7M in U.S. Jails, on Probation or Parole

Kasie Hunt
Associated Press, 30 November 2006.

A record 7 million people—or one in every 32 American adults—were behind bars, on probation or on parole by the end of last year, according to the Justice Department. Of those, 2.2 million were in prison or jail, an increase of 2.7 percent over the previous year, according to a report released Wednesday.
More than 4.1 million people were on probation and 784,208 were on parole at the end of 2005. Prison releases are increasing, but admissions are increasing more.
....by year's end, 7 percent of all inmates were women.

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Mumia Addresses the World Death Penalty Conference
By LINN WASHINGTON, Jr.
Counterpunch February 17 2007

[Mumia Abu-Jamal, who has been on Death Row for 25 years, addressed the Conference]

"Abu-Jamal is known widely as the "Voice of the Voiceless" for his work as a journalist before his arrest and during his decades on death row. He has consistently maintained his innocence yet rarely speaks or writes about his case despite having published and broadcast thousand of commentaries from prison on various subjects including the death penalty.
"...Death row is a web that catches only the poor. Race and poverty are excellent predictors of who ends up on death row," said Abu-Jamal, recognized internationally as a symbol of injustice in the US
...Abu-Jamal told Congress delegates that he was "honored" to be able to speak on behalf of the 3,344 on death rows across America. Pennsylvania contains America's fourth largest death row with 228 inmates. "