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Greetings all: A new website --
<a href="http://www.prisonsucks.com/" eudora="autourl"><b>www.prisonsucks.com</a></b>
-- gives up a comprehensive view of the current prison system and the latest statistics broken down by "racial" groups. It's an alarming sight to say the least. Check it out. <br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=7><b>Incarceration is not an equal opportunity punishment <br>
</b></font><font face="Georgia" size=5>On December 31, 2002, there were 2,033,331 people in U.S. prisons and jails. That's a rise of 3.7% during the 12 previous months, more than twice the growth rate of the previous year. The average annual increase since 1995 has been 3.6%. <br><br>
As of December 31, 2002, the U.S. incarceration rate was 701 per 100,000 residents. But when you break down the statistics you see that incarceration is not an equal opportunity punishment. <br><br>
U.S. incarceration rates by race, June 30, 2002: <br>
<x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab><b>Whites:</b> 353 per 100,000 <br>
<x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab><b>Latinos:</b> 895 per 100,000 <br>
<x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab><b>Blacks:</b> 2,470 per 100,000 <br><br>
Gender is an important "filter" on the who goes to prison or jail, June 30, 2002: <br>
<x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab><b>Females:</b> 113 per 100,000 <br>
<x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab><b>Males:</b> 1,309 per 100,000 <br><br>
Look at just the males by race, and the incarceration rates become even more frightening, June 30, 2002: <br>
<x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab><b>White males:</b> 649 per 100,000 <br>
<x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab><b>Hispanic males:</b> 1,740 per 100,000 <br>
<x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab><b>Black males:</b> 4,810 per 100,000 <br><br>
If you look at males aged 25-29 and by race, you can see what is going on even clearer, June 30, 2002: <br>
<x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab><b>For White males ages 25-29: </b>1,615 per 100,000. <br>
<x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab><b>For Latino males ages 25-29: </b>4,339 per 100,000. <br>
<x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab><b>For Black males ages 25-29: </b>12,877 per 100,000. (That's 12.9% of Black men in their late 20s.) <br><br>
Or you can make some international comparisons: <br>
South Africa under Apartheid was internationally condemned as a racist society. <br>
<x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab><b>South Africa under apartheid (1993), Black adult men: </b>851 per 100,000 <br>
<x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab><b>U.S. under George Bush (2002), Black adult men: </b>7,150 per 100,000 <br><br>
What does it mean that the leader of the "free world" locks up its Black men at a rate 8.4 times higher than the most openly racist country in the world? <br><br>
</font><font face="Georgia" size=2>Statistics as of December 31, 2002 from </font><font face="Georgia" size=2 color="#0000FF">Prisoners in 2002</font><font face="Georgia" size=2>, Table 1 and page 2. Statistics as of June 30, 2002 from </font><font face="Georgia" size=2 color="#0000FF">Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2002</font><font face="Georgia" size=2>, Tables 1, 14 and 15; Calculation for rates by Race and for Black adult men uses data from Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2002 Tables 13 and 14 and Census preliminary Population estimates for July 1, 2002 provided by BJS; South Africa figures from </font><font face="Georgia" size=2 color="#0000FF">Americans Behind Bars: The International Use of Incarceration</font><font face="Georgia" size=2>. All references to Blacks and Whites are for what the Bureau of Justice Statistics and U.S. Census refer to as "non-Hispanic Blacks" and "non-Hispanic Whites".) <br><br>
</font><font face="Georgia" size=5>View the above facts with </font><font face="Georgia" size=5 color="#0000FF">charts</font><font face="Georgia" size=5> or download the above as a </font><font face="Georgia" size=5 color="#0000FF">1 page PDF file</font><font face="Georgia" size=5> suitable for redistribution.</font><font size=3> <br><br>
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<font size=3 color="#FF0000">The Freedom Archives<br>
522 Valencia Street<br>
San Francisco, CA 94110<br>
(415) 863-9977<br>
</font><font size=3><a href="http://www.freedomarchives.org/" eudora="autourl">www.freedomarchives.org</a></font></body>
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