40 Reasons …

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/06/02/40-reasons-our-jails-and-prisons-are-full-black-and-poor-people

I thought this article, “40 Reasons Our Jails and Prisons Are Full of Black and Poor People” was interesting due to the easy to read “40 Reasons” aspect to it making it both compelling and informative. some reasons I found particularly stand out were, “One. It is not just about crime. Our jails and prisons have grown from holding about 500,000 people in 1980 to 2.2 million today. The fact is that crime rates have risen and fallen independently of our growing incarceration rates.”, “Twenty Five. Average prison sentences are much longer than they used to be, especially for people of color. Since 1990, the average time for property crimes has gone up 24 percent and time for drug crimes has gone up 36 percent. In the US federal system, nearly 75 percent of the people sent to prison for drug offenses are Black or Latino.” and “Twenty Seven. Almost 1 of 12 Black men ages 25 to 54 are in jail or prison, compared to 1 in 60 nonblack men. That is 600,000 African American men, an imprisonment rate of five times that of white men.”