StormWarning’s Counterterrorism

Shocked, but somehow not too surprised.  Just released!  More than 1% of all American adults is behind bars.  Think of that, let it sink in.  We are the most incarcerated nation in the World.  That’s more than 2.3 million people.

All of this is from the usually reliable Pew Research in a report titled One in 100: Behind Bars in America 2008, unless of course the information contradicts something else that you might read on the subject (stuff like that happens - yeah!  really, it does).

“There is no question that putting violent and chronic offenders behind bars lowers the crime rate and provides punishment that is well deserved,” said Adam Gelb, director of the Pew Center’s Public Safety Performance Project and one of the study’s authors. “On the other hand, there are large numbers of people behind bars who could be supervised in the community safely and effectively at a much lower cost — while also paying taxes, paying restitution to their victims, and paying child support.”

About 91 percent of incarcerated adults are under state or local jurisdiction, and the report documents the tradeoffs state governments have faced as they have devoted ever larger shares of their budgets to house them. For instance, over the past two decades, state spending on corrections (adjusted for inflation) increased by 127 percent, while spending on higher education rose by 21 percent. For every dollar Virginia spends on higher education, it now spends about 60 cents on corrections. Maryland spends 74 cents on corrections per higher-education dollar.

Here are some of the tidbits from the report:

White men 18+: 1 in 106
All men 18+: 1 in 54
Hispanic men 18+: 1 in 36
Black men 18+: 1 in 15
Black men 20-34: 1 in 9
White women 35-39: 1 in 255
Hispanic women 35-39: 1 in297
All women 35-39: 1 in 265
Black women 35-39: 1 in 100

A map of prison population trends from the Pew Research Report

Between 1985 and 2005, the Texas prison population jumped 300 percent, forcing a vast expansion of prison capacity. After investing $2.3 billion to add 108,000 beds, Texas didn’t get much of a breather. Within less than a decade, its prisons were teeming and experts forecast the arrival of another 14,000-17,000 inmates within five years. In 2007, legislators from both parties decided it was time for a course change. Rather than spend $523 million on more prison cells, they authorized a virtual makeover of the correctional system. Anchoring their approach was a dramatic expansion of drug treatment and diversion beds, many of them in secure facilities. Legislators also approved broad changes in parole practices and expanded drug courts. In all, the reforms are expected to save Texas $210 million over the next two years—plus an additional $233 million if the recidivism rate drops and the state can avoid contingency plans to build three new prisons.29 “It’s always been safer politically to build the next prison, rather than stop and see whether that’s really the smartest thing to do,” said state Sen. John Whitmire of Houston, chairman of the senate’s criminal justice committee. “But we’re at a point where I don’t think we can afford to do that anymore.”

At the start of 2008, the future looked promising in the Lone Star state. For the next five years, new projections by the Legislative Budget Board show, the prison trend is a flat line.

This is where the criminologists have to step in and explain things to me. I’m sure that they will.

criminology, Texas prison system, U.S. 0ne in one hundred