By Kevin

Today all the news outlets were running silly little summaries of a new Pew Center report called One in 100 that addresses the prison population in the US. The report itself is well worth a read as it's very well written and there are excellent graphics and charts throughout. The (currently popular) outrage over civil rights abuses in China is put in some context by the knowledge that there are 50% more people incarcerated in the US, despite China's vastly larger population. One in 100 US adults is behind bars, one in fifteen black men.

Oh wait, did I mention that California spent $8.8 billion last year on corrections? Texas took a distant number two in that regard at $3.3 billion. Governor Schwarzenegger wants us to spend $10.3bn in 2008 according to his January budget Proposal. For those who've been following the news, this is the same budget proposal where he suggested that it would be a good idea to cut $4bn from education. I can't imagine a better recipe for disaster.

I've read reams of literature on the increased effectiveness (not to mention vastly lower cost) of community-based reform for non-violent criminals. 48.4% of our prison population is incarcerated for non-violent offenses. There's something terribly wrong with these statistics and nobody is doing anything about it.

Labels: politics

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