BELIEVE IT OR DONT

The United States has the highest documented incarceration rate in the world at 754 persons in prison or jail per 100,000 U.S. residents (as of 2008). A report released Feb. 28, 2008 indicates that more than 1 in 100 adults in the United States are in prison. The United States has less than 5% of the world's population and 23.4% of the world's prison population.

Although African-Americans account for only 12 percent of the U.S. population, an estimated 38.9 percent of all prisoners in the United States are black (as of 2005 DOJ data). Blacks were nearly 5 times more likely than whites, nearly 3 times more likely than Hispanics to have been in jail in 2005. Census data for 2000, which included a count of the number and race of all individuals incarcerated in the United States, revealed a dramatic racial disproportion of the incarcerated population in each state: the proportion of blacks in prison populations exceeded the proportion among state residents in every single state.

In twenty states, the percent of blacks incarcerated was at least five times greater than their share of resident population. According to DOJ 2009 data, Black non-Hispanic males, with an incarceration rate of 4,749 inmates per 100,000 U.S. residents of the same race and gender, were incarcerated at a rate more than 6 times higher than white non-Hispanic males (708 inmates per 100,000 U.S. residents) and 2.6 times higher than Hispanic males (1,822 inmates per 100,000 U.S. residents)

In August 2003, a Harper's article by Wil S. Hylton estimated that "somewhere between 20 and 40% of American prisoners are, at this very moment, infected with hepatitis C". Prisons may outsource medical care to private companies such as Correctional Medical Services, which, according to Hylton's research, try to minimize the amount of care given to prisoners in order to maximize profits.

In recent years, there has been much debate over the privatization of prisons. The argument for privatization stresses cost reduction, whereas the arguments against it focus on standards of care, and the question of whether a market economy for prisons might not also lead to a market demand for prisoners (tougher sentencing for cheap labor). While privatized prisons have only a short history, there is a long tradition of inmates in state and federal-run prisons undertaking active employment in prison for low pay.

Prisoners manufacture Combat Helmets, Body Armour, do data entry for Chevron, make telephone reservations for TWA, raise hogs, shovel manure, make circuit boards, limousines, waterbeds, and lingerie for Victoria's Secret. They also produce most of the small office furniture for he US Government ......... and all for 25c and hour, 40 hrs a week. No strikes. No union organizing. No unemployment insurance or workers' compensation to pay. No language problem, as in a foreign country.

U.S. Technologies sold its electronics plant in Austin, Texas, leaving its 150 workers unemployed. Six week later, the electronics plant reopened in a nearby prison.

And, more and more, prisons are charging inmates for basic necessities from medical care, to toilet paper, to use of the law library. Many states are now charging "room and board." Berks County prison in Pennsylvania is charging inmates $10 per day to be there. California has similar legislation pending. So, while government cannot (yet) actually require inmates to work at private industry jobs for less than minimum wage, they are forced to by necessity.