Inmates are forced to work for cents an hour. Meanwhile, others profit off their labor by the millions.
SOURCE: ACLU | Green America | NPR
are in jail or prison.
SOURCE: American Enterprise Institute, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Science Daily
The criminal justice system costs U.S taxpayers more than $183 billion per year in indirect and direct costs.
SOURCE: Vera Institute of Justice, Resilient Education, Collegecalc.Org
The way we “do” imprisonment is a form of modern-day slavery, and clearly an extension of the shameful racist history we have in America, as well.
SOURCE: Liberty University Law Review | Bureau of Justice Statistics | NAACP
than we spend educating our kids. And this is true in all 50 states.
SOURCE: Vera Institute of Justice, Resilient Education, Collegecalc.Org
The unemployment rate for formerly incarcerated people is nearly five times higher than the unemployment rate for the general population in the USA. Formerly incarcerated people want to work. Their high unemployment rate reflects public will, policy, and practice - not differences in aspirations.
SOURCE: Prison Policy Initiative | The New York Times
Slavery is alive and well in America today.
SOURCE: Vera.org | Walk Free
for the crimes of another person simply because they were present.
SOURCE: Prison Policy Initiative | PubMed Central
often for many years even over the most minor infractions - because this ensures their own job security.
SOURCE: LawInfo | Adult Parole Board
who work in the prisons and the courts, however, for some reason, staff members who work for the Department of Justice and its sub-divisions are frequently not held responsible for their crimes.
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Justice | Prison Professors
Traumatized, addicted drug addicts are punished for being weak.
SOURCE: Crime and Justice | Vera.org | BU School of Public Health
The U.S. has the highest rate of juvenile detention among developed countries, with thousands of youths incarcerated in adult facilities each year.
SOURCE: Ignatian Solidarity Network | Children’s Defense Fund
SOURCE: U.S Department of Justice | LSEUPR
but 25% of the world’s incarcerated are in the land of the free.
SOURCE: PRIF blig | Institute of Policy Studies
of defendants sentenced to death in the U.S. are later shown to be innocent.
SOURCE: Innocence Project | Death Penalty Info | eji.org
are under some form of correctional control
15 million People touch the criminal justice system each year
20 million Americans have felony convictions
SOURCE: American Enterprise Institute, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Science Daily
with very little oversight from the outside.
SOURCE: Solitary Watch
in U.S. prisons has been criticized for its detrimental psychological effects, with many equating it to torture.
SOURCE: Medical News Today | Prison Policy | Applied Psychology OPUS | PubMed
The U.S. also has one of the largest systems of immigration detention, where thousands of non-citizens, including asylum seekers and children, are held in often substandard conditions.
SOURCE: Immigrant Justice | Northwest Immigrant Rights Project | American Immigration Council
are disproportionately affected by the criminal justice system, with one in three likely to be incarcerated in their lifetime.
SOURCE: PEW Search | Human Rights Watch | Statista | NAACP
with about two-thirds of released prisoners being rearrested within three years, questioning the effectiveness of the penal system in rehabilitating offenders.
SOURCE: USSC | CCJ | Scholar Works | COPS U.S. Department of Justice
and they break one of our laws, wouldn’t a spot in a mental health facility/hospital make more sense for them than a prison?
SOURCE: Your Health in Mind | Very Well Mind
for crack versus powder cocaine offenses, which disproportionately affect minority communities.
SOURCE: PubMed | NYU | Prison Policy
where those unable to afford bail are more likely to plead guilty regardless of actual guilt.
SOURCE: Prison Policy | ACLU | American Action Forum | Vera.org | AP News
53% of people in prison are parents of minor children
63% of those parents lived with their children prior to their arrest
2.7M children have a parent in prison
SOURCE: Bureau of Justice Statistics | The Sentencing Project | Pew Charitable Trusts
Clearly, the biggest humanitarian crisis in the USA today is our corrupted, racist, inhumane, unjust, ineffective, expensive, backwards, antiquated justice system. Any of us or those we love could become its victim. America, it is time to wake up and start caring about the people whose lives we throw away so easily because we trust a system that is unworthy of our trust.
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