Prison

If this were happening anywhere else in the world, Americans would be justifiably horrified: 1 out of every 100 adults are living behind bars in the United States, with 1 in 31 in some sort of correctional control, including prison, jail, parole, and probation. The United States, with 5% of the world’s population, has 25% of the worlds prison population. Private prisons are operating around the country at the local and state level, and a majority of them include “occupancy requirements mandating that local or state government keep those facilities between 80 and 100 percent full. In other words, whether crime is rising or falling, the state must keep those beds full.”