Prison Policy Initiative highlights ten stats about modern criminal justice system

Emily Widra at Prison Policy Initiative has produced this new item under the title “Ten statistics about the scale and impact of mass incarceration in the U.S.”  The stats listed, along with PPI’s signature visuals, actually cover a lot more than incarceration, and here is how the list is set up:

The United States’ reliance on incarceration outpaces most of the globe: every single state incarcerates more people per capita than virtually any independent democracy on Earth.  But the sheer magnitude and impact of a system so large can be hard to fully comprehend.  We looked back over some of the best criminal legal system research and chose these ten statistics as some of the most handy for advocates, policymakers, and journalists working to help the public appreciate just how far-reaching mass incarceration is in this country.

Here are a couple of the items from the list (with links from the original):

• People cycle through local jails more than 7 million times each year.

• 3.7 million people are held under community supervision such as probation and parole — more people than are held in jails and prisons combined.

• More than 79 million people in the U.S. have a criminal record, creating barriers to housing, jobs, healthcare, and food assistance, among many other collateral consequences.