Number of US Prison Inmates Serving Life Sentences Hits New Record

A report released by The Sentencing Project, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit criminal justice advocacy group, reveals that the number of prisoners serving life sentences in the US state and federal prisons reached a new record of close to 160,000 in 2012. Of these, 49,000 are serving life without possibility of parole, an increase of 22.2 percent since 2008.

The study’s findings place in relief figures being promoted by the federal government indicating a reduction in the overall number of prisoners in federal and state facilities, from 1.62 million to 1.57 million between 2009 and 2012.

Ashley Nellis, senior research analyst with the Sentencing Project, argues that the rise in prisoners serving life sentences has to do with political posturing over “tough on crime” measures. “Unfortunately, lifers are typically excluded from most sentencing reform conversations because there’s this sense that it’s not going to sell, politically or with the public,” Nellis says. “Legislators are saying, ‘We have to throw somebody under the bus.’”

At 40,362 California holds a quarter of lifers, followed by Florida (12,549) and New York (10,245), Texas (9,031), Georgia (7,938), Ohio (6,075), Michigan (5,137), Pennsylvania (5,104) and Louisiana (4,657).

Sources:

David Krajicek, “Hard Time: Prisons Are Packed With More Lifers Than Ever,”, WhoWhatWhy.com, September 18, 2013, http://whowhatwhy.com/2013/09/18/hard-time-prisons-are-packed-with-more-lifers-than-ever/.

Ashley Nellis, “Life Goes On: The Historic Rise in Life Sentences in America,” The Sentencing Project, September 2013, http://sentencingproject.org/doc/publications/inc_Life Goes On 2013.pdf.

Student Researcher: Isabella Diaz (Florida Atlantic University)

Faculty Evaluator: James F. Tracy (Florida Atlantic University)

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Number of US Prison Inmates Serving Life Sentences Hits New Record

Obama Scores Highest Very Favorables Among Currently Serving Politicians

A new historic low, brought to you by the Republican Party.

According to a new Economist/YouGov.com poll, just 6% approve of the way Congress is handling its job. Seventy-two percent disapprove. That puts Congress the historic low of a 6% approval rating. “Only 10 percent of Democrats, 7 percent of Republicans, and 3 percent of independents approve of Congress,” the poll said.

Speaker John Boehner might want to wipe that smirk off of his ObamaCare whinging grimace, because he has a very favorable rating of just 5%, while President Obama has a very favorable approval rating of 22%, which is the highest very favorable rating of any currently serving politician in the poll. (Hillary Clinton scored the highest at 27% very favorable.)

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell joins Boehner in that 5%. So only 5% really like these two Republicans – but one things Republicans do well is hate. So, Obama has 47% very unfavorable compared to Boehner’s 40% very unfavorable and McConnell’s 35% very unfavorable.

Obama has an overall 41% favorable to 55% unfavorable, while only 4% said they don’t know. Boehner has overall favorables of 22%, with 60% unfavorables, while 19% don’t know. McConnell scores 19% overall favorables, 54% unfavorables, while 28% don’t know.

The two Republicans are benefiting from higher “don’t knows”, while to put this in perspective, only 14% say they don’t know about Nancy Pelosi and yet she is not the current Speaker of the House. It makes sense that since Republicans go negative most often, they’ve solidified the hate over the “don’t knows”. What they never manage to do is lock up very many “favorables”.

“Opinions of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid don’t seem to be affected by the filibuster vote,” according to the poll. “Unfavorable opinions of him continue to outnumber favorable ones, but he scores modestly better than his GOP counterpart, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. And Congressional Democrats fare better than Congressional Republicans.”

These bad poll numbers might seem distressing for Congress and Republicans especially, but Republicans don’t mind getting dirty in order to smear the other side. And that’s what is happening here. By obstructing everything and turning this Congress into a historically lazy Congress, Republicans bring down the public’s trust in Congress and bring down the morale of hard core Democrats – the very people who vote in midterms.

This is a deliberate strategy meant to depress the vote as an added bonus to pretending a Democrat wasn’t re-elected to the White House. It works because too much of the public is misinformed about how our government works, and they blame both parties for the “gridlock” narrative, well established by the ever helpful stenographers in the mainstream media.

Republicans only have charge of one chamber in Congress, and that’s the House — where they work less days and get historically less done than any other Congress.

After all of the relentless negativity aimed at Obama’s signature legislation, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the fact that he has higher very favorables than any other currently serving politician polled is a testament to Obama’s consistently high likability.

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Obama Scores Highest Very Favorables Among Currently Serving Politicians

Politicians Serving Wall Street, Not Main Street

It’s become common over the past year or two to note how well Wall Street is doing while Main Street is still struggling.

Sadly, that tale of two economies has resulted from a conscious choice by those at the very top levels of our nation’s financial and political elites.

The choice was inadvertently highlighted in a recent USA Today column by former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. In that column, Pelosi describes some of the political dynamics surrounding the beginning of the bailout era five years ago.

In Pelosi’s telling of the story, public opinion was never mentioned once. That’s significant because public opinion was primarily focused on Main Street while the elites were focused on Wall Street. Those in power didn’t want to hear about anything but the financiers.

From the beginning, public opinion was hostile. The outrage was so strong that it eventually led to the creation of both the Tea Party and the Occupy movements. While Congress rarely listens to those it is supposed to represent, in this case, they couldn’t help but hear the shouting. Stunningly, with both the Republican president and Democratic congressional leadership pleading for $ 700 billion, Congress initially listened to Main Street and rejected the bailout legislation. That created panic among the elites, and the stock market fell almost 800 points the next day.

After the market reacted, Congress reversed course.

The legislators made a conscious decision to back Wall Street rather than Main Street. They voted to reassure the bankers and ignore the rest of us. Crony capitalism won. Free market competition lost. Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general for the TARP bailouts, recounts the maddening tale in a great book, “Bailout: An Inside Account of How Washington Abandoned Main Street While Rescuing Wall Street”.

In the aftermath, an argument erupted about who was to blame. Conservatives tended to point to government failures. Liberals pointed in the opposite direction.

A better understanding comes when you realize that the financial wizards and the government officials were on the same team. One day Henry Paulson was chairman of Goldman Sachs, the next he was Treasury secretary. One day Robert Rubin was Treasury secretary, the next he was running Citibank.

In the years since the bailouts, nothing has really changed. The biggest banks weren’t broken up; they’ve gotten bigger. They still require ongoing government subsidies to remain profitable. That reality is bad enough. But what makes it even tougher is that the political class is proud of the two-tier economy they’ve created. In her column, Nancy Pelosi said bailing out the banks “required responsible, bipartisan cooperation and leadership.”

A better description would be to say that the bailouts forced the political class to make it clear that they listen to Wall Street over Main Street.

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Politicians Serving Wall Street, Not Main Street

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