Check out these statistics...
From Social Justice Wiki
On April 13, 2005, Professor, activist, and artist " " Alfred visited Robin D.G. Kelley's class, Black Movements in the U.S. He distributed a handout with these disturbing statistics:
There are over 2.2 million people incarcerated in the United States - a per capita higher than any other country in the world.
The number of prisoners in state and federal prisons has increased by 700% in the last 30 years., from under 350,000 in 1970 to currently over 2.2 million people.
Black men are 6% of U.S. population, but over 50% of the prison population.
African Americans today make up only 14% of all the drug users nationally, but 35% of all drug arrests, 55% of all drug convictions, and 75% of all prison admissions for drug offenses.
The vast majority of new arrests, convictions and prison admissions in the United States are for non-violent drug offenses--offenses that many other countries remedy with treatment programs, not jail time.
80% of the women in prison are the mothers of children under the age of 18.
$50 Billion is spent each year to run prisons.
Over 4.1 million Americans have currently or permanently lost their voting rights as a result of felony conviction. The state of Florida accounts for over 800,000 of these disenfranchised citizens.
Over 650,000 people are released from jails and prisons every year.
In New York State, 80% of all prisoners come from seven neighborhoods in New York City--South Bronx, Harlem, Lower East Side, South Jamaica, Brownsville, Bedford-Stuyvesant, and East New York.
Read what others involved in the "anti-prison" movement have to say here: Voices representing the voiceless