IN THE CAN

Washington, DC

This Week's Most Terrifying Statistic

Conservative politicians have tried to change America in many ways. None
may have a bigger effect than chucking ever more people in the can. By
2001, says a new Justice Department study, one in 20 American men had had
"prison experience". The figure for black men is close to one in
six. Aggressive sentencing laws, particularly for drug offences, mean that
the proportion of cons and ex-cons has doubled since 1974, from 1.3% of the
adult population to 2.7%.

The most amazing figures concern the future. Thanks to the world's
toughest incarceration policy, 11.3% of boys born in 2001 will go to jail
in their lifetimes. For black men, it will be one in three. Unless
something changes in the rotten rehabilitation record (two-thirds of
prisoners are rearrested within three years), conservative politicians will
have created a criminal class of unimaginable proportions.