America would rather build prisons than address it’s social problems in a realistic and constructive manner.

• Over 85% of persons in California who are receiving stiffer sentences under the three strikes law were convicted of non-violent offenses. (Source: Celling of America, pg. 24)
• In the two decades after 1980 there was a 300 percent increase in the prison population in the U.S. (Source: Lockdown America)
• America’s inmate population grew by another 2.9 percent in 2003 (Source: Associated Press)
• One out of every 75 men in the U.S. are in prison. (Source: Associated Press)
• In 1980 California had 22,500 prisoners. In 1996 they had 140,000. Source: The Celling of America, pg. 134)
• In several U.S. Cities, one third of all young Black men are either in jail, on probation, or awaiting trial. (Source: Lockdown America)
• Although African Americans make up only 13% of the total U.S. Population, half of all prisoners are Black. (Source: Lockdown America, pg. Xii)
• Private corporations that run prisons cut costs wherever they can in order to increase their profits. Therefore they mete out harsher punishments, use fewer guards, have higher employee turnover, provide less training for guards are and are kept in poorer repair than prisons run in the public sector. (Source: The Celling of America, pp. 156-163)
• In 1985 a private firm tried to site a prison on a toxic waste dump in Penn. Which it bought for a dollar. The plan was eventually rejected. (Source: The Celling of America, pg. 160)
• In Santo Clare County California investigators who wanted to find out why jail detainees sometimes died after “tussling” with guards discovered a new syndrome: The “Sudden In-Custody Death Syndrome. (Source: The Celling of America, pg. 169)
• Michail Valent, a mentally ill prisoner, died after spending sixteen hours in a restrain chair in a Utah prison in March of 1997. (Source: Prison Nation, pg. 217)
• At a conservative estimate, roughly 200,000 inmates in America are raped every year — many of them repeatedly. (Source: Lockdown America, pg. 185)
• In 1996 the average salary for prison guards was $44,000. This was $10,000 more than for teachers. (Source: The Celling of America, pg. 134)
• In 1993 California spent a greater portion of its state budget on prisons than it did for education for the first time. (Source: The Celling of America, pg. 134)
• The amount that America is willing to spend to provide poor people a legitimate defense is ridiculously low. For example, in 2002 three lawyers handled the cases of 776 suspects for an average cost of $49.86 per case. (Source: Prison Nation, pg. 7)

Sources:

Burton-Rose, Pens, Dan and Wright, Paul, (eds.). The Celling of America. Monroe, Main: Common Courage Press, 1998.

Herivfel, Tara and Wright, Paul (eds.). Prison Nation. New York and London: Routledge, 2003.

Parenti, Christian. Lockdown America. London and New York: Verso, 1999.