Some 2.2 million people were locked up in federal and state prisons or local jails, an increase of nearly 3 percent over last year. Another 4.1 million were on probation and nearly 800,000 on parole. The United States has 5 percent of the world’s population but 22 percent of the world’s prisoners, according to a 2003 report by the Prison Policy Initiative.

While the numbers locked up jumped sharply under the Clinton administration, the prison population has continued to increase since then. The total number of people incarcerated rose 35 percent from 1995 to 2005, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Of those behind bars in 2005, about 40 percent were Black and 20 percent Latino. Blacks comprise 12.3 percent of the U.S. population as a whole; Latinos, 12.5 percent. Some 8.1 percent of Black males aged 25 to 29 —about one in 13—are behind bars, compared with 1.1 percent of white males in that age group.

The number of women in jail rose 2.6 percent last year, with women now accounting for 7 percent of all inmates in federal and state prisons.

Individuals sentenced for drug law violations accounted for 55 percent of the prison population in 2003. Those jailed on immigration charges rose nearly 400 percent from 1995 to 2003, accounting for 10 percent of federal inmates, the Bloomberg news agency reported.
 
 
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