Prison Population is Staggering

Here is a post from Talk Left,

Report: 1 of Every 138 U.S. Residents in Jail

A new government report shows our prison population is soaring.

• 1 of every 138 U.S. residents are in jail

• The prison population grew by 900 inmates per week between 2003 and 2004.

• 8,000 more prisoners were admitted to federal prisons than were released

• 2.1 million people are housed in our prisons and jails.

8 counties had double digit increases, the largest being Clark County, Nevada; Fulton County, Georgia; and Orange County, California, all of which were up by 20 percent.

More details here. The full report is here (pdf).

America. Prison Nation.

Posted Sunday :: April 24, 2005| Inmates and Prisons

2.1 million people! That is astronomical! Of course, California's prison population has never been the same since Three Strikes, but still, I am pretty shocked. Here is another statistic,

In 2004, 61 percent of prison and jail inmates were of racial or ethnic minorities, the government said. An estimated 12.6 percent of all black men in their late 20s were in jails or prisons, as were 3.6 percent of Hispanic men and 1.7 percent of white men in that age group, the report said.

That is an extremely disproportionate amount of minorities, but it isn't terribly surprising- as race and crime has always been a hot issue.

Full Article at the Guardian.