Sen. Tom Cotton: U.S. has 'under-incarceration problem'

www.politico.com...

Sen. Tom Cotton on Thursday slammed his colleagues' efforts to pass sweeping criminal justice reforms, saying the United States is actually suffering from an "under-incarceration problem."

Cotton, who has been an outspoken critic of the bill in Congress that would reduce mandatory minimum sentences, smacked down what he called "baseless" arguments that there are too many offenders locked up for relatively small crimes, that incarceration is too costly, or that "we should show more empathy toward those caught up in the criminal-justice system."

I cannot stand this guy and every time I read about him in the news he continues to give more reasons to dislike him. First of all, and I'm sure most of you are well aware, America has more people in prison per ca pita than any other nation on Earth. Even more than North Korea who will imprison entire families for one persons "crimes" and that's amazing! Yet we have Tom Cotton saying we need more people in prison.

I suppose he's not aware that the war on drugs was created to target minorities and that our US prison system is severely overcrowded. So over crowded that a lot of prisons have to release their prisoners because they literally have no place to keep them.

Mandatory minimums are a disgrace and even today, finally, some Republicans are acknowledging this failure and are looking to over turn them but if Tom had his way he'd keep the status quo and continue to enforce it. Clearly the war on drugs has been nothing but a success so far! Well, a sucess only for law enforcement and criminal organizations.

Not sure what a mandatory minimum is and why it's a terrible system? Then come watch John Oliver's report here.



Unsure if the war on drugs was created to target minorities then come watch the TYT's report here.



Not only do we have more people in prison per ca pita than the rest of the world but we also have a terrible recidivism rate. Tom Cotton, once again, has it all wrong and I can only hope he loses his next election.

Unbelievable, the level of cognitive dissonance on display is astounding! I have heard this guy's name before but don't know much about him. But wow...one tool short of being one of the biggest toolboxes I've had the displeasure of knowing about.

Not much to add. Your poignant remarks on the sad state of Mass Incarceration here in the US, mandatory minimums and the failed war on drugs sums the general landscape up quite nicely. This is the environment that allows fools and con-men to prosper.

I'll revisit the thread once I've read up on Cotton some and have a better lay of the land. Thanks for bringing this to our attention!

a reply to: Swills

I wonder if he has ties to the Private Prison Lobby.

a reply to: Swills

Well that's easy to fix, just start offering judges incentives to put people in jail. Wait, they're already doing this.

Maybe they can make a deal that treats jails like hotels, where having an empty cell means lost income. Maybe they could implement some sort of lockup quota

Someone needs to figure out how to look at this Senator's financials.

His surname alone should point to what sort of guy he was going to be.

Mr Scissors
Green cutter's Avenue
Shears Land
Eleven off four
What's old chap

He needs more Cotton picking slaves!!

Edit- Just noticed you are my 5,700th post. Blimey, we have too much to say.

a reply to: reldra

Bingo! And the problem with having private prisons is that it's in the prisons interest to keep people incarcerated for victimless "crimes" such as drug possession. And guess who still ends up paying for it. Yep. Everybody.

a reply to: reldra

I looked but did not come up with much but it would not surprise me at all if he was.

a reply to: Swills

Here's an idea. Stop spending trillions on the war on drugs and use said money to go after child porn/human trafficking. Only in our dreams would they do something smart like that.

a reply to: Swills

He's either a total scumbag or completely clueless.

I'm going with A.

originally posted by: reldra
a reply to: Swills

I wonder if he has ties to the Private Prison Lobby.

That was my first thought as well.... Freaking monsters....i wonder what his thoughts would be if he were the one going for a mandatory minimum 15 years.

a reply to: Swills

Disclaimer: I don't know much about this guy or his positions and I don't know much about the bill that they are looking at.

One thing I would say though, is that I'm getting tired of hearing about people getting arrested for finally murdering someone and finding out they have been arrested many, many times for violent offenses. Again, that's just an opinion and I'd have to research the actual bill before getting in any deeper.

America has more people in prison per ca pita than any other nation on Earth.

BULL and CRAP.

According to the US Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), 2,220,300 adults were incarcerated in US federal and state prisons,

en.wikipedia.org...

And just how many people live in the US not counting ILLEGALS ?

Over 323 million people.

www.census.gov...

Almost more than half of a percent out of 323 million people.

.68 percent

Don't like it ?

Tell politicians to stop writing so many LAWS.

Then tell the federal agencies to stop making 'regulations' up as the go along.

originally posted by: neo96

America has more people in prison per ca pita than any other nation on Earth.

BULL and CRAP.

I don't think you know what per capita means in comparison to other countries.

a reply to: Swills

Ive never heard of the guy but if what this article says is true, I'm calling his office on Monday to voice my disapproval.

Thank you.


a reply to: neo96

According to this site: www.prisonstudies.org...

We dont have the highest rate of prisoners (second only to Seychelles) but we do have the highest total population.

a reply to: neo96

I'm not surprised to see you here arguing a well known fact, after all, Cotton is a conservative just like you.

Yes, U.S. locks people up at a higher rate than any other country

This was a seemingly unbelievable figure that turned out to be correct. The widely cited statistic about the United States’ share of prisoners compared to other countries recently earned the rare Geppetto Checkmark by The Fact Checker.

A more reliable way to compare incarceration practices between countries is the prison population rate. Even by that measure, the United States had the highest prison population rate in the world, at 716 per 100,000 people. More than half the 222 countries and territories in the World Prison Population List, by the U.K.-based International Center for Prison Studies, had rates below 150 per 100,000.

And incarceration numbers went up with the introduction of mandatory minimums. Do you support mandatory minimums?

a reply to: gladtobehere

Remember a group of Senators writing Iran a letter stating they did not support Obama's nuclear deal? That was him.

a reply to: eluryh22

I agree, violent criminals need to be imprisoned, but more importantly rehabilitated, if at all possible. That said, getting rid of mandatory minimums won't be releasing a wave of violent perps because many people who are incarcerated are non violent drug users or pushers. Not all drug dealers are murdering gang bangers. I'm sure we all have friends, or know someone, who sells weed.

a reply to: reldra

This is his way, he spins the facts to support his conservative views. Nothing new to see here.

a reply to: reldra

I've been trying for over 45 minutes to find a connection between a private prison corporation and Tom Cotton. I wasn't able to find one.

That said, I did find several articles about how the Arkansas governor is wanting millions to expand the prison systems. I've also read several articles about legislation that was passed in Arkansas that has significantly increased their prison population and made it much easier for people to violate parole. I'm thinking that it's not far fetched to think that Tom Cotton might be trying to use whatever influence he might have on the state level to get Arkansas to allow private prisons.

If that happens, there might be some contributions from the private prison industry for his continued seat in the Senate.

a reply to: Swills

I was just about to post the exact same piece. I thought it was common knowledge by now lol.