Prisons and jails added more than 1,000 inmates each week for a year, putting almost 2.2 million people, or one in every 136 U.S. residents, behind bars by last summer.
The total on June 30, 2005, was 56,428 more than at the same time in 2004, the government reported Sunday. That 2.6 percent increase from mid-2004 to mid-2005 translates into a weekly rise of 1,085 inmates.
Overall, 738 people were locked up for every 100,000 residents, compared with a rate of 725 at mid-2004. The states with the highest rates were Louisiana and Georgia, with more than 1 percent of their populations in prison or jail. Rounding out the top five were Texas, Mississippi and Oklahoma.
The states with the lowest rates were Maine, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Vermont and New Hampshire.
Men were 10 times to 11 times more likely than women to be in prison or jail, but the number of women behind bars was growing at a faster rate (statistics say)
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wow
Those are scary numbers
very scary. numbers don't lie. i have several friends who are behind the wall.. my wife says i write to too many folks in jail.
First, it demonstrates the economic gap in the country. Second, there are flaws in the justice system. My friend's aunt is in jail because of attempted murder, which should not have been so, because she was acting in self defense against her abusive husband. Her husband had no penalty at all although he was violent to her for years, while she had a clean record all her life until then. She said to my friend that many of the women she knows in prison are innocent. There may be less - or more - people in prison if we had a more just [justice] system.
I agree with you that a great part of people in prison are innocent. But when someone from another country sees this rate (1 to 136), the first thought coming in his/her mind is: what a country of depraved people! That's sad. As you say - we need more justice, and when I say justice, I mean FAIR JUDGEMENT.