I was curious about the prisoners in the US.
Just how many prisoners are there in the US? 25 % of the World prisoners.
With so much liberalism in the US and the avenues for redressal of miscarriage of Justice, I expected the figures to be lower.
But…!
In 2010, The Economist highlighted a case in which four Americans were arrested for importing lobster tails in plastic bags rather than in cardboard boxes. That violated a Honduran law which that country no longer enforces, but because it’s still on the books there its enforced here. “The lobstermen had no idea they were breaking the law. Yet three of them got eight years apiece.” When the article was published 10 years later, two of them were still behind bars.
A UN report noted that Alabama officials had arrested dozens of people who were too poor to repair septic systems that violated state health laws. In one case, authorities took steps to arrest a 27-year-old single mother living in a mobile home with her autistic child for the same “crime.” Replacing the system would have cost more than her $12,000 annual income, according to the report.
As The Economist put it:
America imprisons people for technical violations of immigration laws, environmental standards and arcane business rules. So many federal rules carry criminal penalties that experts struggle to count them. Many are incomprehensible. Few are ever repealed, though the Supreme Court… pared back a law against depriving the public of “the intangible right of honest services”, which prosecutors loved because they could use it against almost anyone. Still, they have plenty of other weapons. By counting each e-mail sent by a white-collar wrongdoer as a separate case of wire fraud, prosecutors can threaten him with a gargantuan sentence unless he confesses, or informs on his boss. The potential for injustice is obvious.
About 10 percent of America’s prisoners are housed in the federal corrections system. Last week, the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General released its annual review of DOJ operations. And couched in typically cautious bureaucratic language, the report details a growing crisis within the federal prison system that threatens to undermine the DOJ’s other vital functions, including the enforcement of civil rights legislation, counter-terrorism and crime-fighting.
According to the report:
The Department of Justice (Department) is facing two interrelated crises in the federal prison system. The first is the continually increasing cost of incarceration, which, due to the current budget environment, is already having an impact on the Department’s other law enforcement priorities. The second is the safety and security of the federal prison system, which has been overcrowded for years and, absent significant action, will face even greater overcrowding in the years ahead…
The U.S. prison population is more than 2.4 million.
– That’s more than quadrupled since 1980.
– That means more than one out of every 100 American adults is behind bars.
– About 14 percent of the prison population is in federal prison — that’s the group Holder is talking about.
– The single largest driver in the increase in the federal prison population since 1998 is longer sentences for drug offenders.
– The average inmate in minimum-security federal prison costs $21,000 each year. The average inmate in maximum-security federal prisons costs $33,000 each year.
– Federal prison costs are expected to rise to 30 percent of the Department of Justice’s budget by 2020 .
– Sens. Dick Durbin, Pat Leahy, Mike Lee, and Rand Paul have all endorsed legislation to give federal judges more flexibility when sentencing non-violent offenders. Holder backs the bill, too.
– The most serious charge against 51 percent of those inmates is a drug offense. Only four percent are in for robbery and only one percent are in for homicide.
– The most serious charge against 20 percent of state-prison inmates is a drug offense. That’s much lower than the 51 percent in federal prisons, though it’s still larger than any other single category of offense in state prisons.
List of US Prisons.
Name Location United States Penitentiary, Allenwood Pennsylvania United States Penitentiary, Atlanta Georgia United States Penitentiary, Atwater California United States Penitentiary, Big Sandy Kentucky United States Penitentiary, Beaumont Texas United States Penitentiary, Canaan Pennsylvania United States Penitentiary, Coleman† Florida United States Penitentiary, Florence ADX Colorado United States Penitentiary, Florence High Colorado United States Penitentiary, Hazelton† West Virginia United States Penitentiary, Lee Virginia United States Penitentiary, Leavenworth Kansas United States Penitentiary, Lewisburg Pennsylvania United States Penitentiary, Lompoc California United States Penitentiary, Marion Illinois United States Penitentiary, McCreary Kentucky United States Penitentiary, Pollock Louisiana United States Penitentiary, Terre Haute Indiana United States Penitentiary, Tucson Arizona United States Penitentiary, Victorville California