An interview of David Garland posted on Jacobin provides an insightful overview of the course and causes of violence in the U.S. on both sides of the Law.
Why the US Has Such a Brutal Penal Regime
Some excerpts:
"Police in the United States kill civilians at between five and forty times the rate of similarly rich countries, for instance, and the United States imprisons people at about seven times the rate of economically comparable countries."
"...the prison population in this country reached a peak of 760 per 100,000 in 2008. The European average is a bit more than 100 per 100,000..."
"The US homicide rate has fallen considerably since that peak in the 1990s. It’s now near six per 100,000, but that’s still six times as high as European nations — and more than three times higher than Canada."
"In the 1970s, there were about eighty or ninety civilians killed every year by the police in New York City. Now it’s about eight or nine civilians killed each year, and that has to do with training, accountability, selection, and practices in the police force."
David Garland is the Arthur T. Vanderbilt professor of law and professor of sociology at New York University and an honorary professor at the University of Edinburgh.
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