16:56:43 EST
Article-I.D.: randvax.2269
Posted: Tue Jan 22 16:56:43 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 25-Jan-85 21:33:53 EST
References: <1192@drusd.UUCP> <2256@randvax.UUCP> <349@topaz.ARPA>
Organization: Rand Corp., Santa Monica
Lines: 21

> Funny thing.  Perhaps your mind would like to leap with the idea that
> only about a tenth of violent crimes here result in prison sentences,
> whereas in the other countries you're talking about, it's more like half?
> 
> --JoSH

Funny thing; we have more prisoners per capita in the US than in any
other ``civilized'' country in the world but one: the USSR.

There is a reason why judges are reluctant to commit all but the very
worst of criminals to prison: most medium-to-high security prisons are
grossly overcrowded and understaffed already, and are such hell-holes
and breeding grounds for crime that sending someone there is virtually
certain to make a hardened criminal out of them.  Forget all that you've
seen on TV about the minimum-security ``country clubs'' they send white-
collar crooks to.  If you took an average man-on-the-street and put him
in prison for a year or two, he'd either come out (1) crazy, or (2) a
criminal.

		-Ed Hall
		decvax!randvax!edhall