It's finally here. For the first time in history, 1 in 100 American adults is behind bars:
Nationwide, the prison population grew by 25,000 last year, bringing it to almost 1.6 million. Another 723,000 people are in local jails. The number of American adults is about 230 million, meaning that one in every 99.1 adults is behind bars.
Incarceration rates are even higher for some groups. One in 36 Hispanic adults is behind bars, based on Justice Department figures for 2006. One in 15 black adults is, too, as is one in nine black men between the ages of 20 and 34.
The report, from the Pew Center on the States, also found that only one in 355 white women between the ages of 35 and 39 are behind bars but that one in 100 black women are.
The report’s methodology differed from that used by the Justice Department, which calculates the incarceration rate by using the total population rather than the adult population as the denominator. Using the department’s methodology, about one in 130 Americans is behind bars.
Either way, said Susan Urahn, the center’s managing director, “we aren’t really getting the return in public safety from this level of incarceration.”
Lots of people in jail have untreated mental illnesses. Perhaps even most of them, which leads to the drug and alcohol abuse.
And everyone in jail ought to be getting Omega 3s in their diet, which reduces violent behavior. We need to just get more Omega 3s into the entire food system, actually. Our diets have become deficient in it over the last fifty years as there is more processed food and less natural food, and less fish in our diets.
Amazing how many problems might be solved simply by better nutrition.