Prison or Education?

A Pew report says 2,319,258 Americans were in jail or prison at the start of 2008 — one out of every 99.1 adults, more than any other nation.

States Spend More on Prisons than Education

David Crary (AP)

Three strikes laws have overcrowded the nation's prison system. Here are the results of a new report by the Pew Center's Public Safety Performance Project. In the end we find that "getting tough on criminals" is a feelgood slogan that has only gotten tough on taxpayers.

For some groups, "the incarceration numbers are especially startling," the report said. "While one in 30 men between the ages of 20 and 34 is behind bars, for Black males in that age group the figure is one in nine."

For Black women the news is even worse as...One in every 355 White women aged 35 to 39 is behind bars, compared with one of every 100 Black women in that age group. Using state-by-state data, the report says 2,319,258 Americans were in jail or prison at the start of 2008 — one out of every 99.1 adults. Whether per capita or in raw numbers, it's more than any other nation.

Solutions
The report cited Kansas and Texas as states that have acted decisively to slow the growth of their inmate population. They are making greater use of community supervision for low-risk offenders and employing sanctions other than re-imprisonment for offenders who commit technical violations of parole and probation rules. More>>

• Why? (prisonplanet.com)