08-15-2006, 05:41 PM
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Member
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Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: New York
Posts: 4,459
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by rebound
I'd be interested to see per capita. I know we have a lot. We also have a lot of people. I'll see if I can pull up some data.
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From the encyclopedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_r..._United_States
As of 2004 the United States had the highest percentage of people in prison of any nation. At a rate of incarceration of 726 inmates per 100,000, the United States has the highest reported rate in the world, well ahead of the Russian rate of 532 per 100,000. In 2004, more than 2.1 million Americans, or roughly 1 out of every 138, were in prisons or jails, a figure which represented one third of the world's prison population. To illustrate these figures, if the United States had the same rate of incarceration as Japan or China, only about 100,000 people would be in jail.
So we have less than 5% of the world's total population, but 33% of the world's prison population.
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