The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. At the end of 2011 over 2.2 million Americans were incarcerated in State and Federal prisons in the United States which is a rate of 743/100,000.
These rates are much higher for certain subgroups of the population. The lifetime expectancy that a black male will be incarcerated in his lifetime in 2003 was 32.2 % or 1/3, a Hispanic male was 17.2% or 1/6, a white male was 5.9% or 1/17.
Currently in New York State there are 54,700 people incarcerated in 57 facilities at the cost of over 3.1 billion dollars to New York State taxpayers or a little over $60,000.00 per year per inmate.
There are many reasons for the exploding incarceration rate over the last 40 years and there is increasing awareness that we, as Americans, cannot incarcerate our problems away. It just costs too much even if there is not agreement that morally it is not the right thing to do.
The politicians like to tout 3 strikes policies and “get tough on crime” which overlooks the fact that the people we incarcerate come from families, and communities, and unless they die in prison, they all come back. Currently, they come back at the rate of 630,000 per year in the United States, that’s about 1,700 per day. In New York State there are 36,500 formerly incarcerated people on parole and several thousand more on probation. How are they treated when they return home? How do you treat them?
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