🚀 go-pugleaf

Coś dla Jędrka :-)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7270607.stm

*A new study of US prisons has found that numbers of people in jail are at 
an
all-time high, with more than 1% of the adult population behind bars.
The Pew Center report calls the US the global leader in the rate at which it
imprisons its citizens.*

Over 2.3 million people were being held this year, it said - far ahead of
other countries with large prison populations like China, Russia and Iran.

The report called for fewer low-risk offenders to be sent to jail.

*Soaring costs*

It claims that the growing prison population "is saddling cash-strapped
states with soaring costs they can ill afford, and failing to have a clear
impact either on recidivism or overall crime".

With 750 inmates per 100,000 people, imprisonment cost the 50 states more
than $49bn last year, up from less than $11bn 20 years earlier.

The rate of increase for prison costs was found to be six times greater than
for higher education spending.

According to the Pew Center study, the higher rates of incarceration did not
reflect a similar increase in crime, or in population, but tougher
sentencing measures.

Some states, though, such as Texas and Kansas, have acted to slow their
prison population growth, with greater use of community supervision for
lower-risk offenders, and sanctions other than prison for minor probation
and parole violations.

*Disproportionate numbers*

The numbers were "especially startling", according to the Pew Center report,
for some groups in the population.

"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."

The total of 2.3 million adults held in prison - or one in every 99.1
adults - puts the US far head of other countries.

China, with its far greater population, has 1.5 million people behind bars,
and Russia has 890,000.