It’s common knowledge that the U.S. has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world, especially among it minority populations.
Less known is that those numbers are dropping, ableit slowly. As reported in thesamefacts.com, this is the “most underreported public policy story of the past year: The continuing decline in the number of Americans who are behind bars or on probation/parole. Both the change itself and low level of attention it has garnered are worthy of reflection.” Keith Humphries offers some excellent analysis:
“At the time of President Obama’s inauguration, the incarceration rate in the United States had been
rising every single year since the mid 1970s.The relentless growth in the proportion of Americans behind bars had persisted through good economic times and bad, Republican and Democratic Presidents, and countless changes in state and local politics around the country. Continue reading “American prison population quietly declines”