The New York Times just published an article announcing a study that report that over 1 in 100 American adults are in jail. This year, after an increase of 25,000, 1.6 million Americans are in jail.
For individual ethnic groups the numbers are even worse:
in 2006 the ratio of imprisoned adults are
1 in 26 Hispanic adults
1 in 15 black adults
The large amount of imprisoned juveniles were not factored into this study.
States spend a lot of money on prison costs , on average, 7 percent. Last year, the government spent 44 billion tax dollars on incarceration costs.
The US, unlike other modern countries, resorts to the imprisonment for crimes, while other countries focus on rehabilitation. The recidivism rate for the US is the one of the highest of the wealthiest countries in the world.
The state of the prison system has become ignored with all the other issues of the country, but if this problem becomes exacerbated, then it will become a major domestic crisis.
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