Bar the doors! Board the windows!

Halloween is coming! 6,000 inmates are about to be released from prison. Most got about 2 years cut from a 10 year drug sentence.

Think of it: 6,000 roving marauders. Pirates! Barbarians!! Thugs!!! They’ll be Shanghaiing our youth, raping our maidens, and pillaging our homes! At least that’s what I’m learning from some on the Right. (See me on Bill O’Reilly.)

Don’t believe the hype.

6,000 is less than the number released from prison every goddamned week in the US.

You know what will happen when, during one week, that number of released prisoners goes from 12,000 to 18,000?

Absolutely nothing.

Update: I just heard on public radio that close to 2,000 of those 6,000 are going to be immediately deported to Mexico (Nothing like investing half a billion dollars on incarcerating people before kicking them out of the country). So the actually weekly increase of people getting out of prison will go from about 12,000 to 14,000.

Only semi-related: Here’s a nice pie chart from PPI. It’s rare to see things broken down by why you’re there, and include immigrants and juveniles: