Monday, February 28, 2005

Prison facts

Just reading the latest Economist and there is an article about California's prisons...lots of interesting data!

California Prison at Los Angeles...Mission Statement. "The purpose of prison is punishment"

California prisons house 163,000 prisoners @ an annual cost of $31,000 each.

163,000 is more than the combined numbers of prisoners of France, Germany and the Netherlands.

The recividism rate is 75%

The prisons are designed to house approximately half the number that are currently incarcerated.

There are 30,000 prisoners serving life terms

The good/bad news: over 100,000 prisoners will be released this year. The bad/good news...more than that number will be sentenced or returned to prison.

As one inmate said..." If I go back to the streets, I can make $60,000 a week selling drugs. What's the Correction Department doing to give us jobs? Basically this is a big warehouse for human beings who've done wrong."

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