Why are So Many Americans Incarcerated? A History of U.S. Prisons & Criminal Justice

While the US has only 5 percent of the world’s population, it accounts for nearly a quarter of its prisoners. There are nearly 2.3 million people in our nation’s prisons and jails. With 655 inmates for every 100,000 people, the U.S. is by far the leader in incarceration among Western countries. Continue reading