I'm interested in researching about the staggering number of people in jail in the United States. While I believe that there should be consequences for breaking the law, there seem to be a lot of inconsistencies. For instance, a group of American fisherman unknowingly broke the law when they imported lobster tails in plastic bags instead of boxes. (I'm not sure why this would matter. The lobsters are already dead so it couldn't be for their sake...) For unknowingly packaging lobster tails incorrectly, three out of the four fishermen were sentenced to eight years in prison. And while I understand the argument about how the fishermen should have known better since this was their job/specialty, I still think this consequence seems extreme. I think people who knowingly run stoplights are more dangerous. (But then again I don't know why the lobster was supposed to be packaged differently..) I think this is an important topic because it has the ability to affect all of us. I for one would hate to one day be sitting in a cell for breaking a law I didn't even know existed. (On the other hand, if that could be used as an excuse then criminals could claim they were unaware of any law they might want to break.) I think doing crime comparisons of other countries, and trying to find out if there is a correlation between how many people are in jail and how safe people feel in general might be interesting. I also wonder if we have more of one "type" of criminal than other countries, ex) fraud, murder, traffic violations... If we have more murderers, then maybe we are in the right and are just more able/willing to catch murderers. If the majority of Americans are in jail for laws like the fishermen dealt with and other countries don't have many of those, then maybe we are, not just having higher expectations for our citizens, but setting them up for failure.
http://www.economist.com/node/16640389
http://www.economist.com/node/16636027
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States
http://www.bostonreview.net/BR32.4/article_loury.php
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