Criminal justice by the numbers

by Matt Kelley · 2008-10-05 17:51:00 UTC
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The American criminal justice system is a sprawling empire that touches millions of lives across the country. Here are some numbers:

Number of people in prison and jails around the world: 9.25 million

Percentage of the world's prisoners who are in U.S. prisons and jails: 27

Percentage of Americans in prison or jail: 1

Percentage of Americans in prison or jail or on parole or probation: 3.2

Percentage of U.S. prisoners who are women: 6.6

Percentage of U.S. prisoners who are African-American men: 35.5

Percentage of U.S. prisoners who are members of a racial or ethnic minority group: 64

Percentage of African-Americans in prison or jail: 4.6

Percentage of black South Africans in prison under apartheid in 1993: .08

Percentage of children in the U.S. with a parent in prison: 2.3

Chance that an American will go to prison during their lifetime: 6.6%

Chance that an African-American man will go to prison during his life: 32%

Chance that a released prisoner will be rearrested within 3 years: 67.5%

Percentage of U.S. prisoners with mental health problems: 56

Percentage of male U.S. prisoners with HIV or AIDS: 1.6

Percentage of female U.S. prisoners with HIV or AIDS: 2.4

Decline in AIDS cases in U.S. prison population from 2006 to 2005: 3.1%

Estimated percentage of U.S. prisoners with Hepatitis C: 33

Amount spent on criminal justice (police, courts and prisons) in the U.S. in 2005: $204 billion

Amount spent per capita in the U.S.: $660

Increase in criminal justice expenditures by local governments, 1982 to 2005: 396%

Increase in criminal justice expenditures by state governments, 1982 to 2005: 510%

Increase in criminal justice expenditures by U.S. federal government, 1982 to 2005: 730%

Executions around the world in 2005, 2006 and 2007: 2,148, 1,591, 1,252

Executions in the U.S. in 2005, 2006 and 2007: 60, 53, 42

Percentage of people executed in the U.S. since 1976 who were African-American: 34

Percentage of U.S. population that is African-American: 12.3

White District Attorneys in death penalty states: 1,794

African-American and Hispanic District Attorneys in death penalty states: 44

Defendants who served time on death row and were later proven innocent by DNA testing: 17

People exonerated by DNA testing after serving time for crimes they didn't commit: 222

Percentage of DNA exonerations that involved eyewitness misidentifications: 77

Percentage that involved a false confession: 25

Matt Kelley is the Online Communications Manager at the Innocence Project and a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. Follow him on Twitter @mattjkelley.
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