- 1 in 99.1 U.S. adults behind bars
The ratio has never been higher in the nation’s history. Nationwide, the prison population grew by 25,000 last year, bringing it to almost 1.6 million. Another 723,000 people are in local jails. Among Hispanic adults, it's one in 36; among African-American adults, it's one in 15; and among African American men between the ages of 20 and 34, it's one in nine. The new report is from the Pew Center on the States. From the NYT:
The report’s methodology differed from that used by the Justice Department, which calculates the incarceration rate by using the total population rather than the adult population as the denominator. Using the department’s methodology, about one in 130 Americans is behind bars. Either way, said Susan Urahn, the center’s managing director, “we aren’t really getting the return in public safety from this level of incarceration.” “We tend to be a country in which incarceration is an easy response to crime,” Ms. Urahn continued. “Being tough on crime is an easy position to take, particularly if you have the money. And we did have the money in the ’80s and ’90s.”
Much of the report focuses on the enormous cost of keeping so many men and women behind bars.
Prison costs are blowing holes in state budgets but barely making a dent in recidivism rates. At the same time, policy makers are becoming increasingly aware of research-backed strategies for community corrections—better ways to identify which offenders need a prison cell and which can be safely handled in the community, new technologies to monitor their whereabouts and behavior, and more effective supervision and treatment programs to help them stay on the straight and narrow. Taken together, these trends are encouraging policy makers to diversify their states’ array of criminal sanctions with options for low-risk offenders that save tax dollars but still hold offenders accountable for their actions.
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| 11:30 AM Feb 28, 2008 | Email the Daily Dragon | Email this Article | Post Comments |
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