Land of the Unfree

Jailhouse Blues

The U.S. accounts for less than 5% of the world’s population, but almost 25% of its prisoners. More than 2.3m people are incarcerated, the Economist writes in its latest edition.

A third of all African-American men can expect to be locked up at some point. Blacks are imprisoned six times, Hispanics twice the rates of whites. As a result, there only 85 black males to every 100 black women, which is why so many black mothers have to raise their children alone.

No country in the world imprisons as many people as America does, at an average cost to society of $68,000 a year per convict. Many of those locked up have no proper access to training, education or rehabilitation. And when they are released (if they ever are), many states make it preposterously hard for them to find jobs.

BTW: they still call America the Land of the Free? I wonder why…