Pubdate: Thu, 02 Jun 2011 Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC) Copyright: 2011 The Vancouver Sun Contact: http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/letters.html Website: http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477 Author: Rodney Glynn-Morris THE PRISON INDUSTRY EXPANSION IN U.S. IS NO MODEL FOR CANADA Re: Harper government's anticrime package unnecessary, Column, May 30 What a thoughtful article by Ian Mulgrew! The U.S. has five per cent of the world's population, but 25 per cent of the world's prisoners (the highest incarceration rate in the world). One per cent of its population is in jail, including eight per cent of young blacks. More Californians are in jail than in higher education. The incarceration rate quadrupled since 1970s. If prisons worked, the U.S. would be the safest place in the world - much safer than Canada. A quarter of U.S. prisons have been privatized and I wonder how much pressure the private prison lobby exerts on our government to expand prisons here, as logic and expert advice from criminologists is ignored. They make clear the futility and huge expense of expanding prisons caused by mandatory sentencing. As an addictions physician it intrigues me that up to half my ex-prisoner patients only started I.V. drugs in prison. Rodney Glynn-Morris Vancouver - --- MAP posted-by: Richard R Smith Jr.