Capitalizing on Crime

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/005091.html

"You can get less time for second-degree murder than for stealing a six-pack of beer.'

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/005537.html

Since 1980 the U.S. prison and jail population has quadrupled in size to more than 2 million. With 2.2 million people engaged in catching criminals and putting and keeping them behind bars, "corrections" has become one of the largest sectors of the U.S. economy, employing more people than the combined workforces of General Motors, Ford and Wal-Mart, the three biggest corporate employers in the country.

Nearly 7 million adults were in U.S. prisons or on probation or parole at the end of last year, 30 percent more than in 1995, the Justice Department said Wednesday.

That was about one in every 31 adults under correctional supervision at the end of 2004, compared with about 1 in 36 adults in 1995 and about 1 adult in every 88 in 1980, said Allan J. Beck, who oversaw the preparation of the department's annual report on probation and parole populations.

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pre...es/012981.html