[By golly, Justin, as PR-spinning goes, it's hard to beat your clarion declaration of juridical high-mindedness. But our legal system is of course a sham. From the NY Times, the latest exhibit:]
Prison Rates Among Blacks Reach a Peak, Report Finds
By FOX BUTTERFIELD
An estimated 12 percent of African-American men ages 20 to 34 are in jail or prison, according to a report released yesterday by the Justice Department.
The proportion of young black men who are incarcerated has been rising in recent years, and this is the highest rate ever measured, said Allen J. Beck, the chief prison demographer for the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the statistical arm of the Justice Department.
By comparison, 1.6 percent of white men in the same age group are incarcerated.
The report found that the number of people in United States jails and prisons exceeded 2 million for the first time last year, rising to 2,019,234. ...
Mr. Beck said that the 12 percent of black men in their 20's and early 30's in jail or prison was "a very dramatic number, very significant."
That is just the rate on a given day, Mr. Beck said. Over the course of a lifetime, the rates are much higher, he said. The Bureau of Justice Statistics has calculated that 28 percent of black men will be sent to jail or prison in their lifetime.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/07/national/07PRIS.html>
Carl
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