We're number one! We're number one!
Quote of note:
Over the past 25 years, the U.S. prison system has more than quadrupled in size, as the nation adopted policies to get tough on crime. Among those incarcerated are hundreds of thousands of people sentenced to long terms for relatively minor crimes like drug possession, the majority of them black or Hispanic.
"Mandatory sentences are filling federal prisons with low-level offenders instead of the kingpins they were supposed to catch," said Julie Stewart, president of Families Against Mandatory Minimums.
U.S. Record Prison Population Rises Again
Thu May 27, 2004 05:14 PM ET
By Alan Elsner
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States saw its prison and jail population increase again in 2003, the Justice Department reported on Thursday.
The number of people held in U.S. federal and state prisons and jails on June 30, 2003, was 2,078,570 -- almost 41,000 more than the previous year and the biggest increase in four years.
The Justice Department reported earlier this month that the annual cost of the U.S. prison system was around $57 billion.
Women inmates passed the 100,000 level for the first time ever. The number of women incarcerated rose by 5 percent, almost double the rate of increase among males.
