Land of Lost Liberty
There’s something shameful happening in the United States. According to an article in the New York Times today, almost 1.6 million Americans are behind bars. Maybe a comparison will help you understand that figure a little easier. According to the CIA World Factbook, only .6% of the American labor-force works in the farming, forestry, and fishing industries. That equals out to 918,600 people.
Think about that. There are more Americans in jail than there are on our farms.
Want to hear something even more scary? The number in the Times article doesn’t take into account the people who are on parole. According to the Department of Justice, in 2006, there were 7.4 million Americans in jail, prison, or on parole — that’s 1 in every 31 adults.
What kind of country do we live in where 1 in every 31 adults are under supervision by the penal system?
How’s this for scary? According to the International Centre for Prison Studies at King’s College in London, the United States has the highest prison population rate in the world. The ICPS uses a different methodology than the report the Times cites, taking into account the whole population, and not just the adults, but even with the ICPS’s lower number, we’re still the world’s worst. Here’s how some of the world’s bad guys stacked up:
- United States: 751 per 100,000 people
- Russian Federation: 628
- Cuba: 531
- Iran: 222
- Libya: 209
- China: 189 (based on U.N. numbers)
- Venezuela: 74
Thank god we live in the land of liberty, right?