Suppose every violent crime has a sentence of one year, and every drug crime a sentence of five years. You'll retain drug inmates and lose violent inmates, quickly yielding a situation in which there are more drug inmates than violent inmates.
(This is simply to demonstrate a logical contradiction in your proposed evidence, and is not intended to make a factual argument.)
It's not kosher to complain about a downvote, but this is a logically sound and complete demonstration of why the evidence posted above doesn't actually support the purported claim. It indicates, yes, but it is in no way, shape, or fashion proof. I'm not sure how a correction is liable for downvotes.
Because HN is turning into Digg.
Re:America's unjust sex laws
by timwiseman on Friday August 28, 2009 @06:53PM
(#792453)
Thank you for the citation, it is informative.
The official numbers on their homepage show that in 2005, 53% of state inmates were sentenced for violent crimes, versus only 20% for drug crimes.
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/prisons.htm
Note that the statistics only count the most serious of the offenses for which the person was sentenced, which means that some of the violent offenders may have also been charged with drug crimes.