Incarceration Nation

(4 Credits)

In the world today there are ten countries that have the highest numbers of imprisoned populations. The US is first on that list, with almost 2.3 million people incarcerated. One in thirty-one people in the US is under some form of correctional supervision—from prisons, jails, and immigration detention centers to forensic hospitals and juvenile detention treatment facilities. By the early 2000's, over 2,500 children in the US had been sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. Almost half of Americans have family members who have been incarcerated. The magnitude of these and other similarly staggering statistics reveals what many today see as an American crisis.