Law - Out of Order?

This headline from the Washington Post caught my eye the other day:
U.S. Prison Population Sets Record. I happen to be one of those folks who believes our “Criminal Justice System” needs some major overhauling so I am always curious about who we are sending to jail and why.

The numbers in the story, unfortunately, are just a continuation of the story of class divide we have been writing in this country for as long as I can remember.

”A record 7 million people -- one in every 32 U.S. adults -- were behind bars, on probation or on parole by the end of last year, a Justice Department report released yesterday shows. Of those, 2.2 million were in prison or jail, an increase of 2.7 percent over the previous year, according to the report.” In a just society, you might consider that on the block where you live at least one person (or one household) is impacted by these figures – assuming only two adults per household.

But wait. Before you can consider the impact these numbers represent to your neighborhood you have to ask if your neighborhood breaks down in any way similar to these numbers:

” In the 25-29 age group, 8.1 percent of black men -- about one in 13 -- are incarcerated, compared with 2.6 percent of Hispanic men and 1.1 percent of white men. The figures are not much different among women. By the end of 2005, black women were more than twice as likely as Hispanics and more than three times as likely as white women to be in prison.”…and the less than encouraging word for women is this: ”Over the past year, the female population in state or federal prison increased 2.6 percent and the number of male inmates rose 1.9 percent. By year's end, 7 percent of inmates were women. The gender figures do not include inmates in local jails.”

Finally, the piece of the equation that you knew must be coming: ”“Misguided policies that create harsher sentences for nonviolent drug offenses are disproportionately responsible for the increasing rates of women in prisons and jails," Marc Mauer, executive director of the Sentencing Project, a Washington-based group that supports criminal justice reform, said in a statement.

From 1995 to 2003, inmates incarcerated in federal prisons for drug offenses have accounted for 49 percent of total prison population growth”(Emphasis added, TLS)

Just thought you’d like to know.

Peace,
Chad (The Left) Shue