Libertarians celebrate dropping incarceration rate, advocate greater reform

[W]e favor the repeal of all laws creating 'crimes' without victims, such as gambling, the use of drugs for medicinal or recreational purposes, and consensual transactions involving sexual services.

The Department of Justice announced Thursday that the number of people incarcerated in the United States dropped 10 percent over the last 10 years.

Libertarian Party Executive Director Dan Fishman commented:

I’m very proud to think that the Libertarian Party’s constant advocacy for the legalization of cannabis, shining a light on policing for profit, and opposing laws that criminalize harmless behavior have in some way decreased the prison population.

The Libertarian Party is the fastest-growing political party in the United States because people are joining us in our movement to ensure the blessings of liberty for all. We welcome this good news of a declining prison population, but remain aware that the least free you can be is when you are imprisoned, and that is more likely to happen to an American than a person in any other country.

We believe that Americans are no more or less criminally inclined than any other country’s citizens, yet since 1970 our incarcerated population has grown 700 percent, far outpacing any other country, even regimes with brutal dictators. We cannot in sincerity call ourselves “the land of the free” without continuous efforts toward criminal justice reform.

Dan Fishman

Dan Fishman
Executive Director, Libertarian National Committee

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