Jesse Ventura & Matthew Cooke on Why U.S. Has Most ‘Tragic’ Prison System in the World

Filmmaker and activist Matthew Cooke reveals to me why the United States has the most “tragic” prison system in the world.“We have the largest prison in the history of the world,” Matthew states.“We have more prisoners than the Russian Gulag.”Cooke sounds off on the crisis facing police brutality and mass incarceration -- and why our country, the land of the free, has an 80% failure rate when it comes to our prison system.

Do you agree with what Matthew has to say?

a reply to: JesseVentura

It is no secret that Prison system in the US is a business

Judges are paid to lock people up and keep them there

At what point will people get sick of it is the real question

a reply to: JesseVentura

Good video and he makes a lot of good points. Especially the plea deals going on in society.

I was really hoping he was going to touch on the subject of the for-profit prison system, and how that has really taken away justice from the justice system. I was reading or watching, not to long about about a judge who would summarily sentence the most inoffensive of crimes of children to juvenile detention, and giving them exaggerated prison sentences, because he would get a cut for each child he sent to the for-profit prison. It was disgusting. And I'm sure that is not the only case of outright corruption.

Also, another big problem is how many innocent people are locked away, even for really outrageous and heinous crimes they do not commit. I don't think anyone really knows how big a population are behind bars that are innocent. Even people who are not guilty and plead guilty when badgered into it by merciless and dishonest police and prosecutors. It happens much more often than anyone would like to admit.

I think that if the system applied a lot of just laws that were handed down in the Mosaic law code, society would be more productive, and it would free up a lot of space in the prisons, as well as money.

For example, a poor person is caught driving without a license, or expired plates. That person is arrested taken to jail, given a sentence, perhaps maybe even jail time, or other petty crimes like that. So now that person, who was just trying to eek by a living for his family, now loses his job, and when he's out of jail, in 30 days or whatever, he's even poorer, and without any ability to pay for what he needs, and his family.

Wouldn't it be a lot quicker, and more humane to do what they did in the past? You messed up like that, go to the stocks in the town square for a day, get humbled a little, then get on with your life.

I bet you if given the choice between 30 lashes on the back or 2 months in jail, a fair number of people would rather get the punishment over with, be in pain a little bit, an get on with their lives, and learn their lesson. It keeps them in society as active members, and does not burden an innocent population with having to provide for them.

For take murder. In the Mosaic Law you murdered someone, you forfeit your right to life, and you were put to death. No huge populations of murders being taken care of by an innocent population. If a person killed someone on accident (say for example they were chopping wood and the ax-blade flew off and struck someone and they died) there were cities of refuge the accidental man-slayer could run too. There were six in total. Once there they were given a trial, and if found to be innocent a loving arrangement was made so that they could continue to live within that city and as a productive member of society for the rest of his life. He could not leave the city until he died, or until the high priest died.

Or how about thievery. You stole something, you had to pay back three times the amount. No need to get locked up for any amount of time.

And those are just a few of the superior laws written in the Bible that if applied, even in modern-day society, that would clear up a huge amount of the prison population, and also a lot of money being used on it.

We need to stop creating or worsening problems that don't dxist.


Many many people in America are victims of western culture. Car registration fees for poverty stricken Americans is a heavy tax burden and that's just one example. There are man. Many more.

Why don't you guys do an expose on what it's like looking for a job after you do your tkme.

Under cover sting operations to expose the discrimination people face its a grave injustice.

a reply to: JesseVentura

I am going to start a prison thread one of these days

These problems only get better when people face it themselves, and by then its too late, your sitting in prison. The day prisons became a business, and not a correctional facility, is the day they began to fail us. Without a Nation Wide eruption in protest, they will keep looking the other way.

It's definitely a big problem, the profit system aspect. Overcrowding is inhumane too, and a lot of people are incarcerated for drug charges, and the sentencing is ridiculous. When you have murderers doing less time, something is very wrong.

With all that being said, there are plenty of dirt bags who belong in prison, and have blown their chance to live in a civilized society.- ~$heopleNation

It's ridiculous. No one should be in for petty crimes yet they are filled with them. We need to be more creative. We rely on people to do community service but why not put them to hard manual labor? We also need to have a zero tolerance for those that commit heinous crimes such as murder, kidnapping & rape. Murderers don't need to be kept alive and fed imo. Rapist should be castrated.

Greetings from a retired cop from Ca. .. It will only get worse as long as corporations like CCA™ get politicos to further their agendas. When I worked it was "The Crack War" a finger of the real farce "War on Drugs".. I mean rural areas that didn't indulge in coc aine base couldn't really "clean up" (in LEO lexicon this is to collect more $$ via Overtime. Rather through assignments and/or court testimony. i.e. I worked Patrol on F-S-S so if I wrote a citation and it was deemed by the receiver as wrong they could take it to court, because Court doesn't run on weekends where I worked, each trial was 4 hrs. O.T...
Now these rural areas have either methamphetamine and or an opiate pain medication 'jones' .. When I moved here in 2004 the County Jail was run by the County. When reading the newspaper, all the folks committing a misdemeanor were given a citation and a Court date. Now that the jail is run by CCA™ ALL those folks now get "booked" this includes a "Booking Fee" which the taxpayer foots the bill..

Just for Your own "Heads Up"••••• All those mostly inner city Urban male are just now getting out of Prison after serving their 20-25 years sentences and more and more penal institutions are going "Private" Well "They" will need bodies for booking/housing.. In 2001, Afghanistan supplied 7% of the world's opium, since "The War" that percentage has grown to 85+%.. Is there an epidemic of opiate based medication/narcotics in Your area? Is Your ecological niche a "public" or "private" jail?

namaste

Edit: This movie pretty much nails it. www.imdb.com...

www.youtube.com...