US/Police state

US/Police state
Interest of	Guns And Butter
The US already has the highest incarceration rate in the world, rampant police violence and a "Justice Department" which claims the right to kill anyone, anyone time, without filing charges or presenting evidence.

#Prisoners per 100,000 in 2012 - Paler states have less prisoners

The USA has over 700 prisoners per 100,000 ciizens, the highest incarceration rate in the world. Around half of prisoners are locked up due to the war on drugs and thousands of prisoners face life behind bars for non-violent offences. Many commentators agree that USA is a police state, including:

• Police State USA, a continuously updated multi-contributor site with news on the emergence of a naked police state in USA.
• FilmingCops.com, which has a lot of recent reports and some videos of aggression by US police

Unchecked police violence

In the process of attacking the Occupy Wall St protests, widespread illegal violence by the police was carried out and went more or less unpunished. MIT students in 2013 used FOIA to uncover heavily redacted documents about the Dallas occupy plot - revealing that the FBI either turned a blind eye to or abetted a plot to assassinate leaders of the Dallas Occupy movement.

=Gun violence

In recent years there have been innumerable reports of murders by police, some backed by videos. US citizens are over 100 times more likely to be killed by police than UK citizens; in 2013 no one was fatally shot by on duty police in UK.

In December 2013, no less than 23 police officers fired at least 377 rounds at an immobilised car in what CBS described as a "shooting frenzy", killing the (unarmed) occupants and injuring others in the crossfire.

In April 2014 it was reported that Police in Georgia forced a group of fifth graders to the ground at gunpoint as they attempted to build a tree fort in their own neighborhood. As the children lay face down, the officer allegedly screamed profanities and demanded they spread their arms and legs. The children's parent filed a complaint but the officer concerned remains on duty.

In May 2014, a US police officer shot a 70 year old man at a traffic stop. He was placed on unpaid leave, but a spokesman defended the shooting as “appropriate” because the officer “felt an imminent threat to his life” - the man was getting out of his car and reaching for a cane in the truck bed.

"Less lethal" weapons

Repeated incidents reveal that "less lethal" weapons such as tasers are being used to torture or kill members of the US public by unrepentant (and commonly unpunished) police. US police have killed over 500 people with tasers.

Pre-crime profiling

In 2014, Chicago police began use of a system not based on evidence of criminal activity but a computer based data mining approach that predicts crime probabilities.

Property confiscation

The IRS has begun to use confiscate money based solely on suspicion, without specifying a criminal charge, effectively rendering people guilty until they can prove themselves (at their own expense) innocent.

Black site

In 2015, the Guardian reported discovery of Homan Square, a warehouse used by Chicago police as a "black site", for off the books kidnapping of citzens, where they were subjected to violent interrogation - resulting in at least one fatality.