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U.S. Prisons Overcrowded and Violent,
Recidivism High
Confronting Confinement, a June 2006 U.S. prison study by the
bipartisan Commission on Safety and Abuse in America's Prisons, reports
than on any given day more than 2 million people are incarcerated in the
United States, and that over the course of a year, 13.5 million spend time
in prison or jail. African Americans are imprisoned at a rate roughly
seven times higher than whites, and Hispanics at a rate three times higher
than whites. Within three years of their release, 67% of former prisoners
are rearrested and 52% are re-incarcerated, a recidivism rate that calls
into question the effectiveness of America's corrections system, which
costs taxpayers $60 billion a year. Violence, overcrowding, poor medical
and mental health care, and numerous other failings plague America's 5,000
prisons and jails. The study indicates that even small improvements in
medical care could significantly reduce recidivism. “What happens inside
jails and prisons does not stay inside jails and prisons,” the commission
concludes, since 95% of inmates are eventually released back into society,
ill-equipped to lead productive lives. Given the dramatic rise in
incarceration over the past decade, public safety is threatened unless the
corrections system does in fact “correct” rather than simply punish. For a
copy of the complete report and the commission's recommendations for
reform, see www.prisoncommission.org/report.asp.
Information Please® Database, © 2007 Pearson Education,
Inc. All rights reserved.
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