Posted on 04/06/2003 3:24:06 PM PDT by GeneD
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of people in U.S. prisons and jails has surpassed 2 million for the first time, according to a Justice Department report released on Sunday.
Prisons and jails held one out of every 142 U.S. residents. The prison and jail population, long the world's largest, has almost doubled since 1990.
There were 2,019,234 persons in prisons or jails at the end of June 2002, according to the report. About two-thirds of the total were in state and federal prisons, while the rest were in local jails.
U.S. prisons house people convicted of felonies, while jails generally hold people serving sentences for misdemeanors or awaiting trial.
The Sentencing Project, a group which promotes alternatives to prison, said state and federal policies continue to drive up incarceration rates despite sharp drops in violent crime rates since 1994.
"The relentless increases in prison and jail populations can best be explained as the legacy of an entrenched infrastructure of punishment that has been embedded in the criminal justice system over the last 30 years," said Malcolm Young, the group's executive director.
In the 12 months ended June 30, the jail population went up by 34,235 inmates, a 5.4 percent rise and the largest increase since 1997, according to the report. State prisons added 12,440 inmates, a 1 percent increase, while the federal prison system grew by 8,042 inmates, a 5.7 percent increase.
An estimated 12 percent of black males, 4 percent of Hispanic males and 1.6 percent of white males in their 20s and early 30s were in prison or jail.
Among the other findings of the report:
-- A total of 7,248 jailed inmates and 3,055 state prisoners were under 18.
-- The federal government's prison system had the largest number of inmates at 161,681, followed by California with 160,315 prisoners and Texas with 158,131 inmates.
-- Twenty states experienced an inmate population increase of 5 percent or more during the 12-month period.
-- Female prisoners totaled 96,099 at the end of June, accounting for 6.7 percent of all inmates.
Wha the hell is that supposed to mean?
I would say these "relentless increases" are a result of "relentless increases" in crime, Malcolm..
noone? Seems like more than just my case, huh? :)
Actually I think we have too many people in prison and too many out of prison who should be in prison.
As I said, the nature of felonies that require imprisonment aside.
That would be one of the more serious of modern felonies :(
Actually, I would bet that the vast majority of Americans have committed or will commit some kind of felony during their life without ever even suspecting it. The charge of felony is becoming meaningless in determining the genuine seriousness of a crime.
The U.S. Attorney General Robert H. Jackson, later a Justice of the US Supreme Court, delivered a speech in 1940 in which he said:
"With the law books filled with a great assortment of crimes, a prosecutor stands a fair chance of finding at least a technical violation of some sort on the part of almost anyone," declared Jackson, who later became a Supreme Court justice. "In such a case, it is not a question of discovering the commission of a crime and then looking for the man who committed it, it is a question of picking the man, and then searching the law books, or putting investigators to work, to pin some offense on him."
We need to encourage them to never want to go back to prison.
Democrats and lawyers to be next? Then we can have a nice one-party state.
Thats not hefty...thats HUGH.
12% of ALL black men in that age group are in jail
I say if 50% of our population are terrorist thugs, then by GOD 50% of our population should be in prison. It appears, though, that number is 1% at the current time.
If more of the murderous element received a swift "shot in the arm", there would be fewer people in prison and many would-be killers might think twice before committing the act.
Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed? We want them broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against . . . We're after power and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you'd better get wise to it. There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted and you create a nation of law-breakers - and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Rearden, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with.
-Atlas Shrugged
Do not worry, be happy.
The war on drugs is creating a permanent underclass in this country.
As long as it is "permanent", it's fine with me.
When you put more bad guys in jail, then the good guys have to spend more in taxes to pay for their wharhousing, feeding, and security. When the good guys have to pay more taxes there is less of everything good to go around, resulting in circumstances that produce more bad guys. It is a slippery slope than leads to an authortrian police state, when lawmakers seek to solve all of societys ills by locking people up in cages.
What percentage of the population would you like to have in prison ?
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