US Has the Most Prisoners in the World WASHINGTON - Tough sentencing laws, record numbers of drug offenders and high crime rates have contributed to the United States having the largest prison population and the highest rate of incarceration in the world, according to criminal justice experts. A U.S. Justice Department report released on November 30 showed that a record 7 million people -- or one in every 32 American adults -- were behind bars, on probation or on parole at the end of last year. Of the total, 2.2 million were in prison or jail. According to the International Centre for Prison Studies at King's College in London, more people are behind bars in the United States than in any other country. China ranks second with 1.5 million prisoners, followed by Russia with 870,000. The U.S. incarceration rate of 737 per 100,000 people in the highest, followed by 611 in Russia and 547 for St. "The United States has 5 percent of the world's population and 25 percent of the world's incarcerated population. Copyright © Reuters 2006
Prisoners per capita statistics - Countries compared Citation "All countries compared for Crime > Prisoners > Per capita", International Centre for Prison Studies - World Prison Brief. Aggregates compiled by NationMaster. Retrieved from "All countries compared for Crime > Prisoners > Per capita, International Centre for Prison Studies - World Prison Brief. Aggregates compiled by NationMaster." 2003. 'All countries compared for Crime > Prisoners > Per capita, International Centre for Prison Studies - World Prison Brief. "All countries compared for Crime > Prisoners > Per capita", International Centre for Prison Studies - World Prison Brief. "All countries compared for Crime > Prisoners > Per capita", International Centre for Prison Studies - World Prison Brief. "All countries compared for Crime > Prisoners > Per capita, International Centre for Prison Studies - World Prison Brief. Crime > Prisoners > Per capita: Countries Compared Map Kind regards, Luiz O. Luiz O. SMcG
The New Progressive Movement Kent Porter/The Press Democrat, via Associated Press Protesters severely disrupted operations at the Port of Oakland, Calif., earlier this month. Thirty years ago, a newly elected Ronald Reagan made a fateful judgment: “Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.” Reagan’s was a fateful misdiagnosis. Washington still channels Reaganomics. Both parties have joined in crippling the government in response to the demands of their wealthy campaign contributors, who above all else insist on keeping low tax rates on capital gains, top incomes, estates and corporate profits. The first age of inequality was the Gilded Age at the end of the 19th century, an era quite like today, when both political parties served the interests of the corporate robber barons. The second gilded age was the Roaring Twenties. Following our recent financial calamity, a third progressive era is likely to be in the making. None of this will be easy.
Private Prison Corporation Offers Cash In Exchange For State Prisons As state governments wrestle with massive budget shortfalls, a Wall Street giant is offering a solution: cash in exchange for state property. Prisons, to be exact. Corrections Corporation of America, the nation's largest operator of for-profit prisons, has sent letters recently to 48 states offering to buy up their prisons as a remedy for "challenging corrections budgets." The move reflects a significant shift in strategy for the private prison industry, which until now has expanded by building prisons of its own or managing state-controlled prisons. Corrections Corporation has been a swiftly growing business, with revenues expanding more than fivefold since the mid-1990s. And Corrections Corporation's offer of $250 million toward purchasing existing state prisons is yet another avenue for potential growth. A series of studies has also cast doubt on the private prison industry's main selling point: efficiency.
Mass Incarceration and Criminal Justice in America A prison is a trap for catching time. Good reporting appears often about the inner life of the American prison, but the catch is that American prison life is mostly undramatic—the reported stories fail to grab us, because, for the most part, nothing happens. One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich is all you need to know about Ivan Denisovich, because the idea that anyone could live for a minute in such circumstances seems impossible; one day in the life of an American prison means much less, because the force of it is that one day typically stretches out for decades. It isn’t the horror of the time at hand but the unimaginable sameness of the time ahead that makes prisons unendurable for their inmates. The inmates on death row in Texas are called men in “timeless time,” because they alone aren’t serving time: they aren’t waiting out five years or a decade or a lifetime. The basic reality of American prisons is not that of the lock and key but that of the lock and clock.
Why I’m Suing Barack Obama - Chris Hedges' Columns Attorneys Carl J. Mayer and Bruce I. Afran filed a complaint Friday in the Southern U.S. The act authorizes the military in Title X, Subtitle D, entitled “Counter-Terrorism,” for the first time in more than 200 years, to carry out domestic policing. I spent many years in countries where the military had the power to arrest and detain citizens without charge. Section 1031 of the bill defines a “covered person”—one subject to detention—as “a person who was a part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners, including any person who has committed a belligerent act or has directly supported such hostilities in aid of such enemy forces.” The bill, however, does not define the terms “substantially supported,” “directly supported” or “associated forces.” I met regularly with leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza. But it passed anyway.
Private Prisons Conflict With The Values of a Democracy « Nisqually Jail Impact The Issues of locking up inmates for profit examined in the academic study Prisons, Privatization, and Public Values. The critical decision to transfer jail management from public to private hands has been done very quietly in Thurston County. It is a big decision with the following issues. Opponents of private prisons argue that their incentive to cut costs to maximize profits presents a threat to the safety of prisoners, prison staff, and the public at large. JUSTICE the industry has the incentive and the wherewithal to extend the amount of time convicts will remain in prison, and that this presents a threat to justice. Rehabilitation The profit motive, opponents of privatization say, distorts the function of prisons towards incapacitation and away from the provision of rehabilitative services that would help prisoners rejoin society productively, and curb recidivism. Legitimacy For-profit private prisons, jails or detention centers have no place in a democratic society. Like this:
The Silent Treatment Illustration: Brian Stauffer [Editor's note: This story first ran online in December, 2011. This is the updated version that appears in the March/April 2012 issue of the magazine.] "THIS IS A COLLECT CALL from a correctional institution," says the robotic female voice at the other end of the line. After a moment of confusion, I realize it must be Felix Garcia, whom I'd visited several weeks earlier in a northern Florida prison. Felix is deaf, which is why he's using a TTY operator. Felix lost most of his hearing when he was still a kid. "Felix," I plead awkwardly. "I won't do it,'' he says finally. I repeat: "Do not kill yourself." "Yes, sir." After a few minutes, I pick up the phone and call Pat Bliss, a 69-year-old paralegal who for the past 15 years has served as Felix's advocate, crafting defense strategies, writing motions and briefs, and helping usher his case through the courts. Felix grew up in Tampa, one of six children in a working-class Cuban American family.