> -----Original Message-----
> From: Doug Henwood [SMTP:dhenwood at panix.com]
> Sent: Friday, June 04, 1999 2:53 PM
> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> Subject: Re: Life in prison for stealing food
>
> Josh Mason wrote:
>
> >Re the larger topic of this thread, doesn't the US incarceration boom
> >have more to do with larger numbers of people being cycled through short
> >sentences than with time actually served getting longer?
>
> I just ransacked the BJS site and found only minimal historical data on
> sentence length. One report showed an increase from 1992 to 1994, but
> that's hardly enough to draw conclusions from. I suspect it's both - more
> people being cycled through, and more serving longer sentences. The three
> strikes stuff is relatively new, and is probably only beginning to show up
> in the stats.
>
> I've got an email into a BJS statistician begging for more info.
>
> >Along with the drug war (which is a smaller factor than it's sometimes
> >made out to be)
>
> Yeah, I was surprised at how low - relatively speaking - the drug share
> is,
> as outrageous and stupid as the war on drugs is. In 1996, 26% of prisoners
> (292,000 of them) were in for drug offenses, and drug convictions were
> responsible for 29% of the growth in the prison pop from 1990-96. That
> means the drug share is increasing, but not anywhere near as much as you
> might expect.
>
> Doug
>