Criminal Justice Fact Sheet. Signup today to help the NAACP fight for a fairer criminal justice system. Incarceration Trends in America From 1980 to 2008, the number of people incarcerated in America quadrupled-from roughly 500,000 to 2.3 million people Today, the US is 5% of the World population and has 25% of world prisoners. Combining the number of people in prison and jail with those under parole or probation supervision, 1 in ever y 31 adults, or 3.2 percent of the population is under some form of correctional control Racial Disparities in Incarceration Drug Sentencing Disparities About 14 million Whites and 2.6 million African Americans report using an illicit drug 5 times as many Whites are using drugs as African Americans, yet African Americans are sent to prison for drug offenses at 10 times the rate of Whites African Americans represent 12% of the total population of drug users, but 38% of those arrested for drug offenses, and 59% of those in state prison for a drug offense.
Contributing Factors.
The upside to being 'poor' in America. The Census Bureau has released disturbing new numbers, showing the population of poor Americans at 46.2 million, or 15.1% of the population last year. That's the highest rate in 17 years and the largest number in 52 years. The Census Bureau defines 2010 poverty as $22,314 for a U.S. family of four. Median household income remains just under $50,000.
The disappointing poverty information was widely disseminated a nd attributed by media to high unemployment nationally (above 9% for 25 of the last 27 months) and to the economy, which has remained stagnant despite nearly $1 trillion of government stimulus spending by the Obama-Biden administration. Less noticed Tuesday, however, was the release of another non-government report on U.S. poverty, this one by the Heritage Foundation . It paints a dramatically different portrait of poverty in America than the popular conception of stark deprivation -- hungry people wearing rags and living in cars or boxes.
Michelle Obama serves food to poor, but... How Bad Are The Public Schools? - Is There A Crisis? | The Battle Over School Choice | FRONTLINE. Is there a public education crisis now? Certainly [the word "crisis"] would be applicable in some places. But I think it's a misnomer. I think the real enemy here isn't, quote, "public schools in crisis. " That makes good camera-ready copy for somebody's journal. But the real issue is the tremendous variation between and among schools. In every city across this country, there's huge variation in the outcomes for kids.
The enemy in my mind isn't this "crisis. " Below this conversation about education, we're having a conversation about race and class in America. That's right. The conversation about education, just below the surface, is about standards, and assessment, and curriculum, and so on. When you look, and you ask yourself, what's working in some of those other schools? And that represents one of the good things that are happening in these schools that are working. What you need is some constancy, both in terms of instruction, and in terms of the human resources that are there. Country Note:United states Income poverty. Homeless in Los Angeles County.
Homelessness in Los Angeles County According to the Institute for the Study of Homelessness and Poverty at the Weingart Center, an estimated 254,000 men, women and children experience homelessness in Los Angeles County during some part of the year and approximately 82,000 people are homeless on any given night. Unaccompanied youth, especially in the Hollywood area, are estimated to make up from 4,800 to 10,000 of these. Although homeless people may be found throughout the county, the largest percentages are in South Los Angeles and Metro Los Angeles. Most are from the Los Angeles area and stay in or near the communities from which they came.
Other Facts About the Homeless Population in Los Angeles: The average age is 40 - women tend to be younger. 33% to 50% are female. Source: Institute for the Study of Homelessness & Poverty at the Weingart Center Homeless Population Counts by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority Source: Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority Also see: National Poverty Center | University of Michigan. How does the United States measure poverty? The United States determines the official poverty rate using poverty thresholds that are issued each year by the Census Bureau. The thresholds represent the annual amount of cash income minimally required to support families of various sizes. The methodology for calculating the thresholds was established in the mid-1960s and has not changed in the intervening years. The thresholds are updated annually to account for inflation.[1] A family is counted as poor if its pretax money income is below its poverty threshold. A sampling of the poverty thresholds for 2010 is included in the table below.
SOURCE: U.S. Poverty guidelines are a simplified version of poverty thresholds and are issued by the Department of Health and Human Services to determine financial eligibility for certain federal programs. How many people were poor in 2010? In 2010, 15.1 percent of all persons lived in poverty. How has poverty changed over time? SOURCE: U.S. SOURCE: U.S. Poverty & Crime - Fundamental Finance. Poverty and Crime Crime exists everywhere in the United States – in rural and urban areas, in the East and West, and among all types of people. This has led many government officials, especially those in urban areas, to focus largely on the reduction of crime among their respective constituencies and has led others to speculate on the factors that influence the amount of crime and how those factors can be controlled In the US, urban crime is often perceived as a problem amid areas with high poverty levels.
This may be the case; however, many other factors, such as unemployment, population density, minority population, age distribution, and locality in the US, are correlated with crime and affect poverty as well. Poverty’s effects on crime can be explained through a variety of reasons. Crime offers a way in which impoverished people can obtain material goods that they cannot attain through legitimate means. Variations in the composition of population can affect crime in different ways.