Last Night’s Sound Bite!
If you weren’t listening closely to last night’s news stories you might have missed the sound bite that for the first time in history more than 1 in every 100 Americans is incarcerated in a prison or jail. This makes America the most incarcerated country in the entire world! Amongst all of the whoopla over having the first black presidential candidate, there is some real startling data behind the headlines.
This summary statistic (I guess supported by having more guns per capita and freer access than any other country) belies some other even more disturbing data from the report by the Pew Center on the States. BTW, the specific number is 2,319,258 inmates at the beginning of 2008.
But here are the more disturbing statistics:
For males between the ages of 20 and 34, 1 in every 30 are in jail!
Even worse, for black males of the same age it is 1 in every 9 are in jail
Ok, now that I have your attention let’s talk $$
The rate of increase for prison costs was six times greater than for higher education spending!!
Vermont, Michigan, Oregon and Connecticut — now spend more on corrections than they do on higher education
I guess there is little doubt that we are in trouble, that we have a generation of young black men in trouble and the train wreck for the nation is looming!
Posted: February 29th, 2008 under General.
Tags: higher education, incarceration, inmates, jail, news, pew center on the states, report, spending