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U.S. Prison Population Hits All-Time High: 2.3 Million Incarcerated DOJ Report Reveals Record Numbers in Prisons Last Year, With Huge Economic Impacts

The Justice Department has released a new report showing the nation's prison and jail population

reached a record 2.3 million people last year.

The report notes that in the 10 largest

states, prison populations increased "during

2006 at more than three times (3.2 percent)

the average annual rate of growth (0.9

percent) from 2000 through 2005."

The new report from the Bureau of Justice

Statistics found that in the first half of 2007

the growth rate slowed, but prison

admissions growth outpaced the number of

prison releases. The report provides a

breakdown, noting "of the 2.3 million

inmates in custody, 2.1 million were men

and 208,300 were women. Black males

represented the largest percentage (35.4

percent) of inmates held in custody,

followed by white males (32.9 percent) and Hispanic males (17.9 percent)."

The United States leads the industrialized world in incarceration. In fact, the U.S. rate of

incarceration (762 per 100,000) is five to eight times that of other highly developed countries,

according to The Sentencing Project, a criminal justice think tank.

Some of the key factors for the record imprisonment rate include:

Race: Black males continue to be incarcerated at an extraordinary rate. Black males make up

35.4 percent of the jail and prison population — even though they make up less than 10 percent of

the overall U.S population. Four percent of U.S. black males were in jail or prison last year,

compared to 1.7 percent of Hispanic males and .7 percent of white males. In other words, black

males were locked up at almost six times the rate of their white counterparts.

Immigration: Is it an emerging crime trend or is this the result of more local police and federal

targeting of illegal immigrants? Non-U.S. citizens accounted for nearly 8 percent of the jail

By PIERRE THOMAS and JASON RYAN

June 6, 2008

37 comments

A record 2.3 million people were in the nation's prisons and

jails in 2007, according to a Justice Department report

released on June 6, 2008.

(ABC News Photo Illustration)

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Page 1 of 3U.S. Prison Population Hits All-Time High: 2.3 Million Incarcerated - ABC News

3/15/2010http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=5009270&page=1

population at midyear 2007, the new Justice Department report

noted. "From mid-year 2000 through midyear 2007, Hispanic men

(120,000) represented the largest increase to the custody

population," it said.

Locking up these prisoners comes with huge economic costs. The

Sentencing Project estimates that cost to be $60 billion per year for

federal, state and local prison systems.

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Member Comments (37)

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Do you have more information about this topic? If so, please click here to contact the editors of ABC News.

To I SUPPORT workFARE- In reply to your comment : 'Has anyone ever thought of making prisons a place

where people really don't want to go? Let's face it for the vast majority of prisoners prison is a lifestyle

upgrade. " Prison is hell. You are housed with violent men whom you can't trust. They cook your food and

do the work as do you. There is one TV in the rec room that is shared by all and many men fight over it.

You have not privacy for urinating or pooping. You are told you get extra credit for working and good time,

but it doesn't pan out. Meaning it doesn't count for anything so many men just say " Why bother". The

States house the mentally ill in the prison because they tend to committ crimes. The gaurds play games,

torture, retaliate,and do their best to cause you misery. Just being in prison is hell. No one wants to go who

is in their right mind. Once you are in, there is no one on the outside who can get you out. The gates are

locked. You may walk a christian walk when you finally learn of the Lord's goodness but then you walk in

on a co-worker having sex with another man, something you didn't want to witness. You lay in your bunk

and cry at night because you weren't supposed to be here in the first place. Since your sentencing 15 years

ago, the legislators have enacted laws that called "set offs" that won't let you out come parole time as you

watch the men beside you being told "no" over and over. Prison is hell.

consider compassion 7/19/08

In Texas the racial disparity is so bad, and the sentencing so ridiculous that now murderers are on

probation because they won't let the offenders who are in the prisons out until every last hour of their

sentencing is complete. Certain counties, such as Williamson county, is known to railroad people through. I

was called up for Jury duty and told that the judge already decided the outcome so the case wouldn't be

more than 2 days. I wasn't picked. A young man in Williamson county was accused of Sexual assault, so

many rules were broken, but the appeals court in Texas lets it all fall back on the original county, and they

won't incriminate themselves and for his alleged few minutes of mis-conduct ( a finger in a 14 year old girls

####) he got 24 years. That is 262,800 hours for an innocent man to sit in the prison and consider his

crime. And were he guilty... the time he was given far outweighed the crime! yes, let's rehabilitate, give fair

sentencing, use the prisons as a revolving door adn help the incarcerated re-integrate into society and stop

punishing them!

consider compassion 7/19/08

PIERRE THOMAS and JASON RYANFind the tea bags.. mass were mailed to state legislators.. We want

reform as well.. check it out and lets see a story about the mail bags full of tea bags.. can you say we in the

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Page 2 of 3U.S. Prison Population Hits All-Time High: 2.3 Million Incarcerated - ABC News

3/15/2010http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=5009270&page=1

View All Comments (37)

21st century Tea anyone?Together we can make change. Without Rehabilitation we have a revolving door.

Some of these inmates we pay over fifty thousand a year to house... yes house.. will be returned to the

streets. They need to be educated and properly represented. The public needs to be educated as

well..thank you... now lets have TEA!!!!!!!!!

memberofteaparty 7/8/08

Page 3 of 3U.S. Prison Population Hits All-Time High: 2.3 Million Incarcerated - ABC News

3/15/2010http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=5009270&page=1