For all things Russia-Georgia, be sure to keep up to date with the wonkiest of war wonks I know, Robert Farley over at Lawyers, Guns and Money.
And it should be noted that the one thing that Condoleeza Rice was supposed to be an expert in was Russian politics. Ahem.
Condoleezza, perhaps you'd like to visit Kentucky, the leading prison state in the leading prison country in the world.
WITH ODIOUS sanctimony, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice released the annual State Department human rights report. She praised people around the world who work "to hold their leaders accountable and to achieve equal justice under the law."
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The report knocked Russia's "selectivity in enforcement of the law," Burma's "abysmal" level of "indefinite detentions," Iran's "arbitrary arrests," Syria's trying of "political prisoners in criminal courts," and China's "20 percent increase over 2006 in convictions of citizens under China's overly broad state security law."
In specific numbers, the report cited China's 1.8 million inmates and Russia's 889,600 prisoners, the latter of whom languish in "extremely harsh" and "overcrowded" facilities where "one in 25 was HIV-positive." Rice wrote in the report's preface, "Leaders who are insufficiently committed to reform may revert to authoritarian habits or take disastrous detours from the rule of law."
Missing from the State Department report was the disastrous detour of our own nation. Our inflexible reforms have for two decades turned nonviolent criminals into prisoners of politics.
The United States is the world's leading prison state. For the first time in our history, more than one out of every 100 adults is behind bars. We have 2.3 million people in jail or prison, according to a Pew Center on the States study released last month. Our rate of imprisonment easily beats second-place Russia and is six times the rate of China, seven times the rate of Germany or France, 10 times the rate of Italy, and 12 times the rate of Japan.
State spending on prisons has grown from $12 billion in 1987 to $49 billion last year. For that, we still have overcrowded prisons where the rate of HIV/AIDS is 2.5 times that of the general population.
The reason is not crime, not when our total levels declined in the 1990s to under those of the European Union, according to the United Nations. But the impact of mandatory federal and state drug laws enacted during the crack panic of the 1980s - and never changed when the panic over drug trade violence proved unjustified - continue to devastate communities and state budgets.
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