Crime and prison population

The answer to this question is astounding: the U.S. incarcerates 25% of the world’s prison population with only 7% of the world’s population. This is a disturbing anamoly in the history of the world. Never before has a country been able to incarcerate so many people at such a high rate, two million and 1 in 127 respectively. These large numbers are incredibly difficult to think about in meaningful terms. But if you can imagine the …

…incarceration rate for drugs was just 6%, and today it is about 28%. Thus, the decrease in the percentage of violent offenders came mostly with the increase of drug offenders, and this process was fueled by a sensationlized fear of drugs, not violent crime. This means that the electorate is not quite as fooled as Zimmring thinks, and that people quite knowingly went about creating a war on drugs and some of the people who use them.