Psychiatry Behind Bars
Examinations & Discoveries in the Correctional System
The United States of America
Correctional Prison System ranks #1… in all the wrong areas!
NEW POSTS COMING SOON!
“A nation’s greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members.”
INCARCERATION RATES
Total U.S. incarceration (prisons and jails) peaked in 2008, and total correctional population peaked in 2007. If all prisoners are counted (including those juvenile, territorial, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) (immigration detention), Indian country, and military), then in 2008 the United States had around 24.7% of the world's 9.8 million prisoners.
RACIAL INEQUALITIES
There is a disproportionate number of African Americans compared to other racial groups in the United States that are arrested or incarcerated. Figures from 2008 offer a better illustration of the situation with 28% of arrests involving African Americans and African American men comprising almost half of the current incarcerated population in the United States.
A PRIVATIZED SYSTEM
In the 1980s, the rising number of people incarcerated as a result of the ‘War on Drugs’ and the wave of privatization that saw the emergence of the for-profit prison industry.
Prior to the 1980s, private prisons did not exist in the US! The rise of the for-profit prison industry is a "major contributor" to "mass incarceration” rates.
“It’s a stark fact that the United States has less than 5 percent of the world’s population, yet we have almost 25 percent of the world’s total prison population.
The numbers today are much higher than they were 30, 40 years ago despite the fact that crime is at historic lows!”
“The United States had the highest prison population rate in the world, at 716 per 100,000 people.
More than half the 222 countries and territories in the World Prison Population List... had rates below 150 per 100,000!”
“In 2016, blacks represented 12% of the U.S. adult population but 33% of the sentenced prison population.
Whites accounted for 64% of adults but 30% of prisoners.
Hispanics represented 16% of the adult population, they accounted for 23% of inmates.”
