From: Damien Broderick (damienb@unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Tue Aug 19 2003 - 21:58:23 MDT
Uh-oh.
US Has World's Highest Incarceration Rate
By GAIL RUSSELL CHADDOCK
Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
More than 5.6 million Americans are in prison or have served time there,
according to a new report by the Justice Department released Sunday. That's
1 in 37 adults living in the United States, the highest incarceration level
in the world.
[...]
If current trends continue, it means that a black male in the United States
would have about a 1 in 3 chance of going to prison during his lifetime.
For a Hispanic male, it's 1 in 6; for a white male, 1 in 17.
[...]
Justice Department analysts say that experts in criminal justice have long
known of the stark disparities in prison experience, but they have never
been as fully documented. By the end of year 2001, some 1,319,000 adults
were confined in state or federal prisons. An estimated 4,299,000 former
prisoners are still alive, the new report concludes.
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