General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsSix Ways America Is Like a Third-World Country
Although the U.S. is one of the richest societies in history, it still lags behind other developed nations in many important indicators of human development key factors like how we educate our children, how we treat our prisoners, how we take care of the sick and more. In some instances, the U.S.'s performance is downright abysmal, far below foreign countries that are snidely looked-down-upon as "third world." Here are six of the most egregious examples that show how far we still have to go:
1. Criminal Justice
We all know the U.S. criminal justice system is flawed, but few are likely aware of just how bad it is compared to the rest of the world. The International Center for Prison Studies estimates that America imprisons 716 people per 100,000 citizens (of any age). That's significantly worse than Russia (484 prisoners per 100,000 citizens), China (121) and Iran (284). The only country that incarcerates a higher percentage of its population than we do is North Korea. The U.S. is also the only developed country that executes prisoners and our death penalty has a serious race problem: 42 percent of those on death row are black, compared to less than 15 percent of the overall population.
Over two and a half million American children have a parent behind bars. A whopping 60 percent of those incarcerated in U.S. prisons are non-violent offenders, many of them in prison for drug charges (overwhelmingly African-Americans). Even while our crime rate has fallen, our incarcerated population has climbed. As of 2011, an estimated 217,000 American prisoners were raped each year that's 600 new victims every day, a truly horrifying number. In 2010, the Department of Justice released a report about abuse in juvenile detention centers. The report found that 12.1 percent of all youth held in juvenile detention reported sexual violence; youth held for between seven and 12 months had a victimization rate of 14.2 percent.
<snip>
America is a great country, and it does many things well. But it has vast blind spots. The fact that nearly 6 million Americans, or 2.5 percent of the voting-age population, cannot vote because they have a felony on record means that politicians can lock up more and more citizens without fear of losing their seat. Our ideas of meritocracy and upward mobility blind us to the realities of class and inequality. Our healthcare system provides good care to some, but it comes at a cost millions of people without health insurance. If we don't critically examine these flaws, how can we ever hope to progress as a society?
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/six-ways-america-is-like-a-third-world-country-20140305#ixzz2vOMnIuT1
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook
jsr
(7,712 posts)Great example.
Wounded Bear
(58,709 posts)can be traced directly back to corporate influence and the inequality of wealth and income.
All of it.
AgingAmerican
(12,958 posts)And the Democratic party is slowly but surely adopting it too. The two party system guarantees that we sink further and further into the abyss as the GOP becomes more and more fascist and the Democratic party tags along.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)We are in a world of hurt right now. And this mess promises to get far worse before we see an improvement.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)jsr
(7,712 posts)often on the flimsiest pretense - and often get rewarded for it with a stress disability pension.