Prison Index

In 2001, the U.S. incarceration rate for adult black men was 7,226 per 100,000; the incarceration rate for adult black men in South Africa, under apartheid in 1993, was 851 per 100,000.

In 2000, the federal government handed down 23,120 sentences for drug violations; almost 4% of our civil labor force either works in a prison or works to put people there.

The Bureau of Prisons expects to have 211,516 people in federal prison in the year 2009; between 1992 and 2000, the Drug Enforcement Agency seized more than $5.5 billion in assets.

Some of the above-mentioned statistics are well known; others are more obscure. Some focus on crime in America; others focus on crime control as industry. Some reflect predictions about the future; others reflect hard dollars and cents.

What these criminal justice statistics have in common, however, is that they are almost always impossible to find when you need them. But now, for the first time, verified crime-control facts, statistics, and trends like these are available in one comprehensive and easy-to-use volume.

The Prison Index: Taking the Pulse of the Crime Control Industry is the first index of statistics about our nation's criminal justice system ever published. Containing 611 facts and 17 graphs and charts, this 48-page volume presents, in black-and-white, the state of crime control in America.

The Prison Index is organized in four sections, each targeting a different aspect of our justice system. Crime & PunishmentIncarceration & Its Consequences features information regarding public perception of crime, crime rates for various offenses, juvenile justice, and the death penalty. tackles incarceration rates, prison conditions, the makeup of our prison population, and the disenfranchisement of the convicted. The third section of The Prison Index, The Prison Economy, focuses on budgeting, prison industry, privatization and related economic topics. The final section, Global Comparisons, puts the American experiment with prisons and crime into an international context. Statistics reflect historical data, the present picture, and projections about the frightening consequences should the American approach to criminal justice remain consistent in the years ahead.

The Prison Index is authored by Peter Wagner, assistant director of the Prison Policy Initiative, creator of the popular crime-control Internet portal site Prisonsucks.com, and author of the groundbreaking study, "Importing Constituents: Prisoners and Political Clout in New York." In this volume, Wagner continues his unflinching efforts to expose the naked truth about the crime control industry by presenting readers, not with a political viewpoint, but fact after alarming fact.

Whether you are an attorney, a student, an activist, a journalist, a policy maker, or a citizen concerned about the state of crime control in America, this concise and affordable volume puts valuable and time-saving research at your fingertips.

The Prison Index was published by the Western Prison Project and the Prison Policy Initiative in 2003. We hope you find these facts useful.