Incarceration in the United States
This statistic floored me. For context, the total estimated population in 2008 is about 306 million. [1] Apparently, there are 2.30 million people incarcerated in the United States. [2] By contrast, we have 1.45 million active military personnel. [3] They're not really related statistics. There's no absolute reason you'd want either one to be above the other. But even so it astounds me. It gets even worse when you look at particular demographics: 1 in 15 black men above the age of 18 are incarcerated. [4] Correctional facility spending has risen 127% annually, while spending on education has only risen about 21%. [4] Makes you wonder what's wrong with our society.