1 in 100 U.S. Adults Behind Bars

[Telperion]

This shouldn't be shocking news considering...everything...but still - ??? The US incarcerates more people than China? wow.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/us/28cnd-prison.html

snippit

Nationwide, the prison population grew by 25,000 last year, bringing it to almost 1.6 million. Another 723,000 people are in local jails. The number of American adults is about 230 million, meaning that one in every 99.1 adults is behind bars.

Incarceration rates are even higher for some groups. One in 36 Hispanic adults is behind bars, based on Justice Department figures for 2006. One in 15 black adults is, too, as is one in nine black men between the ages of 20 and 34.

The report, from the Pew Center on the States, also found that only one in 355 white women between the ages of 35 and 39 are behind bars but that one in 100 black women are.

The report’s methodology differed from that used by the Justice Department, which calculates the incarceration rate by using the total population rather than the adult population as the denominator. Using the department’s methodology, about one in 130 Americans is behind bars.

Either way, said Susan Urahn, the center’s managing director, “we aren’t really getting the return in public safety from this level of incarceration.”

 

[anart]

In 2006, it was 1 in 136 - they're getting better - and note the race discrepancy - it was originally covered on the sott page in 2006, but it's been updated now with the new report.

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/114777-1-in-136-U-S-Residents-Behind-Bars

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/150029-1-in-100-U-S-Adults-Behind-Bars-New-Study-Says

Notice the methodology is different - in the 2006 report, it appears they were using the percentage of all US residents - not just adults, so that necessarily skews the data. This latest report uses percentage of US adults. Had it used the old methodology, it would have been 1 in 130 - so still an increase.

 

[Ominous]

I recall reading somewhere that 75% of the US prison population is made up of ppl who committed drug-related crimes, and that a large portion of those were non-violent offenders. The practice of criminalizing drug addicts has gone a long way in solving both the prison overpopulation problem AND the drug abuse problem in the US..."NOT."

 

[Telperion]

The methodology of the study and the criminalization of drug uses/abusers is definitely crazy but this to me is the icing on the cake:

But Paul Cassell, a law professor at the University of Utah and a former federal judge

“While we certainly want to be smart about who we put into prisons,” Professor Cassell said, “it would be a mistake to think that we can release any significant number of prisoners without increasing crime rates. One out of every 100 adults is behind bars because one out of every 100 adults has committed a serious criminal offense.”

According to this gentleman everyone behind bars is definitely guilty.

 

[Appollynon]

The US is not alone in having shocking statistics regarding the occurence of prisoners.

I found this on a BBC news page which I'll link below:

England and Wales have the highest per capita prison population in Western Europe - 143 people per 100,000.

This amounts to 1.43 prisoners per 1,000 people. While not as high as the US statistics, it remains the highest in Europe.

It's also worth mentioning that compared to similar statistics in the rest of the world we find that the US, Russia and China acocunt for over half of the worlds 9 million prison population in just these three countries. I guess the more heavily controlled and Ponerised the society, the larger the prison populations will be.

The information can be revied here:

http://news(dot)bbc(dot)co(dot)uk/1/shared/spl/hi/uk/06/prisons/html/nn1page1(dot)stm