------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the June 10, 2004 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
SYMPTOM OF CAPITALIST ROT: U.S. PRISON RATE HIGHEST IN WORLD By Monica Moorehead On May 27 the U.S. Justice Department issued an alarming but not surprising report. The report documents that by the middle of 2003, one out of every 75 men in the United States was incarcerated. This amounts to a 2.9-percent increase over 2002. The U.S. rate of imprisonment is the highest in the world. Including women and men, 715 people out of every 100,000 are behind bars. Right behind the United States is capitalist Russia, with an imprisonment rate of 584 per 100,000. This compares to only 169 in Mexico, 116 in Canada and 143 per 100,000 for England and Wales combined. The 2003 U.S. inmate population increased at its fastest pace in four years. The number of inmates rose 1.8 percent in state prisons, 7.1 percent in federal prisons and 3.9 percent in local jails. Other Justice Department statistics show that the United States leads the world as the "prison house of nations." An overwhelmingly disproportionate number of prisoners belong to oppressed nationalities-- African American, Latin@ and Native people, especially. The fact that 68 percent of all U.S. prisoners are people of color exposes the thoroughly racist nature of this country's incarceration policies. Within these numbers are these: 12 percent of all Black men in their 20s were incarcerated last year, compared to 3.7 percent of Latin@ men and 1.6 percent of white men in this age group. Many of these prisoners are non-violent "offenders" who received long sentences for drug-related charges. Women are the fastest-growing category of prisoners. The number of women in state and federal prisons increased by 5 percent, compared to a 2.7- percent increase for men. Men, however, greatly outnumber women in prison: 1,360,000 to 100,102. Inmates in local jails total over 690,000. One-quarter of all the prisoners in the world are held in the United States--at last count, over 2.1 million people. A prison research and advocacy group, the Sentencing Project, reports that almost 10 percent of those detained in federal and state prisons are serving life sentences. Almost 20 percent of prisoners in New York and California are in for life. Parole is extremely rare for those serving life sentences. Because of stiffer sentencing laws, the number of those in for life has risen by 83 percent since 1992. "Some of those serving a life sentence for the least serious crimes have been sentenced under California's 'three strikes and you're out' law," the New York Times reported May 12. "The Supreme Court recently upheld the life sentence of Leandro Andrade, whose third strike, or felony conviction, was for the theft of children's videotapes worth $153." Some 23,523 inmates serving life sentences were mentally ill. Many battered women, in prison for killing the husbands or boyfriends who beat them, are serving life, the Sentencing Project said. Mumia Abu-Jamal has written about the prison-industrial complex that locks up so many people of color, so many workers, so many poor and destitute women and men who the billionaires have sentenced to prison, poverty and exploitation. People of color are suffering an occupation of their communities, not unlike the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Many U.S. military police learned the brutish methods they used on Iraqis serving as prison guards here. The prison system here at home upholds a status quo dominated by the billionaire class that loots the world and also profits from endless wars, occupations and the prison system itself. This monstrous growth of the repressive state, represented by the Pentagon and the prison system, confirms that capitalism is in its decline. Mass movements against exploitation, racism and war must also expose the character of the prisons, which are nothing but concentration camps for the poor and the nationally oppressed. - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe wwnews- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Support the voice of resistance http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php) ------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. To subscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
