Prisoners of Ideology

"The huge expansion of the U.S. prison population has little to do with the level of crime. According to the most reliable data, U.S. crime rates have been stable or in decline since the mid-1970s. With the notable exception of homicide, crime rates in the U.S. are comparable to those of other developed countries that imprison their inhabitants at a much lower rate. Moreover, public concern about crime is not closely correlated with the actual crime rate, but shifts in relation to the amount of attention given to crime in the media and to the level of political rhetoric."