http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=87395&sectionid=3510203

7.3 million people in US prisons in '07

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 18:03:44 GMT

US prison population at record high

A record high-number of 7.3 million Americans were behind bars or under a

correction system in the US in 2007, according to a research.

The record-high number, one in every 31 adults, includes people in prison or jail,

and on probation or parole.

The results of the research conducted by Pew Center further indicated on Monday

that America's prison population has skyrocketed over the past quarter century.

In 1982, 1 in 77 adults were in the correctional system in one form or another,

totaling 2.2 million people.

"New community supervision strategies and technologies need to be strengthened

and expanded, not scaled back," said Adam Gelb, director of Pew's Public Safety

Performance Project.

"Cutting them may appear to save a few dollars, but it doesn't. It will fuel the cycle of

more crime, more victims, more arrests, more prosecutions, and still more

imprisonment," he continued.

Most of those in the US corrections system -- one in 45 -- are already on probation or

parole, with one in 100 in prison or jail, the Pew study found.

Those numbers are higher in certain areas of the country, and Georgia tops all states

with one in 13 adults in the justice system. The other leading states are Idaho, where

one in 18 are in corrections and Texas, where the rate is one in 22. In the nation's

capital, Washington, D.C., nearly 5 percent of adults are in the city's penal system.

The United States has the highest incarceration rate and the biggest prison

population of any country in the world, according to figures from the US Department

of Justice.

The United States has 5 percent of the world's population, but 25 percent of the

world's prison inmates, the center said.

RB/DT

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