With 2,166,260 inmates incarcerated in U.S. prisons, 1 out of every 143 Americans is now in jail, and even though the U.S. has only 5 percent of the worldÆs population it houses 25 percent of the worldÆs imprisoned population (Longley(2) 1). Many American states spend more on prison refurbishing, expansion and construction of new prisons than they do on education, Pennsylvania and California among them. After September 11, the number of non-citizen inmates began to escalate, with 88,776 non-citizens now in U.S. state and federal institutions (Longley(1) 1). The focus of this essay is to report on ôwhoö is in prison in the U.S.
Perhaps an easier question than ôWhoÆs in jail?ö in the U.S. would be ôWhoÆs not in jail?ö The answer would be primarily white Americans. The U.S. prison system is not an equal opportunity housing institution. With 465 white inmates per 100,000 white males in the population, there are 2.5 times (1,231) more Hispanics per 100,000 Hispanic males in prison and nearly 8 times (3,405) more African Americans per 100,000 African American males in prison than whites (Prison 1). Such disparities in incarceration rates have created enormous controversy among minorities over what they perceive to be a biased and prejudicial criminal justice system.
With respect to exactly ôwhoö is in U.S. prisons, the answers are fairly easy to provide on a statistical level. At the state and federal level, many more males are incarcerated than females. The federal prison population, at the end of 2003, held 167,964 males and 12,354 females (Quick 2). By comparison, using the state of Colorado, at the end of 2001 there were 13,248 males in prison and 1,157 females (DOC 79). With respect to ethnicity, overall there are many more African Americans and Hispanics in jail than whites. Using Colorado again, typical of all states, there were 212.1 whites per 100,000 whites incarcerated com
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