The death penalty doesn't deter crime. Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, the South has carried out 80% of the nation's executions, yet it has the highest murder rate of any region in the country.
About 4% of our population are in prison, add that to the 4%-6% unemployment rate and that means about 1 out of 10 U.S. citizens are either in jail or unemployed.
A study by the U.S. General Accounting Office found racial prejudice in death sentencing. The race of the murder victim was shown to be a determining factor; killers of whites were
proportionately more likely to be executed than were killers of blacks.
Most prison inmates are "kept" in there cells (sometimes at 200% capacity) for 20+ hours a day. Often inmates are confined to there cell 22+ hours a day, they are let out for meals and a very short time to exercise.
On death row in Huntsville Tx. you are transported for your execution across town, as they have no facilities there.
Experts estimate that at least 1/2 of 1% of the current inmate population is innocent. Records of these statistics are not kept. That would be 8000 innocent out of 1.6 million.
It is estimated that half of all death row inmates are minorities.
In Florida when visting an inmate you are not allowed to bring him anything unless it's purchased through the commisary
5.3 million people were on probation, in jail or prison, or on parole at yearend 1995--nearly 2.8% of all U.S. adult residents.
State and Federal prisons held about 1.2 million prisoners at yearend 1996.(1.6 at present)
At the end of 1995, the rate of confirmed AIDS in State and Federal prisons was more than 6 times higher than in the total U.S. population. Approximately 0.51% of all prisoners had confirmed AIDS.
Since the death penalty was reinstated by the Supreme Court in 1976, for every 7 prisoners who were executed, 1 prisoner awaiting execution was found to be innocent and released. That's 82 people who were on death row before their innocence was established, including 18 in Florida, 10 in
Illinois since 1994, and 6 nationwide just this year. Their release came about not because the system
worked, but in spite of it.
Alabama sentences more people to death per capita than any other state.
Alabama is 2nd (behind Texas) in the number of juveniles on death row.
31% of the black male population in Alabama has permanently lost the right to vote. (Highest in the country.)
