Statistics are PEOPLE

Statistics can be numbing.

I am asking you to un-numb yourself for a moment. To let these numbers sink in. To realize that behind these statistics, embedded in these numbers, are real people.

They are living out their lives both behind bars and in our communities.

I will continue to tell their stories. You need to continue to care. And to take action.

>The United States has the largest prison population in the world. We are home to five percent of the world’s population and nearly 25 percent of all prisoners.

>We have the highest per capita incarceration rate on the planet. In 2018 in the US, there were 698 people incarcerated per 100,000.

>The female prison population has doubled since 1990.

>70 million people in the US have a criminal record.

>While violent and property crimes are down by half since their peak decades ago, annual admissions to jails have nearly doubled during the same time period.

>Serious mental illness affects one-in-six men and one-in-three women in jail.

>There are as many as 2.7 million children who have a parent who is incarcerated.

>One in three black men and one in six Latino men will serve time in prison during their lives.