America Has The Highest Rate Of Incarceration

The incarceration rate within the United States is skyrocketing compared to the global percentage of incarcerated people. The United States alone makes up 25% of the world's incarcerated population ("Incarceration Nation"). In

Once upon a time, Americans could proudly say that America was the land of freedom and opportunity. As the Pledge of Allegiance states, “One nation under God, Indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” However, under the current criminal justice system, more and more people lose their liberties because of the crimes they have committed. According to Roy Walmsley, a consultant of the United Nations and Associate of the International Center for prison studies, “In October 2013, the incarceration rate of the United States of America was the highest in the world, at 716 per 100,000 of the national population. While the United States represent about 4.4 percent of the world 's population, it houses

In any given year now, incarceration rates has tripled with approximately 13 million people introduced to American jails in any given year. This increase in the prison population far outpaced the crime rate and the US population growth. Today, America has around 5% of the world’s population but a quarter of the world’s prison population.

The United States is the world leader in the increasing prison rate, in both as a percentage of population and raw figures. As per a fresh report which employs data of each and every state, a record 2,319,258 citizens were in prison or jail at the beginning of 2008; which means one amongst every 99.1 adults.

As per the data in 2013, 698 people out of 100,000 are incarcerated and this data in on the rise. 22 percent of the world prisoners are in the USA. In Germany, 76 per 100,000 are incarcerated. Sweden has only 60 per 100,000 people in jails. Among the other developed countries, Canada's incarceration rate in 106 per 100,000, Netherlands is only 75 per 100,000 and Japan is only 49 per 100,000. Larceny- theft, burglary, motor vehicle theft, aggravated assault, and robbery are among the most common crimes in the united states. Compared to other countries, the sentencing for crimes is longer in the United States. This data is alarming and there is a need for some change in the criminal justice system in the united

There are a lot of important issues that Americans face today. But one of the most important is mass incarceration. This problem is affecting the economy, the government spends billions of dollars to keep people in prison. Private own prison are getting a lot of money just to house prisoners. Prison is one of the biggest businesses in America. These prisons are profiting from minorities and by holding undocumented immigrants. A lot of people that are incarcerated didn’t commit serious crimes. Some people are in prison on nonviolent drug charges. Does America Needs a Alternatives to Incarceration, maybe the government should try to rehabilitate nonviolent offenders.By population china is the most populous country on earth. And yet America a country with four times less the population has more prisoners. This is happening in a country that advocates freedom and democracy. A country sometimes called the free world .Is this happening because America has the most violent criminals in the world? What are the causes for the unusually high incarceration rate in America? Because of government continuously implying new strict laws America has become the country with the highest incarcerated.

From the article titled “The Punishment Imperative : The Rise and Failure of Mass Incarceration in America” by Todd Clear, and Natasha Frost, it goes into full detail on why the incarceration rate is failing. America incarcerates way more people that far exceeds the rate of our top allies. “With just under ten million people incarcerated in prisons and jails worldwide, America incarcerated more than one-fifth of the world’s total prison population.” (The Punishment Imperative: The Rise and Failure of Mass Incarceration in America, Page 17) The United States now is in the lead in the world of incarceration, that beats countries like Russia, Rwanda, St. Kitts & Nevis, and Cuba, and the country has four times the rate of European nations. Maintaining the prisons came with a staggering price. In 2006, jurisdictions would spend around $68 billion on correctional supervision. They went from spending from $9 billion in 1982 to an 660 percent increase of $68 billion in 2006. Around the same time period, direct judicial expenditures has increased by 503 percent and the policing expenditures increased by 420 percent. The huge majority of the correctional dollars, with was around 90 percent, went to stabilize mass incarceration. “With a national average annual price tag of almost $29,000 per person per year of incarceration, it cost taxpayers at least ten times more to incarcerate a person than it would have cost to maintain him or her under supervision in the community.” (The Punishment Imperative: The Rise and Failure of Mass Incarceration in America, Page 21) In general, this is an issue because the taxpayers are forced to pay a lot of money to maintain a person in prison. Locking up a serious violent offender is justified, however, for thousands of lower-level inmates, it costs taxpayers more than preventing

The United States is five percent of the world’s population and has twenty five percent of the world’s people incarcerated. This is the highest rate of incarceration in the world. Mass incarceration has been a problem in this country for decades. The war on drugs has increased the odds of incarceration and the length of sentences for non-violent offenders. Ninety five percent of prisoners have plead guilty and one out of five are serving sentences for drug related charges (REF).

There are over 2million people incarcerated today in the United States and Statistics show that the rates every

When the word America is mentioned many people get a vision. Majority of people see it as the land of the free and where many opportunities await. In many eyes, our nation (America) is viewed as being number one, all around the board. That, I can say is true but when it comes to the incarceration of its citizens, it’s not so free after all. According to Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia (2009), “the United States has the highest documented incarceration rate, and total documented prison population in the world. As of year-end 2007, a record 7.2 million people were behind bars, on probation, or on parole. Of the total, 2.3 million were incarcerated. More than 1 in 100 American adults were incarcerated at the start of 2008. The People’s Republic of China ranks second with 1.5 million, while having four times the population, thus having only about 18% per the U.S. incarceration rate.” (1) Also, “in 2002, 93.2% of the prisoners were male. About 10.4% of all black males in the United States between the ages 25 and 29 were sentenced and in prison, compared to 2.4% of Hispanic males, and 1.3% of white males.” (2) When reading theses statistics, I didn’t know if I was mad, or if I was just really in awe.

The U.S. has more people behind bars – 2.3 million - than any country in the world.

The United States is one of the largest countries in the world so high incarceration rates are expected. However, this rate has drastically increased in the past forty years, surpassing those of countries such as China, which has a population four times larger than the United States

Currently, the United States holds a record for imprisoning more people than any other nation in the world. This is action is largely related to the war on drugs. Also, in the United States, arrests for marijuana possession surpasses the number of arrests for violent crime. Below is a chart of arrests for violent crime and marijuana possession from 2008 to 2010.

While the United States could still be considered a relatively new nation in terms of the overall global picture, its prison system is one of the most advanced in the world. It was founded out of basic necessity, based on tried and tested principles of European design, and evolved to

The United States is widely known for being the country with the largest prison population (about 6,899,000 or 1 in every 35 adults was under some form of correctional supervision at the end of 2013), which is