South Africa under apartheid (1993)
Black males: 851 per 100,000
U.S. under George Bush (2006),
Black males: 4,789 per 100,000
Poverty
Gives them the Drugs
Builds Bigger Prisons
The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world at 737 persons imprisoned per 100,000[12]. A report released 2/28/08 indicates that in the United States more than 1 in 100 adults is now confined in an American jail or prison.[13] The United States has 5% of the world's population and 25% of the world's incarcerated population.[2]
In 2006 the incarceration rate in England and Wales is 139 persons imprisoned per 100,000 residents, while in Norway it is 59 inmates per 100,000, whilst the Australian imprisonment rate is 163 prisoners per 100,000 residents, and the rate of imprisonment in New Zealand last year was 179 per 100,000.
Justice Department surveys show that 52.7% of state prison inmates, 73.7% of jail inmates, and 87.6% of federal inmates were imprisoned for offenses which involved neither harm, nor the threat of harm, to a victim. Based on this data, we estimate that by the end of 1998, there were 440,088 nonviolent jail inmates, 639,280 nonviolent state prison inmates, and 106,090 nonviolent federal prisoners locked up in America, for a total 1,185,458 nonviolent prisoners.
