One in 100 Americans in Prison

[greggh]

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022808R.shtml

I found this linked to on Stallman's blog http://www.stallman.org/archives/2008-j ... %20record)

For the first time in history, more than one in every 100 American adults is in jail or prison, according to a new report tracking the surge in inmate population and urging states to rein in corrections costs with alternative sentencing programs.

The report, released Thursday by the Pew Center on the States, said the 50 states spent more than $49 billion on corrections last year, up from less than $11 billion 20 years earlier. The rate of increase for prison costs was six times greater than for higher education spending, the report said.

Using updated state-by-state data, the report said 2,319,258 adults were held in U.S. prisons or jails at the start of 2008 - one out of every 99.1 adults, and more than any other country in the world.

"more than any other country in the world" - Woohoo! A new American world record! Makes me so proud.

[Wally Balljacker]

I think this quote is particularly relevant,

"So prisons are going up and it's -- and that has a lot of side benefits apart from just getting rid of the superfluous population. It is a source of cheap labor. So, prison labor is going way up. Cheap labor, you don't have to worry about unions, no benefits, they don't get out of line. And that also, naturally, undercuts wages elsewhere. So what -- just like forcing welfare mothers to work -- you know, raising children isn't work, as anybody knows who's had children -- so you have to drive them to work. Kind of like people who go to, you know, Fidelity Investment to figure out scams about how to deal with the security market. You really want these people to work. But since there's no jobs for them, they're going to work at low-paid, or publicly subsidized wages, which will undercut other wages. The same with prison labor." - Noam Chomsky during a talk in 1996.