The Justice Dept. released new data yesterday on the state of our prison system, and it's unsurprisingly depressing.
A few highlights:
"The number of people held in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities grew 43 percent"
"In several states, incarceration rates for blacks were more than 10 times the rate of whites."
"The female jail and prison population has grown at double the rate for men since 1980; in 2006 it increased 4.5 percent, its fastest clip in five years."
One of these days, we're all going to release how inhumane this is. I hope.
Please consider supporting our work.
I hope you found this article important. Before you leave, I want to ask you to consider supporting our work with a donation. In These Times needs readers like you to help sustain our mission. We don’t depend on—or want—corporate advertising or deep-pocketed billionaires to fund our journalism. We’re supported by you, the reader, so we can focus on covering the issues that matter most to the progressive movement without fear or compromise.
Our work isn’t hidden behind a paywall because of people like you who support our journalism. We want to keep it that way. If you value the work we do and the movements we cover, please consider donating to In These Times.
Adam Doster, a contributing editor at In These Times, is a Chicago-based freelance writer and former reporter-blogger for Progress Illinois.
