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AstralDragon1979 t1_jece9c8 wrote

Presenting the federal prison data with the rest of the information on this graphic is misleading, and perpetuates the myth that prisons in the US are full of low level drug offenders.

The vast majority of prisoners in the US are incarcerated through state prison systems, which are omitted in your breakdown of federal prison inmates. Crimes like murder, rape, robbery, etc. are overwhelmingly handled through state justice systems. That’s why those violent offenses barely appear in your federal prisoner bar chart. About half of the prisoners in the US are incarcerated for violent offenses (murder, rape, etc), and about 14% are there for drug offenses. Also, at the federal level, the drug offenders are generally not people who were busted with a dime bag of cannabis, but rather guilty of more serious crimes like drug trafficking.

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Valbertnie t1_jed41yt wrote

Exactly. Many people don't realize there is a difference and that difference is huge.

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