New Report Slams “Unprecedented” Growth in US Prisons
he past 40 years have seen the United States become home to more prisoners than any other country in the world. Yet despite this dramatic boom in incarceration rates, a new report finds that the deterrent effect of tough-on-crime policies remain “highly uncertain.”
The report, published Wednesday by the National Research Council, describes the rise of incarceration in America as “historically unprecedented and internationally unique.” It found that from 1973 to 2009, the prison population grew from about 200,000 to approximately 2.2 million. With this spike, the U.S. now holds close to a quarter of the world’s prisoners, even though it accounts for just 5 percent of the global population.
“We are concerned that the United States is past the point where the number of people in prison can be justified by social benefits,” said Jeremy Travis, president of John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the chair of the committee behind the study. "
n this week’s FRONTLINE investigation, Prison Nation, filmmaker Dan Edge explores the effect such policies have had in Beecher Terrace, a housing project in the west end of Louisville, Kentucky, where roughly one in six people cycle in and out of prison every year. Watch the full film."
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/criminal-justice/locked-up-in-america/new-report-slams-unprecedented-growth-in-us-prisons/
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