Dem 'Squad' Member Ayanna Pressley Says 25% of World Population Jailed in US
Living in a Democratic Party that constantly fluctuates between getting mad and going mad, one congresswoman seems to have pulled off an unthinkable feat this week.
Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, a member of the so-called “squad” of female progressive lawmakers, struck a perfect balance between the two Thursday with the announcement of her latest criminal justice reform plan.
Aimed at confronting America’s “mass incarceration crisis,” The People’s Justice Guarantee is equal parts angry social justice warrior dog-whistle and thoughtless prison release program.
And that perfect balance could not be better exemplified by anything less than Pressley’s own words in announcing the policy proposal Thursday on Twitter.
“When 1 out of 4 ppl in the world are locked away in cages in America, it becomes our moral obligation to do something,” Pressley wrote, according to the Media Research Center.
“When we acknowledge America’s dark past, we provide ourselves w/ a chance to fundamentally change our future.”
Rep. @AyannaPressley tweeted out a false statistic that claimed “1 out of 4 people in the world are locked away in cages in America.”
Pressley later deleted the tweet to clarify she meant “1 out of 4 prisoners.” https://t.co/dw35ZuXPUv
— MRCTV.org (@mrctv) November 15, 2019
Now, a bit of simple arithmetic is sure to reveal that one in every four of the world’s 7.7 billion people — approximately 1.93 billion people — are not incarcerated in the United States.
In fact, approximately 2.2 million people were incarcerated in the United States as of 2016, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
This is a small fraction of the nearly 330 million who live in the U.S, as it means roughly 0.67 percent of the U.S. population is behind bars.
That is a far cry from the freshman representative’s baseless claim one in four people worldwide are incarcerated in the U.S.
Of course, immediate backlash related to the claim prompted Pressley to delete the tweet, exchanging it for one that claimed, “1 out of 4 prisoners in the world are locked away in cages in America.”
When 1 out of 4 prisoners in the world are locked away in cages in America, it becomes our moral obligation to do something. When we acknowledge America’s dark past, we provide ourselves w/ a chance to fundamentally change our future. #JusticeGuarantee https://t.co/k8jk0PIxOP
— Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (@RepPressley) November 14, 2019
This at least puts Pressley somewhere in the ballpark of truth (though the math is still a bit off), considering the University of London’s Institute for Criminal Policy Research reported in 2016 that 10.35 million people were incarcerated worldwide.
But regardless of the representative’s intent, her original tweet serves to paint a truly vivid picture of just what it is we are currently dealing with when it comes to the new left.
Forget for a second the fact that Pressley’s plan includes repeated reference to a policy of “decarceration” or that one of its self-righteous tenets involves placing biological men in women’s prisons should they identify as female.
This, however concerning, is a discussion to be had with those in the Democratic Party who are still willing to have a reasonable dialogue on the issues.
The real problem is that the band of radical leftists ushered into Congress during the 2018 midterm elections speaks or acts first and thinks and asks questions second.
To stop and ask questions or consider the ramifications of their words and plans is an afterthought — if it’s ever thought of at all.
That’s a deeply concerning premise, considering we are looking at a group of individuals dead set on “deconstructing” just about every system and cultural value we hold dear as Americans.
They want to impeach the president without naming a statute he has broken.
Just last year, they wanted to railroad the career and reputation of a Supreme Court nominee without respect for due process.
They want to strip law-abiding citizens of their right to purchase the protective armament of their choosing.
And now, this shining example of everything the new left brings to the table wants to release a criminal population she cannot seem to determine the size of back into our neighborhoods.
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