According to this FBI page and other sources, in 2009, there were some 18,000 police agencies (local/state/federal) with 800,000 sworn police officers who arrested about 13.7 million people (some were multiple arrests). This represents 1 arrest for every 23 people, or 4,478 per 100,000 in the population. As a nation, we are addicted to incarceration. It may be driven by profit to the prison guard unions, and sometimes as profit to corporations that run incarceration centers. Almost two million people are currently locked up in the immense network of U.S. prisons and jails. More than 70 percent of the imprisoned population are people of color. It is rarely acknowledged that the fastest growing group of prisoners are black women and that Native American prisoners are the largest group per capita. Approximately five million people -- including those on probation and parole -- are directly under the surveillance of the criminal justice system. On Monday, April 2, 2012, the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) voted 5-4 to allow anyone arrested for any reason may be strip searched. Even if your dog was not on a leash or on a false arrest. This will provide those officers who have a hard on and still subscribe to Nazi dungeon pornography, an extra incentive to arrest more women (or men if they are gay). It seems that legal is becoming evil and we need to scale down our police departments in a hurry.

Send comments to: hjw2001@gmail.com