----- Original Message ----- From: Barry Stoller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, March 26, 2001 1:57 PM Subject: [downwithcapitalism] FW: U.S. imprisonment on rise Reuters. 25 Mar 2001 22:40 GMT+00:00. U.S. Prisons, Jails Hold Record 1.9 Million Inmates The record number of people in U.S. prisons and jails increased to nearly 1,932,000 inmates last June, and will surpass 2 million late this year, the U.S. Justice Department said Sunday. The department's Bureau of Justice Statistics said the total number of inmates in state and federal prisons and in local jails went up by 3 percent, or 56,660, over the 12-month period that ended June 30. Two Justice Department statisticians said in the report that the nation's inmate population is projected to reach 2 million by the end of December, based on current policies and practices. According to the report, prison incarceration rates have risen sharply since 1990, although the rate of increase has slowed in recent years. It said the number of prisoners in state facilities went up by just 1.5 percent for the 12 months ended in June, for the smallest annual increase since 1971. The report gave no reasons why the prison population has been increasing from year to year. But experts have cited tougher laws that impose longer sentences, more drug offenders put behind bars and an increase in the number of parole violators returned to prison. Since the end of 1990, the total incarcerated population has risen by more than 783,000 inmates, nearly a 70 percent rise, according to the report. Privately operated prison facilities held more than 76,000 state and federal inmates on June 30, a more than 9 percent rise in six months. Four states -- New Mexico, Alaska, Montana and Oklahoma -- had at least 25 percent of their prisoners in private facilities. There were 7,615 people under 18 in adult jails on June 30, down from 9,458 a year earlier. The number of state prisoners under 18 fell to 3,915 from 4,194 a year earlier. ...................................................................................... ........ MIM Notes 192 August 15 1999, p. 5. Facts on U$ imprisonment . The facts about imprisonment in the United $tates are that the United $tates has been the world's leading prison-state per capita for the last 25 years, with a brief exception during Boris Yeltsin's declaration of a state of emergency.(1) That means that while Reagan was talking about a Soviet 'evil empire' he was the head of a state that imprisoned more people per capita. In supposedly 'hard-line' Bulgaria of the Soviet bloc of the 1980s, the imprisonment rate was less than half that of the United $tates.(2,3) To find a comparison with U.$. imprisonment of Black people, there is no statistic in any country that compares including apartheid South Africa of the era before Mandela was president. The last situation remotely comparable to the situation today was under Stalin during war time. The majority of prisoners are non-violent offenders(4) and the U.S. Government now holds about a half million more prisoners than China; even though China is four times our population.(5) The rednecks tell MIM that we live in a 'free country.' They live in an Orwellian 1984 situation where freedom is imprisonment. Notes: 1. Marc Mauer, Americans Behind Bars: The International Use of Incarceration 1993, The Prison Sentencing Project, 918 F. St. NW, Suite 501, Washington, DC 20004 (202) 628-0871 Reference: SRI: R8965-2, 1994 2. Ibid., 1992 report. 3. United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 1994,: Oxford University Press, p. 186. 4. Figure of 51.2 percent for state prisoners there for non- violent offenses. Abstract of the United States 1993, p. 211. 5. Atlantic Monthly December, 1998. PLEASE DISREGARD ANY SPAM THAT MAY FOLLOW THIS LINE ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~-~> We give away $70,000 a month! Come to iWin.com for your chance to win! http://us.click.yahoo.com/olMXHC/BJVCAA/4ihDAA/4GJWlB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------_-> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
