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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsSix Ways America is Like a Third-World Country
By Sean McElwee
March 5, 2014 12:00 PM ET
Although the U.S. is one of the richest societies in history, it still lags behind other developed nations in many important indicators of human development key factors like how we educate our children, how we treat our prisoners, how we take care of the sick and more. In some instances, the U.S.'s performance is downright abysmal, far below foreign countries that are snidely looked-down-upon as "third world." Here are six of the most egregious examples that show how far we still have to go:
1. Criminal Justice
We all know the U.S. criminal justice system is flawed, but few are likely aware of just how bad it is compared to the rest of the world. The International Center for Prison Studies estimates that America imprisons 716 people per 100,000 citizens (of any age). That's significantly worse than Russia (484 prisoners per 100,000 citizens), China (121) and Iran (284). The only country that incarcerates a higher percentage of its population than we do is North Korea. The U.S. is also the only developed country that executes prisoners and our death penalty has a serious race problem: 42 percent of those on death row are black, compared to less than 15 percent of the overall population.
Over two and a half million American children have a parent behind bars. A whopping 60 percent of those incarcerated in U.S. prisons are non-violent offenders, many of them in prison for drug charges (overwhelmingly African-Americans). Even while our crime rate has fallen, our incarcerated population has climbed. As of 2011, an estimated 217,000 American prisoners were raped each year that's 600 new victims every day, a truly horrifying number. In 2010, the Department of Justice released a report about abuse in juvenile detention centers. The report found that 12.1 percent of all youth held in juvenile detention reported sexual violence; youth held for between seven and 12 months had a victimization rate of 14.2 percent.
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/six-ways-america-is-like-a-third-world-country-20140305#ixzz2v7UQ9D9s
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Six Ways America is Like a Third-World Country (Original Post)
MrScorpio
Mar 2014
OP
lovemydog
(11,833 posts)1. Great article
The six are:
1. Criminal Justice
2. Gun Violence
3. Healthcare
4. Education
5. Inequality
6. Infrastructure
truedelphi
(32,324 posts)3. In discussing guns, and other countries, it is rarely
Mentioned that in other nations, police wear soft helmets, carry batons, not guns, and don't look like they just got off the Dark Star's MotherShip, intent on killing all life on earth.
You take away the weaponry from my rural police force here, and I'd be willing to become more excited about gun control for civilians.
Wilms
(26,795 posts)2. Third Way for a Third World! n/t