The U.S. Justice Department reports that this country, which has long had the highest population of prisoners in the world, increased the number of people behind bars by 2.3 percent in 2003. Now, one in 75 American men is incarcerated in a prison or jail. The Associated Press has the story.
WASHINGTON (AP) — America's prison population grew by 2.9 percent last year, to almost 2.1 million inmates, with one of every 75 men living in prison or jail.
The inmate population continued its rise despite a fall in the crime rate and many states' efforts to reduce some sentences, especially for low-level drug offenders.
The report issued Thursday by the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics attributes much of the increase to get-tough policies enacted during the 1980s and '90s, such as mandatory drug sentences, "three-strikes-and-you're-out" laws for repeat offenders, and "truth-in-sentencing laws" that restrict early releases.
Attorney General John Ashcroft says that the huge prison population consists of hard-core prisoners. But, most research on the topic suggests otherwise. The most common reason for longterm imprisonment in the United States is drug offenses — not aggravated assaults or homicides.
Inmates are usually male, though incarceration rates for women have increased during the last decades. Prisoners are disproportionately young and members of minority groups.
In 2003, 68 percent of prison and jail inmates were members of racial or ethnic minorities, the government said. An estimated 12 percent of all black men in their 20s were in jails or prisons, as were 3.7 percent of Hispanic men and 1.6 percent of white men in that age group, according to the report.
Experts say the most telling criterion for crime rates is the proportion of young males in the population.
An important issue the data does not shed light on is whether high incarceration rates for minorities is evidence of higher rates of crime, a discriminatory criminal justice system, or a combination of the two. Some researchers believe the latter is a more accurate conclusion in regard to drug crimes.
Note: This entry also appeared at Silver Rights.
Article comments
1 - Chris Kent
Excellent post MD about some troubling stats. I would have liked to have seen your opinions on this a bit more.
Prisons are a business. In order for a business to survive, there must be prisoners. We continue to build more and more prisons, yet the crime rate seems to remain the same. In Texas, prisons are almost always built in lower-income communities in some ways to revitalize those areas, bringing jobs to residents and money to local businesses.
It's like building more and bigger highways to combat traffic congestion. Such solutions only increase the problem rather than solve it.
2 - Kudd45
1. it is easy to complain kent, but if you have no solution then why open yer mouth?
2. What are you basing this idea that money is the cause for increased prison enrollment? are you just spouting off something you overheard or do you have any facts about this?
3.If you don't want to be in prison than don't be a f#cking criminal. This idea that it is not the prisoners fault but the system which is out to get them is another excuse added to the list of why people shouldn't be esponsible for what they do. What this 1 in 75 statistic shows is that 1 in 75 americans man are criminals.
It is time we stop giving these people excuses such as non-existent oppression and goverment conspicacy just to keep them down. Take responsibilty for your actions.
3 - Eric Olsen
Imprisonment for drug possession is a huge failing of our system and I have no doubt it effects minorities disproportionately.
Re your larger questions: crime is higher the lower the income, and minorities have disproportionately lower income, hence the stats. I do not doubt tha there is still some racism in the system as well.
4 - Chris Kent
Kudd45,
I have mentioned no government conspiracies but do believe there is a form of oppression. I do agree that people should take responsibility for their own actions, and like you, try to live my life by that rule.
I'm not sure who "these people" are whom you refer to, because "these people" are us, our neighbors, our friends, our relatives, citizens of the United States.
The system in place does little to rehabilitate. Rather than increase the size of the system, which is what is being done, one must figure out ways to improve the system presently in place. Alternatives must be found to improve the present system rather than build more prisons, thus increasing the overall problem.
If you don't want to be in prison than don't be a f#cking criminal is a simplistic stance which would be made by the type of person wishing to deny there is a problem. I mean, what is a "Fucking Criminal?"
In an ideal world, a Fucking Criminal would be rehabilitated after leaving prison. They are not, and commit repeat offenses after leaving. So now the solution is to build more prisons, and keep them off the street - sort of like locking them up and throwing away the key. Most prisoners are poor minorities, uneducated, bitter and angry. The present system must be rehabilitated itself, with more money put into improving the present conditions, rather than increasing the size of the poor conditions.
Education and therapy must be provided, staffs should be increased so that each prisoner receives more personal attention. It is in the best interest of our society that Fucking Criminals are rehabilitated and lead productive lives, rather than simply locking them up for longer periods of time. The system in place is undoubtedly opressive and in most cases inhumane. The system in place is so poor, that the only solution is to build more prisons, lock them up for longer periods of time. I contend you only increase the size of the problem, when other alternatives should be researched.
Because it is mostly uneducated minorities in the prison system, it is much easier to say:
If you don't want to be in prison than don't be a f#cking criminal.
Such simplistic denial only adds to the problem.
5 - Mac Diva
Think about it. One in 75. The next time you are at a large concert, a summer race or other festivity, go up high and look around. Then try subtracting one in 75 of persons you see. That is a startlingly high figure. (And note we are not including people who have been arrested, imprisoned or are under some kind of supervision, which is about 30 percent of the population.) Something is terribly awry. No other society in the world seems to have the same 'need' to police such a large proportion of its population. Why?
6 - Kudd45
Ok i wasn't putting forth the best argument and certainly discredited myself with an uneccessary usage of foul language, but this message we are sending out to people, if your situation is bad then it's not your fault, is what seems to be a good indication that we as a society do not hold people responsible for their actions.
I, being an 18 year old white male, have been force fed this idea that i am the root of some problem concerning all the ills in the world, and i, who have never used a racial slur in my life, or oppressed a women, or denied any right to any human, no matter their race, financial status or otherwise, am sick of this idea that i must carry some burden of guilt for the rest of my living days.
As a human, in the world, like anyone else, i do not see why people say, I am poor and a minority, so if i commit crimes it's not really my fault. Granted things like this aren't so blatently stated, but it does seem to be an accepted doctrine of american life.
What I meant by these people was criminals. Not minorities, or poor people, or women that could possibly be supposed by reading my rather hostile and incomplete post.
To my defense i can say that i lived a temporary life of crime, and i can honestly say that the only thing that changed my life was the realization that the world owed me nothing and actions will have their consequences.
So for me..... the system worked. (by consequences i was refering to criminal punishment)
7 - kudd45
by the way good idea in using "F#cking criminal" in your whole post, it was clearly done to make me see the error of my ways and it worked, congrats.
8 - Shark
Frankly, when I'm in a crowd, I'd like to start subtracting about 1 in 5.
With an Uzi.
But that's just a 'mental safety valve' I carry around like an internal Buddhist Mantra; it keeps me centered while in the swirling vortex of a sweaty, stinky humanity.
BTW: If deadly, dangerous drugs were legal (y'know, like alcohol, tobacco, and viagra) then the prisons would be as empty as American manufacturing facilities.
And didn't Ronald Raygun start this trend?
Between Nancy's "Just Say No" and a late-night TV ad campaign pitching "Prison Guards" as the "...Fastest Growing Industry In America!" -- I think we can thank that Happy Somnambulant Couple for recognizing a future vision of an America that traded Ellis Island for Devil's Island. Bars and Stripes indeed.
Re. Eric's "...crime is higher the lower the income, and minorities have disproportionately lower income, hence the stats."
I'm not so sure this is 'true' relative to dollar values: it would take a few hundred thousand poor minorities stealing TV sets about a decade to equal the amount stolen by a doughy white Enron executive in the course of one day.
Fuck prison: I say we hang those rich cracker pigs.
9 - Mac Diva
Kudd, it is the disproportion that is weird. Violent crime tends to be the province of young males in all societies. Class is also a criterion. Though the sons of Fortune 500 executives sometimes commit armed robbery, the sons of destitute families are more likely to. But, somehow the U.S. criminal justice system, which has managed to lay hand on about a third of the population, exceeds all other countries in getting people caught up in the apparatus. One reason may be what Chris Kent said about prisons as fields of dreams. Another may be what Shark said about the more harmful white collar crime being winked at by the system. Some time in our history, a decision was made that nabbing a kid stealing a car is more important than really punishing people who bilk others out of their livelihoods and retirement funds.
The major flaw I see is in your use of the word 'criminal.' Our definition of criminal is broader than anyone else's. The mischief that has led to the one in 75 figure may start there.
10 - kudd45
yeah i wasn't satified with leaving criminal as an open-ended idea but to elaborate exactly what i meant seemed a bit too much.
Seeing as how this is dealing with prisons, i assumed we were all on the same page in talking about serious offenders, not those who haven't paid parking tickets.
also, i didn't want to suggest that there are no problems existing within the criminal justice system, i just believe that blaming the institutions for the wrongdoing of many people is not the answer. well i do not have THE answer, i do believe it lies within people's changing as much, if not more, than the institutions which should still exist as a consequence for those who knowingly commit seriuos crimes. No one murders or rapes without the knowledge that it's wrong ( assuming they're sane), and i am willing to bet that very few thefts are commited to provide food for a starving family.
11 - Eric Olsen
Les Miserables
12 - Phillip Winn
On the one hand, NYC's "Broken Windows" policy would tend to support the idea of more people in prison, and there seems to be little question that NYC is the better for it.
On the other hand, this country is out of control on the "drug war" issue. Locking people up for possession? Crazy.
Incidentally, I think that there is a slightly closer match between the economic class of people in prison than race, even. Tavis Smiley has touched on this topic on his NPR shows a number of times, but the basic summary is that most problems facing the black community today are economic problems more than skin color problems. Prison perhaps slightly less so than others, but still disproportinately poor.
13 - Eric Olsen
and uneducated
14 - RJ Elliott
The U.S. Justice Department reports that this country [the USA], which has long had the highest population of prisoners in the world
That's just plain wrong. See here:
http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:nzxeczZTkjEJ:www.straightdope.com/columns/040206.html+%22number+of+prisoners%22+China&hl=en
15 - RJ Elliott
Oh, shit. I was thinking percentage of population, not aggregate number.
Yes, we lock up more felons than any other country. Sorry for the mistake...
16 - RJ Elliott
End the "War on Drugs", and we eliminate a good chuck of this problem.
There will still be idiots stealng TVs. And robbing the local 7-11. But the WoD is a major cause of the huge increase in the prison population.
But, we're still better (in relative terms) than Russia! :-P
17 - Mac Diva
The only country that has ever rivaled the U.S. for proportion of population in prisons was the old U.S.S.R. That is no longer true with the disintegration of that union.
18 - Shark
RJ: "...There will still be idiots stealng TVs. And robbing the local 7-11."
A lot of those crimes are to support drug habits.
Give 'em free legal drugs, and they don't steal/hock/fence to raise money.
*Added Bonus: they can kill themselves quicker and cheaper!
*my "marketing" appeal to Conservatives
19 - Shark
Anyone know why this message window is like three feet wide on my screen?
20 - boomcrashbaby
comment 14 has a long line of unbroken type that it is trying to fit on screen.
--
motard window-licker always glad to help out those in need.