[Fuusm-l] Rev. Dr. Felix Burrow's remarks on American Violence

[Randall Kidder]

I found his comments enlightening, and thought-provoking. I decided to look
up where the United States places in a ranking of world violence
statistics. Naturally, depending on the source or year, stats will vary
somewhat, however there is a general trend and the reality is unsettling to
say the least. Following are just a few of the results I found. Keep in
mind that there are currently 195 countries in the world.

indexmundi.com - as of 2017 the USA ranked 55th in intentional homicides
per 100, 000 people.

worldpopulationreview.com - USA is 36th as far as violence in 2020. This
can be further broken down into types of violence.

10news.com - USA ranks 13th on the list of the 15 most dangerous countries
in which to live. (Or die as the case may be).

And as a bonus statistic, as many of you probably know, the USA has the
highest incarceration rate in the entire world, with 655/100,000 in prison
as of June, 2020; thanks in part to the so-called War On Drugs, Three
Strikes and Your Out laws, automatic sentencing (depriving judges of the
capacity to consider extenuating circumstances), and privitization of more
and more prisons thereby reducing the prison system to a profit-making
enterprise which demands by its nature to fulfill quotas, and using (read,
selling) prisoners as slaves to companies to use for whatever purpose.
Capitalism run amok.

A further consideration of violence. There are only 14 countries that have
still retained the right to execute criminals according to
worldpopulationreview.com, the USA is one of them. This is only about 7.2%,
out of 195 countries.  So, 181 countries no longer honor the practice. It
begs the question, WHY?!  It is no secret that our criminal justice system
is plagued by obvious and unabashed racial and economic biases. And
consider that an alarming number of inmates have been exonerated due to
later DNA evidence either after having served years, even decades of prison
sentences, or after having been wrongfully executed.

No further comment necessary.



Randall Kidder
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