Via the New York City Independent Media Center and the DMI blog:
These are some statistics from the Department of Justice reflecting data through 2005.
What they tell us: America continues to be a prison nation. The drug war doesn't work. Over-incarceration doesn't work. Our elected officials in Congress need to spend time addressing these issues in 2007.
- * the prison population grew 1.9% over the past year
- * the United States has 2,320,359 people incarcerated
- * in 1995, America sentenced 411 people per 100,000 residents; today it is 491
- * there are around 600,000 more people in jail today than 10 years ago
- * since 1995, the total number of male prisoners has grown 34%; female prisoners have risen 57%
- * if you incarcerated every person in the U.S. Virgin Islands, it would equal the number of women incarcerated in the United States
- * 39 states experienced a growth in their prison populations, some over 10%
- * including people on parole and probation, the total correctional population in America grew by almost 2 million between 1995 and 2005 (from 5,342,900 to 7,056,000); since 1990, that number has increased by 2.5 million (or by 57%)
- * there are at least 1.2 million more people on parole or probation than there were 10 years ago
- * in the past 25 years, the rate of adult residents under correctional supervision nearly tripled (from 1,117 per 100,000 to 3,150 per 100,000)
- * there are more people on probation in Texas and California than there are residents of San Francisco
- * state and federal inmates held in private prisons increased 8.8% and 9.2%, respectively
- * federal prisons were operating at 34% above capacity; 23 states reported operating at 100% or more of their higher capacity
- * Louisiana has the highest incarceration rate at 797 per 100,000; the states with the five lowest incarceration rates are overwhelmingly white (Maine, Minnesota, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and North Dakota)
- * 40% of inmates serving a sentence of one year or more are African-American
- * 8.1% of African-American men between the ages of 25 to 29 are in prison (compared to 1.1% of white men in the same age group)
- * in the age groups 30-34 and 35-39, per 100,000 residents, there are 7,726 and 6,630 African-Americans in prison, respectively, in contrast to 1,172 and 1,067 whites
- * Per 100,000 residents, there are 156 African-American women in prison, compared to 45 white women
- * half of all state prisoners are held for non-violent offenses
- * state prisons hold over 337,000 people for drug and public-order offenses
- * 55% of federal prisoners were sentenced for drug offenses, compared to 10% for weapons offenses
- * the number of people sentenced to federal prison for a drug offense increased 65% between 1995 and 2003
- * in 2003, there were 16,688 people in federal prison for a violence offense, compared to 86,972 for drug offenses
- * the percentage of white, African-American, and Hispanic men in prison for violent offenses is almost equal; but the percentage of African-American and Hispanics incarcerated for drugs is 23.7 and 22.9, whereas for whites it is 14.3
- * almost one-third of female prisoners are being held for a drug offense
- * one-third of the people on probation were convicted of a drug offense
- * the successful completion rate for people on probation is lower than it was in 1995