The United States of America has an incarceration rate of 743 per 100,000 of national population (as of 2009), the highest in the world.[2] In comparison, Russia has the second highest 577 per 100,000, Canada is 123rd in the world with 117 per 100,000, and China has 120 per 100,000.[2] While Americans only represent about 5 percent of the world's population, one-quarter of the entire world's inmates are incarcerated in the United States.[3]
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According to a US Department of Justice report published in 2006, over 7.2 million people were at that time in prison, on probation, or on parole. That means roughly 1 in every 32 Americans are held by the justice system.[4][5] According to the International Centre for Prison Studies (ICPS) at King's College London, of that 7.2 million, 2.3 million were in prison. The People's Republic of China comes in second place with 1.6 million, despite its population being over four times that of the United States.[6]
In 2004, a majority of state inmates (53 percent) and almost half of federal inmates (45 percent) had used drugs in the year before their admission to prison.[7] Among the prisoners, drug offenders made up the same percentage of State prisoners in both 1997 and 2004 (21%). The percentage of Federal prisoners serving time for drug offenses declined from 63% in 1997 to 55% in 2004.[8] In the twenty-five years since the passage of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act, the United States penal population rose from around 300,000 to more than two million.[9] Between 1986 and 1991, African-American's women's incarceration in state prisons for drug offenses increased by 828 percent.[10]
In 2009, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that U.S. State prison population growth rate had fallen to its lowest since 2006, but it still had a 0.2% growth-rate compared to the total U.S. prison population.[11] In California, the US State Prison population fell during 2009 for first time in 38 years.[12] When looking at specific populations within the criminal justice system the growth rates are vastly different. In 1977, there were just slightly more than eleven thousand incarcerated females. By 2004, the number of women under state or federal prison had increased by 757 percent, to more than 111,000, and the percentage of women in prison has increased every year, at roughly double the rate of men, since 2000.[13] The rate of incarcerated females has expanded at about 4.6% annually between 1995 and 2005 with women now accounting for 7% of the population in state and federal prisons.
The United States imprisons more of its racial minorities than any other country in the world. In Washington D.C., three out of every four young black men are expected to serve some time in prison. In major cities across the country, 80% of young African Americans now have criminal records.[14]
A major cause of such high numbers is the length of the prison sentences in the United States. One of the criticisms of the United States system is that it has much longer sentences than any other part of the world. The typical mandatory sentence for a first-time drug offense in federal court is five or ten years, compared to other developed countries around the world where a first time offense would warrant at most 6 months in jail.[16] Mandatory sentencing prohibits judges from using their discretion and forces them to place longer sentences on nonviolent offenses than they normally would do.
Even though other countries have more prisoners annually, the fact that the United States keeps their prisoners longer causes the total rate to become higher. To give an example, the average burglary sentence in the United States is 16 months, compared to 5 months in Canada and 7 months in England.[6] Looking at reasons for imprisonment will further clarify why the incarceration rate and length of sentences are so high. The practice of imposing longer prison sentences on repeat offenders is common in many countries but the Three strike laws in the U.S. with mandatory 25 year imprisonment — implemented in many states in the 1990s — is very extreme compared to countries in Europe.
One of the biggest contributors to the United States' spike is the war on drugs.[17] Before 1971, different stops on drugs had been implemented in federal laws for more than 50 years (for e.g. since 1914, 1937 etc.) with only a very small increase of inmates per 100 000 citizens. During the first 9 years after 1971, when president Nixon coined the expression 'War on Drugs,' statistics show only a minor increase of the number of imprisoned. Around 1980 the United States had 40,000 people in prison for drug crimes. After the passage of Reagan's Anti-Drug Abuse Act in 1986, incarceration for non-violent offenses dramatically increased. Part of the legislation included the implementation of mandatory minimum sentences for "the distribution of cocaine, including far more severe punishment for distribution of crack—associated with blacks—than powder cocaine, associated with whites".[17] Under the Anti-Drug Abuse Act, users of powder cocaine can possess up to 100 times more substance than users of crack, while facing the same mandatory sentence.[18] The Anti-Drug Act targeted low-level street dealers, which had a disproportionate effect on poor blacks, Latinos, the young, and women.[19]
Beginning in the 1970s, the War on Drugs has continued. As the War on Drugs proceeds, more and more people are being convicted for nonviolent offenses. When looking at female rates, by 2003, 58% of all women in federal prison were convicted of drug offenses. Women of color are disproportionately affected by the War on Drugs. African American women's incarceration rates for all crimes, largely driven by drug convictions, have increased by 800% since 1986, compared to an increase of 400% for women of other races.[20] Convictions have also widened to include women who are not only directly involved in the drug trade but those who are indirectly involved either through their spouses, families, or communities.
As of 2006[update], 49.3% of state prisoners, or 656,000 individuals, were incarcerated for non-violent crimes. As of 2008[update], 90.7% of federal prisoners, or 165,457 individuals, were incarcerated for non-violent offenses.[21] Drug offenses account for two-thirds of the federal inmate population; approximately half a million people are in prison for a drug offense today compared to 40,000 in 1981—an increase of 1,100 percent.[22] Marijuana-related offenses is only minor cause for the increase of prisoners. In 2004 was approximately 12.7% of state prisoners and 12.4% of Federal prisoners were serving time for a cannabis related offence[23]
Dorothy Roberts, in Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty, offers another cause for the increase in female incarceration. She believes that the United States has begun criminalizing reproduction. There have been an increasing number of cases that penalize pregnancy in two different ways—the prosecution of women for exposing their babies to drugs in the womb and the imposition of birth control as a condition of probation.[24] These new policies also disproportionately affect African-American females. While surveys suggest that black and white women use drugs at relatively the same rates, black females are much more likely to 'get caught'. According to Roberts, the explanation is that poor women, who are disproportionately black, are more likely to be placed under constant supervision by the State in order to receive social services.[25] They are then more likely to be caught by officials who are instructed to look specifically for drug offenses. Roberts argues that the criminal justice system's creation of new crimes has a direct affect on the number of women, especially black women, who then become incarcerated.
Within three years of being released, 67% of ex-prisoners re-offend and 52% are re-incarcerated, according to a study published in 1994.[26] The rate of recidivism is so high in the United States that most inmates who enter the system are likely to reenter within a year of their release. One woman, "realized that [she] became part of a cycle, a system that looked forward to seeing [her] there. [She] was aware…that [she] would be one of those people that would fill up their prisons".[27]
In 1995, the government allocated $5.1 billion for new prison space. Every $100 million spent in construction costs $53 million per year in finance and operational costs over the next three decades.[28] Taxpayers spend $60 billion a year for prisons. In 2005, it cost an average of $23,876 a year to house a prisoner.[29] It takes about $30,000 per year per person to provide drug rehab treatment to inmates. By contrast, the cost of drug rehab treatment outside of a prison costs about $8,000 per year per person.[18]
American journalist Reihan Salam has argued in National Review Online that past a certain point in which more of the population have been or are currently in prison, incarceration becomes more destigmatized and crime would actually increase (akin to the Laffer curve). He stated that the U.S. is "past that point" with its incarceration rate.[30] The effects of such high incarceration rates are also shown in other ways. Consider a woman who has been recently released from prison. In most states she is ineligible for welfare. She is not eligible for subsidized housing, and for Section 8 she has to wait two years before she can apply. In addition to finding housing, she also has to find employment, but most likely she can not find a job because she has a record so no one wants to hire her. Essentially, a woman who has been recently released from prison comes into a society that is not prepared structurally or emotionally to welcome her back.[18]
Marc Mauer, assistant director of the non-profit group Sentencing Project, has remarked that "we don't see are the ripple effects of what they mean: For the generation of black children today, there's almost an inevitable aspect of going to prison".[31] For every mother that is incarcerated in the United States there are about another ten people (children, grandparents, community, etc.) that are directly affected.[32]
In The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander contends that the U.S. incarceration system works to bar black men from voting. She writes "there are more African Americans under correctional control -- in prison or jail, on probation or parole -- than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began."[33][34]
The United States has the highest documented incarceration rate in the world at 754 per 100,000 (as of 2009[update]).[2] A report released 28 February 2008, indicates that more than 1 in 100 adults in the United States are in prison.[37] The United States has less than 5% of the world's population[38] and 23% of the world's prison population.[36] In addition to overall incarceration rates, the United States is also leading in rates of female incarceration. In the United States, women make up more than one tenth of the whole prison population.[39] In most countries, the proportion of female inmates to the larger population is closer to one in twenty. Australia is the exception where the rate of female imprisonment increased from 9.2 percent in 1991 to 15.3 percent in 1999.[40]
Comparing other English-speaking developed countries, the incarceration rate of Canada is 117 per 100,000 (as of 2008[update]), England and Wales is 154 per 100,000 (as of 2011[update]), and Australia is 133 per 100,000 (as of 2010[update]). Comparing other developed countries, the rate of Spain is 159 per 100,000 (as of 2011[update]), Greece is 102 per 100,000 (as of 2009[update]),and Japan is 59 per 100,000 (as of 2009[update]). Comparing other countries with similar percentages of immigrants, Germany has a rate of 85 per 100,000 (as of 2010[update]), Italy has a rate of 113 per 100,000 (as of 2010[update]), and Saudi Arabia has a rate of 178 per 100,000 (as of 2009[update]).[2] Comparing other countries with a zero tolerance policy for illegal drugs, the rate of Russia is 577 per 100 000, the rate of Kazakhstan is 400 per 100 000, the rate of Singapore is 273 per 100 000, the rate of Sweden is 78 per 100 000 and Japan is 52 per 100 000.[2]
The incarceration rate of the People's Republic of China varies depending on sources and measures. According to the ICPS, the rate for only sentenced prisoners is 120 per 100,000 (as of 2009[update]) and the rate for prisoners including those in administrative detention and pre-trial detainees is 186 per 100,000 (as of 2009[update]).[2] Su Jiang assessed the incarceration rate for all forms of imprisonment in China at 218 prisoners per 100,000 population.[41] Harry Wu, a U.S.-based human rights activist and ex-Chinese labor camp prisoner, estimates that "in the last 60 years, more than 40–50 million people" were in Chinese labor camps.[42]
In addition, the United States has striking statistics when observing the racial dimension of mass incarceration. According to Michelle Alexander, the United States "imprisons a larger percentage of its black population than South Africa did at the height of apartheid."[14]
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