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.
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MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens