Over 1% of Americans are in prison.
That’s a higher level of the population than in China, or North Korea, or Cuba. Or, if you prefer, than in France, Russia, Japan, Australia, Mexico, Canada, the UK, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, or Israel. Or, in fact, any country.
For the first time in history, more than one in every 100 American adults is in jail or prison, according to a new report tracking the surge in inmate population.
The report, released Thursday by the Pew Center on the States, said the 50 states spent more than $49 billion on corrections last year, up from less than $11 billion 20 years earlier. The rate of increase for prison costs was six times greater than for higher education spending, the report said.
Using updated state-by-state data, the report said 2,319,258 adults were held in U.S. prisons or jails at the start of 2008 — one out of every 99.1 adults, and more than any other country in the world.
By contrast, in mid 2002 the ratio was 1 in 142, with the prison population surpassing 2 million for the first time.
I mean … do you really feel safer? Do you really think that this”sweet land of liberty” can only remain so by throwing more and more and more people into prison?
According to the report, the inmate population increased last year in 36 states and the federal prison system.
The largest percentage increase — 12 percent — was in Kentucky, where Gov. Steve Beshear highlighted the cost of corrections in his budget speech last month. He noted that the state’s crime rate had increased only about 3 percent in the past 30 years, while the state’s inmate population has increased by 600 percent.
Is it just that, for whatever reason, we have more criminals than the Dutch, Germans, Poles, Turks, Indians, Kazakhs, or Thai?
The report said prison growth and higher incarceration rates do not reflect a parallel increase in crime or in the nation’s overall population. Instead, it said, more people are behind bars mainly because of tough sentencing measures, such as “three-strikes” laws, that result in longer prison stays.
“For some groups, the incarceration numbers are especially startling,” the report said. “While one in 30 men between the ages of 20 and 34 is behind bars, for black males in that age group the figure is one in nine.”
Because, remember — only by being tough on crime can we remain truly free!
(via Les)
As someone who works in my State’s Department of Corrections I can tell you that these issues are a HUGE concern for everyone in COrrections around the country. The biggest problem is, ta da: the so-called Truth in Sentencing laws.
Being ‘Tough on Crime’ is being mighty tough on society and a whole lot of families as well.