+ The U.S. has the highest rate of incarceration in the world, dwarfing the rates of nearly every developed country, even surpassing those in highly repressive regimes like Russia, China, and Iran.
+ The U.S. has less than 5% of the world’s population, but it has almost 25% of the world’s prisoners.
+ The prison population has increased from 300,000 people in the early 1970s to 2.3 million people today, largely due to the increased number and sentence severity of non-violent drug crimes. In the past, many of these “crimes” would have resulted in rehabilitation and not prison.
+ A Black boy born in 2001 has a 1 in 3 chance of going to prison; a Latino boy a 1 in 6 chance, a White boy a 1 in 17 chance.
+ Rates of incarceration for working age men: White: 1 in 87; Black: 1 in 12.
+ There are nearly 6 million people on probation or parole.
+ One in every 15 people born in the United States in 2001 is expected to go to jail or prison.
+ One in every 3 black males born in this century is expected to be incarcerated.
+ a high percentage of the prison population suffer from mental illness and addiction.
+ Spending on jails and prisons by state and federal governments has risen from $6.9 billion in 1980 to nearly $80 billion today.
+ Young black men without a high school diploma are more likely to be behind bars than to have a job.
+ It costs about $35,000 per year per prisoner ($55,000 in NJ), more than we spend on education per student.
+ Scores of innocent people have been exonerated after being sentenced to death and nearly executed.
+ The number of women in prison has increased from 26,000 in 1980 to 215,000 in 2014.