A Big Presidential Campaign Non-Issue

JUSTICE -- UNITED STATES LEADS THE WORLD IN INCARCERATION: According to data from the International Center for Prison Studies at King's College London, "[t]he United States has less than 5 percent of the world's population. But it has almost a quarter of the world's prisoners." The U.S. "leads the world in producing prisoners." "Americans are locked up for crimes -- from writing bad checks to using drugs -- that would rarely produce prison sentences in other countries. And in particular they are kept incarcerated far longer than prisoners in other nations." Last February, a report from the Pew Center on the States found that for "the first time in the nation's history, more than one in 100 American adults is behind bars." For some minority groups, the numbers are higher. The Justice Department says that "[o]ne in 36 Hispanic adults is behind bars" while "[o]ne in 15 black adults is, too." The high incarceration rates in the U.S. come despite figures from the FBI showing that in the last 20 years, "violent crime rates fell by 25 percent." Indeed, Europeans had previously come to the United States to study its prison systems and "came away impressed," but now, "far from serving as a model for the world," the contemporary American prison system "is viewed with horror."