The bush administration has taken away the last of their rights. This is why a group of inmates , en route to supermax prisons have sued their state, as to take them to these high security complexes, they receive no right to defend themselves legally, but they lose their right to parole. The issue of prisons in the United States is a controversial one, which divides the country in two< (yet again)>. The facts and statistics are simply too impressive when you realize you are talking about the country claiming to be the most free in the world. In california, more prisons are being built than schools are. Percentages of Americans imprisoned has reached very high levels.
The following extract is taken from Ethan Zuckerman’s blog(link on the right of this page) on his article on the prison blogger:
“According to the International Centre for Prison Studies at King’s College, London, the United States leads the world in total prison population, with roughly 2.1 million inmates. 6.6% percent of those inmates are not US citizens - the 1,950,000 American citizens in custody represent 0.67% of our nation. Because so many of the prisoners - 91.6% - are male, 1.33% of American males are incarcerated. The rates can be much higher within certain demographics - one set of estimates finds that 12.9% of black men between 25-29 were in jail or prison in the US in 2002. ”

According to these figures from Ethans Blog(and various others writing about the subject) It would be right to assume that almost 2 million americans are in prisons. To me that means that something is going quite wrong in the home of the brave and free….

posted by nick robinson