Calling for Prison Reform

Source: Statistics as of June 30, 2004 from Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2004, Tables 1, 14 and 15 and U.S. Census. (Peter Wagner, June 2005)

As the nation rightfully pauses this weekend to remember our soldiers, who died in battles to win, protect and preserve our freedoms, we still have a ways to go before we win social justice. The critical need for prison reform draws us to the battlefield of public conscious. Today, 2.3 million Americans are behind bars. Blacks are 6.4 times as likely to be incarcerated as whites, reports the Prison Policy Initiative. Michelle Alexander, a law professor at Ohio State University, has written a must-read analysis on the incarceration of blacks.  This weekend pick up The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.

For more information on this subject, visit: http://www.prisonpolicy.org/graphs/raceinc.html

Calling for Prison Reform