Pubdate: Sat, 23 Aug 2003 Source: Economist, The (UK) Copyright: 2003 The Economist Newspaper Limited Contact: http://www.economist.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/132 IN THE CAN Washington, DC This Week's Most Terrifying Statistic Conservative politicians have tried to change America in many ways. None may have a bigger effect than chucking ever more people in the can. By 2001, says a new Justice Department study, one in 20 American men had had "prison experience". The figure for black men is close to one in six. Aggressive sentencing laws, particularly for drug offences, mean that the proportion of cons and ex-cons has doubled since 1974, from 1.3% of the adult population to 2.7%. The most amazing figures concern the future. Thanks to the world's toughest incarceration policy, 11.3% of boys born in 2001 will go to jail in their lifetimes. For black men, it will be one in three. Unless something changes in the rotten rehabilitation record (two-thirds of prisoners are rearrested within three years), conservative politicians will have created a criminal class of unimaginable proportions. - --- MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens