[NV Greens] Fwd: [usgp-dx] US prison population soars in 2004, 2004 (AP)

[Paul Etxeberri]

>
>
>U.S. Prison Population Soars in 2003, '04
>
>By SIOBHAN McDONOUGH, Associated Press Writer
>Yahoo News, April 25, 2005
>http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050425/ap_on_re_us/prison_population
>
>
>WASHINGTON - While the U.S. crime rate has fallen
>over the past decade, the number of people in
>prison and jail is outpacing the number of
>inmates released, the government reports.
>
>The population of the nation's prisons and jails
>has grown by about 900 inmates each week between
>mid-2003 and mid-2004, according to figures
>released Sunday by the Bureau of Justice
>Statistics. By last June 30 the system held 2.1
>million people, or one in every 138 U.S.
>residents.
>
>Paige Harrison, the report's co-author, said the
>increase can be attributed largely to get-tough
>policies enacted in the 1980s and 1990s. Among
>them are mandatory drug sentences,
>"three-strikes-and-you're-out" laws for repeat
>offenders and "truth-in-sentencing" laws that
>restrict early releases.
>
>"As a whole most of these policies remain in
>place," she said. "These policies were a reaction
>to the rise in crime in the '80s and early '90s."
>
>
>Malcolm Young, executive director of the
>Sentencing Project, which promotes alternatives
>to prison, said, "We're working under the burden
>of laws and practices that have developed over 30
>years that have focused on punishment and prison
>as our primary response to crime."
>
>He said many of those incarcerated are not
>serious or violent offenders, but are low-level
>drug offenders. Young said the prison population
>could be lowered by introducing drug treatment
>programs that offer effective ways of changing
>behavior and by providing appropriate assistance
>for the mentally ill.
>
>According to the Justice Policy Institute, which
>advocates a more lenient system of punishment,
>the United States has a higher rate of
>incarceration than any other country, followed by
>Britain, China, France, Japan and Nigeria.
>
>There were 726 inmates for every 100,000 U.S.
>residents by June 30, 2004, compared with 716 a
>year earlier, according to the report by the
>Justice Department agency. In 2004, one in every
>138 U.S. residents was in prison or jail; the
>previous year it was one in every 140.
>
>In 2004, 61 percent of prison and jail inmates
>were of racial or ethnic minorities, the
>government said. An estimated 12.6 percent of all
>black men in their late 20s were in jails or
>prisons, as were 3.6 percent of Hispanic men and
>1.7 percent of white men in that age group, the
>report said.
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-- 
Paul Etxeberri

"Forests precede civilizations and deserts follow"   ---Chateaubriand