Incarceration Rates

Nearly 12% of black males in their late 20s are incarcerated, and overall 4.7% of black males are in prison or jail. Overall, as compared to other countries, we have high incarceration rates:

Incarceration Rates, by Kieran Healy, Crooked Timber: Via Chris Uggen, some new Bureau of Justice Statistics for incarceration in the United States as of mid-2005. Imprisonment rose by 1.6 percent on the pervious year, and jail populations rose by 4.7 percent, for a total of just over 2.1 million people behind bars. The total population in prison has gone up by almost 600,000 since 1995.

Women make up 12.7 percent of jail inmates. Nearly 6 in 10 offenders in local jails are racial or ethnic minorities. In mid-2005, the BJS reports that “nearly 4.7 percent of black males were in prison or jail, compared to 1.9 percent of Hispanic males, and 0.7 percent of white males. Among males in their late 20s, nearly 12 percent of black males, compared to 3.9 percent of Hispanic males and 1.7 percent of white males, were incarcerated.” State by state, “Louisiana and Georgia led the nation in percentage of their state residents incarcerated (with more than 1 percent of their state residents in prison or jail at midyear 2005). Maine and Minnesota had the lowest rates of incarceration (with 0.3 percent or less of their state residents incarcerated).”

(You can get this figure as a PDF file if you like.)

Comparative context is provided by Roy Walmsley’s World Prison Population List. The U.S. has an overall incarceration rate of 738 per 100,000 people, the highest in the world. Belarus, Russia and Bermuda (!) come next, distantly trailing with rates in the 530s. Fifty eight percent of countries have incarceration rates below 150 per 100,000. There is a lot of heterogeneity within continents. I left China out of the figure above—its incarceration rate is 118, but this only includes 1.55 million sentenced prisoners, not trial detainees or those in “administrative detention.”

A June, 2004 study on state prison costs in 2001 for the Department of Justice  found:

The average annual operating cost per State inmate in 2001 was $22,650... Among facilities operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, it was $22,632 per inmate...

This is not a trivial cost. I wonder how state budgets, estimates of Social Security solvency, unemployment rates, etc. would be affected if all of the people incarcerated for drug sales were released, or if you find that objectionable, if our incarceration rates were equivalent to those in other developed countries and the usual numbers for this population were able to find employment.

Comments

[camille roy]

It would be interesting to compare plots over time of incarceration rates and decent entry level and manufacturing jobs. I would bet that declines in the latter are correlated to increases in the former.

[donna]

Land of the Free, huh? Hardly.

The other interesting study is how many of those in jail are mentally ill. My bipolar nephew has been locked up a couple of times before being sent to treatment, and I know others have suffered that fate as well.

And then there are all those locked up basically for being too poor to afford a good lawyer, those locked up because of our ridiculous drug war, all the women locked up for check fraud or prostitution....

Yeah, it adds up, I guess.

[cl]

My sense is the incarceration rate is directly related to drug laws and drug policy.

[c roast]

For a pupil dilating take on the prison/guard economy, check out “Guard Labor” at:

HTTP://WWW.santafe.edu/~bowles/

It’s Bowles contention that in 2002, over 26% of the U.S. workforce was engaged in guard labor. Perhaps it's deserving of being an economic "sector."

You have to wonder where the productivity is coming from.

[spencer]

If you add this prisoner and guard population back into the labor force data I wonder how the US unemploymnet rate would compare to European unemployment rates.

[John B. Chilton]

Some random thoughts.......

Where's your model? What explains why incarceration is so high? I live in a country where crime is low. Because people are deterred by huge penalties.

Maybe this is the price of living in a free and open society.

We build walls around ourselves and our wealth. Or we can build walls to put criminals in.

It is disturbing to see the US in the same category as Russia and Turkmenistan. But I'm not jumping to any conclusions that it is "too much."

[Richard]

Not the first time I've seen this data, but I've always been surprised at how little attention this is given.

Surely, the country that proudly proclaims "largest GDP", "highest productivity growth" and "largest current account deficit" in the world should be able to boast about its "highest incarceration rate" as well?

[Albert Jackson]

This is nothing new. It's most states affirmative action program for wanna be gangsters and wanna be cops.
Here in Delaware we have state sactioned genocide.
The state gave a $25 million no bid prison healthcare contract that provided less then mimimum healthcare.
Prisoners died for lack of care. A woman had twins in the prison toilet and they almost died. The politicians had no oversight or hearings because a 83 year old state senator of 28 years that was a corrections officer is sitting on the bill. Afraid to expose their patrons and cronies. The families of the prisoners will be suing the state for millions for political malfeasence. There is a federal investigation going on.
All of what I tell you was reported in the newspapers.
contact me = stanjax3@yahoo.com

[Cyrille]

Sorry, the US are not in the same category as Russia and Turkmenistan : those two countries have rates that are nowhere near the US one. The US are in a league of their own.
And I don't think it works. The level of criminality in the US is apparently similar or greater than in many less punitive countries.

[cm]

John Chilton: A good number of people goes to prison for rather minor possession or drug use. Those are not in any reasonable sense criminals (do you think smokers are), but society effectively encourages them to take that path, by "teaching" them in prison, and locking them out of good jobs and social participation afterwards.

The US prison system is not merely used in its "justice" and "custody" functions, but as a tool of social "management" to "address" the consequences of shortcomings in social policy. The (actual) crime does not spring into existence out of nowhere.

[Emmanuel]

Folks, Eric "Fast Food Nation" Schlosser wrote this article about the "Prison Industrial Complex" in the Atlantic Monthly sometime ago, but it's still relevant now, if not more so.

Inmates? From this perspective, they're customers requiring some, er, behavioral modification. And, the more customers there are, the better.

[Lord]

It would be interesting to see incarceration rates / gdp. We may have so many because we can afford it, while Russia may be really high since they can't really afford it.

[blinkered]

face the facts. after repeal of the jim crow laws

blacks are being oppressed by these revoltingly

high incarceration rates. they are the main sufferers

[Vinny]

We keep them in prison. Other countries execute them outright. We do not use the death penalty enough so those who should be put to death languish in our public facilities at great expense to the US taxpayer!