US: 50% of black men without a high-school diploma spend time in jail

The ever reliable, pro-American and far from any suspicion of being liberal, "The Economist", publishes a tongue-in-cheek ironic article on today's US penal system, "Sing Sing or the lash". However one must draw conclusions that go far beyond crime and punishment, and enter the sphere of a failed society.

The numbers are unpalatable, and seem to be conveniently ignored by political leaders, inteligentsya, the vast middle-class and minority leaders. They shame all of them:

• In the US the incarceration rate is five times the world average;
• One in every 31 Americans is under some form of correctional control;
• One in every 11 blacks is under some form of correctional control;

and most shockingly:

• 50% of black men without a high-school diploma spend time in jail!

Such figures would in any self-conscious country create a large brouhaha, massive doses of self-analysis and endless debate. Not so in the land of the brave and free!

A country that spends many times more money on its military establishment, allegedly trying to fix other countries, than on education at home should stop and re-think its priorities.

Some thing is deeply wrong, if you think that every other lower class black gent you come across on the street is a criminal. 

What did all the integration and civil rights rethoric achieve?

It has clearly failed not only black Americans, but all Americans.

Furthermore nothing seems to have changed with a mulato president, Hussein Obama, who is already dragging the country into a third self-inflicted war in Libya.

Wake up America, Tahrir Square is on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, 

DC 20500, telephone (202) 456-1414!

prisoners in the pillory with one being whipped, USA 1907

World map showing incarceration rate per 100,000 citizens, data from UN Human Development Report 2007/8