Pubdate: Wed, 09 Dec 2015
Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (WI)
Copyright: 2015 Journal Sentinel Inc.
Contact: http://www.jsonline.com/general/30627794.html
Website: http://www.jsonline.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/265
Author: Tom Kertscher
Column: PolitiFact

INCARCERATION CLAIM ON SOLID GROUND

China has nearly 1.4 billion people - four times as many as the 
United States' 321 million.

So, does the U.S. really incarcerate more people than China (and Russia, too)?

That is the claim from Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Joe Donald, who 
is challenging recently appointed state Supreme Court Justice Rebecca 
Bradley in the spring 2016 election.

State appeals court Judge JoAnne Kloppenburg, who was a candidate for 
the high court in 2011, and Madison attorney Claude Covelli also are running.

In a Dec. 2 interview on "The Devil's Advocates," a liberal radio 
talk show in Madison, Donald was asked about racial justice being 
part of his platform.

Donald, who would be the first African-American elected to the 
state's high court (former Justice Louis Butler was appointed, then 
lost an election), said he supports alternatives to jail and prison.

"It isn't all about simply retribution and punishment," he said. 
"That if you treat the underlying issues, then in essence you 
transform that person's life, you rehabilitate them, they are able to 
be productive citizens and they're able to be strong advocates for 
their families.

"And by strengthening families, in Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Joe 
Donald, state Supreme Court candidate my opinion, you actually reduce 
crime. And so I'm a huge proponent of trying to address that issue. 
You know, we lock up close to 2.4 million in this country. We're 
locking up more people than China and Russia."

We'll see from a recent fact check that Donald's statement is 
essentially on target, though available figures for China are to some 
extent understated.

The numbers

In October, PolitiFact National rated Mostly True a statement by U.S. 
Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who is seeking the 2016 Democratic 
nomination for president. He said: "Today in America, we have more 
people in jail than any other country on Earth."

The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics' latest figures showed there 
were more than 2.22 million people in local jails and state and 
federal prisons in 2013.

We found that other estimates - which can vary based on the time they 
were made and the definition of incarceration - are similar.

The University of London-based Institute for Criminal Policy Research 
also uses 2.22 million. And an estimate from the Massachusetts-based 
Prison Policy Initiative, a think tank that advocates for reducing 
the American prison population, was slightly higher, at 2.4 million.

Those figures put the United States at No. 1 in the world in terms of 
incarcerating people.

(A key reason, Prison Policy Initiative legal director Aleks Kajstura 
told us, is that U.S. policies were changed in the 1980s to put more 
offenders in prison or jail, partly because of the war on drugs.)

It's a little harder to get rock-solid numbers internationally.

China is second, with 1.66 million prisoners, and Russia is third, 
with 642,470, according to the Institute for Criminal Policy Research.

But China's incarcerated population could very well be higher, the 
center notes. Chinese government officials reported in 2009 that more 
than 650,000 people were being held in detention centers around China 
on top of the count for sentenced prisoners. If that number was the 
same in mid-2013, the total prison population would be more than 2.3 
million in China.

In terms of rate - the number of people incarcerated compared with 
the entire population - the United States is also well above Russia and China.

The U.S. incarceration rate is 698 per 100,000 people, far outpacing 
Russia (445) and China (119), according to the Institute for Criminal 
Policy Research.

That is second in the world behind tiny Seychelles (799), an Indian 
Ocean nation of 115 islands.

Our rating

Donald said: "We lock up close to 2.4 million people in this country. 
We're locking up more people than China and Russia."

The best estimates are that the United States incarcerates 2.2 
million to 2.4 million people, far ahead of available figures for 
both China and Russia. But it's possible the China numbers are undercounted.

We rate Donald's statement Mostly True.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom