Two and a half million Americans are currently in prison. Prisoners serve significantly more time in the United States than in most industrialized countries. The U.S. has 5 percent of the world's population, but we have 25 percent of the world's prisoners. The US has the highest incarceration rate in the world, locking up about 500 people for every 100,000 residents, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. The incarceration rate for African-Americans is about 3,074 per 100,000 residents, which is more than six times as high as the national average.
For black men in their 20s and early 30s without a high school diploma, the incarceration rate is so high — nearly 40 percent nationwide — that they’re more likely to be behind bars than to have a job. The majority of those imprisoned have never committed a violent crime. 25 percent of African-Americans who grew up in the past three decades have had at least one parent locked up during their childhood,
Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) has annual revenues in excess of $1.7 billion. An average of 81,384 inmates are in its facilities on any one day. Private prisons account for nearly all of the new prisons built between 2000 and 2005. For-profit companies presently control about 18 percent of federal prisoners and 6.7 percent of all state prisoners. And nearly half of all immigrants detained by the federal government are shipped to for-profit prisons. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) imprisons about 400,000 undocumented people a year. The for-profit prisons and their lobbyists in Washington and state capitals have successfully blocked immigration reform. The for-profit prisons can charge the government up to $200 a day to house an inmate; they pay detention officers as little as $10 an hour.
Capitalism writes our laws and profits from our misery.
For black men in their 20s and early 30s without a high school diploma, the incarceration rate is so high — nearly 40 percent nationwide — that they’re more likely to be behind bars than to have a job. The majority of those imprisoned have never committed a violent crime. 25 percent of African-Americans who grew up in the past three decades have had at least one parent locked up during their childhood,
Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) has annual revenues in excess of $1.7 billion. An average of 81,384 inmates are in its facilities on any one day. Private prisons account for nearly all of the new prisons built between 2000 and 2005. For-profit companies presently control about 18 percent of federal prisoners and 6.7 percent of all state prisoners. And nearly half of all immigrants detained by the federal government are shipped to for-profit prisons. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) imprisons about 400,000 undocumented people a year. The for-profit prisons and their lobbyists in Washington and state capitals have successfully blocked immigration reform. The for-profit prisons can charge the government up to $200 a day to house an inmate; they pay detention officers as little as $10 an hour.
Capitalism writes our laws and profits from our misery.
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