From The Education Trust:
Introduction
The United States has the world’s largest prison system. While the U.S.
constitutes only 5% of the global population, it has more than 20% of the world’s
prison population — with nearly 2.3 million people in jails, prisons, and detention centers, according to estimates by the Prison Policy Initiative. This extreme rate of incarceration is particularly troubling, given that over two-thirds of people who are released from prison are rearrested within three years and more than 75% are rearrested within six years. We have long had a mass incarceration problem marked by vast racial and gender disparities. Due to a combination of factors, including systemic injustice, housing segregation, exposure to crime and violence, under-resourced schools, over-criminalization, bias in the criminal justice system, harsh school discipline and criminal sentencing policies, and a lack of economic opportunities, Black and Latino people and individuals from low-income backgrounds are vastly overrepresented in U.S. prisons and suffer disproportionately from the consequences of incarceration, as a 2020 analysis by New America notes. These consequences include limited educational and employment opportunities, voter disenfranchisement, and ineligibility for housing and public benefits, all of which contribute to distressingly high stress and recidivism rates.
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