New record: more than one in 100 adults are now behind bars in the U.S.

For the first time in U.S. history, more than one of every 100 American adults are incarcerated, according to a new report released on February 28 by the Pew Center on the States.
The United States now has more than 2.3 million people behind bars and leads the world in the number inmates.
One in 15 adult black men is behind bars.

New York - February 29 2008. When they reach the gates of the Angola State Penitentiary in Louisiana (photo ©Razor Wire Rodeo), the inmates who are about to serve their time there, know that only few of them will be released one day. In the U.S., the inmate population keeps growing as defendants are sentenced to long prison spells. For the first time in U.S. history, more than one of every 100 American adults are incarcerated, according to a new report released on February 28 by the Pew Center on the States.

Last year, the prison population grew by 25,000. The United States now has more than 2.3 million people behind bars and leads the world in the number inmates. China is a distant second with 1,5 million people incarcerated. The U.S. is the leader in inmates per capita (750 per 100,000 people), ahead of Russia (628 per 100,000) and Belarus (426 per 100,000). According to the International Center for Prison Studies at King’s College, Switzerland only imprisons 79 out of 100,000 people.

There is big racial disparity in U.S. prisons. One in 15 adult black men is behind bars. One in every 36 Hispanic men and 1 in 106 white men are in the same situation. “I think there is a kind of deeply institutionalized racism”, said Jeff Blackburn, a lawyer and the director of the Innocence Project in Lubbock, Texas. “It is just easier to convict a black man”. Other experts such as Paul Cassell, a former federal judge who was quoted by the New York Times, underscore that the crime rate in the U.S fell by 25 percent in the last 20 years.

Being tough on crime, is expensive. According to the Pew report, the 50 states spent more than $49 billion on corrections in 2007, up from less than $11 billion 20 years earlier. Prison costs rose more than six times than higher education spending. Some States such as Vermont, Michigan or Connecticut spend more on their prisons than on higher education despite the well-documented link between the lack of education and criminality. “Perhaps, if we adequately invested in our children and in education, kids who now grow up to be criminals could become productive workers and taxpayers”, said Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders in a statement available on his website.

In Texas, the inmate population increased by 300% between 1985 and 2005 and is now the largest in the U.S with about 172,000 people behind bars. “It is always been politically safer to build the next prison rather than to stop and see whether that’s really the smartest thing to do”, said Texas State Sen. John Whitmire who was quoted in the Pew Center report. “But we are at the point where I don’t think we can afford to do that any more.” Last year, the Texas parliament agreed to reform the state’s corrections system and tom emphasize treatment programs and alternative sentences for minor offenses.

Jean-Cosme Delaloye / New York

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