Cuba Has 545 Prisons/ The United States Has the Highest Incarceration Rate Per Capita In The World.

COMMENT: On one of the embargo blogs, there is a posting that Cuba has 545 prisons on the island, something I was not aware of. I certainly hope our country will begin in earnest to negotiate for the release of the political prisoners that are in those prisons. However, what the blogger forgot to state was that our country, the "United States, has the highest documented incarceration rate, and total documented prison population in the world.

As of year-end 2007, a record 7.2 million people were behind bars, on probation or on parole. Of the total, 2.3 million were incarcerated. More than 1 in 100 American adults were incarcerated at the start of 2008", another great legacy of the Bush presidency. "The People's Republic of China ranks second with 1.5 million, while having four times the population, thus having only about 18% of the US incarceration rate."

And to top off this dreadful statistic, some state and local governments allow prisons to be run by private, for profit companies, when clearly penal institutions should be run non-profit and by the government, accountable to the people, not the shareholders.

Hypocrisy is the undoing of our credibility and moral authority in the world. As an American, I am embarrassed by this statistic.
The embargo and travel restrictions have no place in our foreign policy. We will be reminded of this again by the world community on Wednesday Oct 28th at the United Nations and in the U.S. Congress in the coming months- TM