The fine Americans at the beloved Department of Justice reported last year that as of June 30, 2005:
-- 2,186,230 prisoners were held in Federal or State prisons or in local jails . . .
-- there were an estimated 488 prison inmates per 100,000 U.S. residents . . .
Now, a simple calculator will tell you that if you have 2,186,000 people in jail and roughly 300 million people in your nation, approximately .073% or 730 out of 100,000 are incarcerated. Where the DOJ gets the 488 "estimate" in the quote above is beyond me - that some funny kind of math to me. You'll see here that the BBC concurs. Either way, it doesn't seem like all that much, does it? But I wonder how it fares against other nations?
Part 1 of 2 on the flip . . .
As it turns out (check the BBC hyperlink) the USofA has both the highest number of prisoners in the world, and the highest per capita. Isn't that super folks? We're number one . . . in locking people up! That either means that we have more crime, or are just plain locking more folks up than other countries. SocialDesign notes that:
Though only 4% of the world’s population lived in the U.S. in 2003, the U.S. held 23% of the world’s prison population — more than any other nation. (And be sure to check the BBC hyperlink above - we're also number one in percentage of our prison capacity used - 107% Pretty soon our prison industrial complex will literally be giving 110%!! AWESOME!!!!)
What is going on here? We are supposed to be the land of freedom and opportunity, but we're locking our citizens up at an alarming and growing rate? And let's be clear, folks, we're not locking everyone at the same rate. The DOJ itself notes in the link above that:
"At year end 2004 there were 3,218 black male sentenced prison inmates per 100,000 black males in the United States, compared to 1,220 Hispanic male inmates per 100,000 Hispanic males and 463 white male inmates per 100,000 white males."
Okay, so we lock up black men 8 times as often as white men, and hispanics almost three times as much. That seems a little problematic to me. Many would argue that economics plays a major role here in which race is a secondary identifier. And they'd be partially right, but there's still a problem here. The aptly named PrisonSucks.com put the incarceration rates this way -
- White males: 717 per 100,000
- Latino males: 1,717 per 100,000
- Black males: 4,919 per 100,000
If you look at males aged 25-29 and by race, you can see what is going on even clearer, June 30, 2004:
- For White males ages 25-29: 1,666 per 100,000.
- For Latino males ages 25-29: 3,606 per 100,000.
- For Black males ages 25-29: 12,603 per 100,000.
(That's 12.6% of Black men in their late 20s.)
It's interesting to make some international comparisons: South Africa under Apartheid was internationally condemned as a racist society.
- South Africa under apartheid (1993), Black males: 851 per 100,000
- U.S. under George Bush (2004), Black males: 4,919 per 100,000
WHOAH!! If that last statistic isn't a little frightening to you, you're probably a fucking racist, Mr/s. Racist. There is a problem if we're locking up a higher percentage of black men than APARTHEID SOUTH AFRICA.