Over the past 20 years, the US prison population has quadrupled to approximately 1.8 million, which represents 455 prisoners for every 100,000 citizens.
The federal government currently predicts that one in every 11 men will be imprisoned during his lifetime. For black men, the odds rise to one in four. The current prison population is 49 per cent black, 18 per cent Hispanic.
For the past two decades, the US has experienced the biggest prison construction boom in its history, and now spends some $21 billion a year on prison construction and maintenance. Like many other states, California spends more on prisons than it does on higher education.
Forty per cent of prisoners cannot read.
During the 2000 elections, an estimated 3.9 million Americans - one in 50 adults - were denied their right to vote due to felony and another convictions. Of that number, 1.4 million had completed their sentences. Another 1.4 million were on probation or parole. Thirteen per cent of black adult males have lost their voting rights based on criminal conviction (that is, one-third of the total of disenfranchised voters). Human Rights Watch reports that in the states with the most restrictive voting laws - in the south and west - 40 per cent of blacks are likely to be permanently disenfranchised (in such states, a convicted criminal loses his voting rights for life).
"We achieve by incarceration what we are no longer allowed to do under the law," observes Joe Hallinan. "Denying perhaps one out of four black men the right to vote."