Proliferating or Metastasizing?

Created by Paul Rucker at the Blue Mountain Residency for Prison Issues

Green: 1778-1900
Yellow: 1901-1940
Orange: 1941-1980
Red: 1981-2005

Nathan Eyring - Animation
Aaron Bourget- Video Editing
Rose Heyer - Research
Troy Glessner - Music Mastering

Since 1976, we've been building on average one prison per week. There are now nearly 2.5 million people in prison in the United States, about equal to the number of farmers. 
  

Number of people incarcerated, per 100,000 population in the US:  760

Rank of the US among countries with the highest incarceration rate: 1

The incarceration rate per 100,000 for black and hispanic men respectively: 4618 and 1747

Number of black men, per 100,000, incarcerated in South Africa in 1993: 681

Percent of black males in the US between 25 and 29 who are in prison: 10

 Percent of blacks in the total US population and the prison population, respectively: 12,44

 Percent of total world's incarcerated held by the US: 23.4

 Percentage of the estimated total population of extraterritorial U.S. prisons that is held at Guantánamo: 1

 

Percentage change during the first ten months of the Iraq war “surge” in the number of Iraqis detained in U.S.-run prisons: +63 

U.S. Marine Corps Public Affairs (Baghdad)

    Percentage change in the number of Iraqis aged nine to seventeen detained: +285 

Amount that a Colorado state prisoner is paid to work a day as a field hand at a local farm: 60¢

 

    Amount the prisons are paid by farmers for each inmate’s daily work: $77.20

Estimated number of children with a mother in prison: 147,400 

Number of states that prohibit shackling women prisoners while in labor: 10