Good question…

…from Beth Schwartzapfel and Hannah Levintova...

How Many Innocent People Are in Prison?

They have some good, if distressful, answers, too.

Chart of the day.

Via Meteor Blades…

Chart of the day.

From The Economist, via Howie...

Chart of the day.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? edition.



Hat tip to E.D. Kain.

Data points…

…from Senator Webb, with my emphasis...

• The United States has 5% of the world’s population, yet possesses 25% of the world’s prison population;
• More than 2.38 million Americans are now in prison, and another 5 million remain on probation or parole. That amounts to 1 in every 31 adults in the United States is in prison, in jail, or on supervised release;
• Incarcerated drug offenders have soared 1200% since 1980, up from 41,000 to 500,000 in 2008; and
• 60% of offenders are arrested for non-violent offensives–many driven by mental illness or drug addiction.

Seems pretty clear that the road to prison reform starts with surrender in the war on (some) drugs. It also seems pretty plain that the road to economic health, especially for many state and local governments, starts with cutting prison costs.

Or maybe Americans are just too high to care.

A point to ponder...

...via The Mep Report...

The Dutch, well known for their allowance of casual drug use and incredibly low resulting addiction rate, have found that they no longer have enough criminals to keep their prisons at capacity.

The Dutch have announced a closing of eight prisons as well as a new initiative to import Belgian criminals to fill cell vacancies.