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| 150-151 |
China's rate of imprisonment appears to be on the low side, at 113 people per 100,000. But official figures may represent only 13 percent of those deprived of freedom. Dissident Harry Wu, a former prisoner who has studied the Chinese system, estimates that 4-6 million people are sentenced to "reform through labor," 3-5 million are in "re-education" labor camps, and 8-10 million are forced to work in prison factories or farms. Millions more are held in pre-trial detention. |
justice |
| 150-151 |
In the United States, the prison population has risen rapidly since the 1970s, when state and federal governments began to require mandatory and increasingly lengthy prison sentences for drug possession. The populatin in state and federal prisons grew from fewer than 200,000 inmates in 1970 to 1.2 million in 1998, with another 600,000 in local jails. Some 36 percent of prisoners entering state prisons and 71 percent of those in federal prisons were convicted of drug offenses. The drug-driven rapid increase in prison populations has led to widespread overcrowding; California's system, for example, is running at twice its intended capacity -- despite the construction of 21 new prisons in the past 20 years. |
justice drug war |
| 150-151 |
In many countries, drug offenses are handled through treatment programs rather than through imprisonment. Arizona recently adopted such an approach. Because imprisonment costs the state $50 per day, while treatment, counseling, and probation run just $16 per day, Arizona saved more than $2.5 million the first year of the change in policy. More than three quarters of the people on probation stayed free of drugs thus far. |
justice drug war |
