Federal Correctional Institution, Miami

The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison JEFFREY H. REIMAN American University or the same criminal behavior, the poor are more likely to be arrested; if arrested, they are more likely to be charged; if charged, more likely to be convicted; if convicted, more likely to be sentenced to prison; and if sentenced, more likely to be given longer prison terms than members of the middle and upper classes.1 In other words, the image of the criminal population one sees in our nation’s jails and prisons

commit that are highly publicized and are the ones that hurt many people at one time in one place. “Nearly everyone who has murdered a large number of people in one horrific event has been white. American bomber Timothy McVeigh took 168 lives at the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995, many of them preschoolers at day care, in the worst incident of domestic terrorism until 9/11. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, the Columbine high school killers, shot thirteen of their fellow high school students