Academic

1 out of 100 Americans are behind bars

By Laura Appleman

An astounding article from the New York Times, based on a new Pew study, discusses the latest imprisonment rates:  1  out of every 99.1 Americans is currently in prison.  And that's just the averaged figure.  One out of every 36 Hispanic adults are imprisoned.  One out of every 15 (FIFTEEN!!) black adults are imprisoned.  Perhaps most troubling, one out of every 9 black men between ages 20 and 24 are currently behind bars (and 1 out of 100 black women). To pay for all this incarceration, states spent $44 billion of your tax dollars in 2007.

I'm speechless.  If this isn't a call to action, than what is?

As we criminal law types know, what happens after the trial ends has long been needing attention.  Now that the Supreme Court is finally interested in sentencing again, perhaps it is time to move on to the next phase of awareness:  prisons and released prisoners. 

We are incarcerating people at an awesome rate.  California's prison system has been taken over by the courts, it's so overcrowded.  States spend 7% of their tax dollars on running current prisons and building new ones.  One out of 9 state government employees work in corrections.   

All of these figures will increase as time goes on.  And this is while violent crime has been falling, for the past 20 years.  I find it difficult to believe (and there have been no studies proving) that crime has been falling because of our skyrocketing incarceration rates--particularly because we lock up so many people for non-violent crimes. 

Now we reap what mandatory minimums and three-strikes laws have sown.

Full post as published by The Faculty Lounge on February 28, 2008 (boomark / email).