Ethics

The Scandal of America's Prison Population

By Ed Brayton

Dahlia Lithwick has an article about Sen. James Webb's efforts to reform America's prison system.

Here are the facts about America's prisons, according to Webb:

The United States, with 5 percent of the world's population, houses nearly 25 percent of the world's prisoners. As Webb has explained it, "Either we're the most evil people on earth, or we're doing something wrong." We incarcerate 756 inmates per 100,000 residents, nearly five times the world average. At this point, approximately one in every 31 adults in the United States is in prison, jail, or on supervised release. Local, state, and federal spending on corrections now amounts to about $70 billion per year and has increased 40 percent over the past 20 years.

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on June 12, 2009 (boomark / email).