Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here: Pew Report Documents Prison Population Explosion

Or so Dante described the words at the portals to Hell in The Inferno.

The phrase could describe the new American reality. A new Pew Report says that, for the first time, more than one in every 100 American adults is in jail or prison. The report tracks the surge in inmate population. The report, released Thursday by the Pew Center on the States, said the 50 states spent more than $49 billion on corrections last year, an increase from the less than $11 billion spent 20 years ago. Furthermore, the rate of increase for prison costs was six times greater than for spending on higher education, according to the report. Using state-by-state data, the report said 2,319,258 adults were held in U.S. prisons or jails at the start of 2008 - one out of every 99.1 adults, and more than any other country in the world. The complete report is available here.