CEPR On Incarceration

In 2009, over 7.2 million people were under some form of correctional supervision.  According to  CEPR June 2010    http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/incarceration-2010-06.pdf"The United States currently incarcerates a higher percentage of its population than any other country in the world. In 2008, over 2.3 million Americans were in prison or jail, and one of every 48 working-age men was behind bars. These rates are not just far above those of the rest of the world,they are also substantially higher than our own long-standing historical experience. The financial costs of our corrections policies are staggering. In 2008, federal, state, and local governments spent about $75 billion on corrections, the large majority of which was spent on incarceration".