Vol. 72/No. 21      May 26, 2008

According to the most recent statistics available, the U.S. incarceration rate was 751 per 100,000 people in 2006. This figure is based on the entire population, including those under 18. The country with the second-highest ratio, Russia, had 627 per 100,000. Only China, with an estimated 2.5 million prisoners, including those in pre-trial detention and labor camps, has more people locked up than the United States. But China’s population is more than four times that of the United States, making its incarceration rate about 189 per 100,000.

Prison terms in the United States tend to be much longer than in many other countries, a major factor in the higher percentage behind bars at any one time. For example, while a burglary conviction, on average, will get you 5 months in prison in Canada, or 7 months in the United Kingdom, you’ll do 16 months in the United States, the director of the Sentencing Project told the New York Times in April.

Another element of Washington’s class justice is locking people up for minor offences such as writing bad checks. The U.S. legal system metes out particularly harsh sentences for drug-related crimes. A portion of the rise in the U.S. prison population can be attributed to the government’s “war on drugs” campaign. In 1980 there were about 40,000 people locked up on drug-related charges; today this number approaches half a million.

The substantially higher rate of imprisonment of members of oppressed nationalities also reveals the class character of the U.S. prison system. About 1 in 15 adult Black men and 1 in 36 Latino men are behind bars; the rate is 1 in 106 for white men. Among the younger adult population, the figures are much higher—1 in 9 Black men between the ages of 20 and 34 is currently a prisoner.

Incarceration rates also vary widely by state, with the highest rates found in the South. In Louisiana, the state with the highest rate, about 1 in 66 adults are in prison or jail.

The prison and jail population in the United States has nearly tripled in the last 20 years. Between 1910 and 1980 the rate fluctuated between 104 and 209 per 100,000 people, according to a Justice Policy Institute analysis in 2000. As demagogic campaigns to get “tough on crime” began in the late 1970s, the figure began climbing. It reached 460 per 100,000 by 1990 and topped 700 in the year 2000.  
 
 
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