
Written
by Allyson Walker
Image by Peter
Macdiarmid / Getty Images
Roughly two-thirds of the nearly 700,000 people released
from U.S. prisons each year will be rearrested and many will be back behind
bars within just three years of their release.
A Growing Problem
This
sure isn’t helping to reduce the incarceration rate in the United States, which
has been the highest in the world for over a decade. In fact, while the U.S.
represents only about 5% of the world’s population, it houses 25% of the
world’s prisoners. With a cost of $24,000
per inmate per year and $5.1 billion in new prison construction, criminal
correction spending is the
second-fastest growing budgetary item after Medicaid.
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