11/84Ratio of physicians to inhabitants in the Soviet Union: 1:270
Ratio of physicians to inhabitants in the United States: 1:520
7/86Rank of the Soviet Union, South Africa, and the United States in per capita prison population: 1,2,3
9/86Number of state and federal prisoners granted early release in 1985 because of prison overcrowding: 18,617
Number of guards in New York City jails who committed suicide in 1986: 7
7/87Amount Dennis Levine earns each month working on the maintenance crew at Lewisburg Federal Prison: $50
Percentage today: 46
5/88Number of Israeli soldiers who have been jailed for refusing to serve in the West Bank and Gaza Strip: 9
8/89Rank of the prison system, among the fastest-growing sectors of government employment: 1
1/90Number of days in prison to which Zsa Zsa Gabor was sentenced in 1989 for slapping a police officer: 3
10/90Years it would take Jim Bakker to earn enough to pay his federal fine at his current job cleaning prison toilets: 2,331
4/90Number of times Noriega’s prisoner number was bet in the first Florida state lottery held after he was arrested: 12,139
8/90Federal funds spent on drug-rehabilitation programs for state and local prison inmates last year: $2,000,000
Federal funds budgeted for these programs this year: 0
4/92Ratio of federal spending on prison construction to federal spending on public-housing construction since 1990: 4:3
6/93Chances that an inmate’s suicide in a local U.S. jail will occur within one hour of incarceration: 1 in 2
7/93Ratio of the number of drug offenders sent to state prisons in 1990 to the number sent in 1980: 12:1
10/94Height, in feet, of a West Virginia prison wall scaled last June by an escaping inmate using a cord made of dental floss: 18
12/94Weeks in jail served by a Polish journalist in 1992 for calling Solidarity leaders “politicos,” “careerists,” and “dopes”: 10
12/94Maximum jail sentence, in years, for publicly denying the existence of the Holocaust, according to a new German law: 5
5/94Amount by which a California public-school teacher’s average annual salary exceeds that of a state prison guard: $1,000
5/94Percentage of U.S. federal judges who oppose mandatory minimum sentencing: 92
6/94Percentage of Americans who would rather spend a week in jail than be president of the United States: 52
8/94Price paid at auction last year for Pete Rose’s good-behavior voucher from an Illinois minimum-security prison: $770
9/94Number of European governments suspected of torturing prisoners last year, according to Amnesty International: 9
Chances that an American sentenced for crack-related offenses is white: 1 in 25
1/95Number of states that are under court order to alleviate overcrowding and poor conditions at one or all of their prisons: 39
10/95Amount an auditor estimated last year that Oregon could save each year by feeding prisoners less food: $62,000
10/95Number of microwave ovens blown up at a New York State prison this year by inmates trying to light cigarettes: 15
12/95Ratio of the voltage of fences proposed for Alabama’s high-security prisons to that of an electric chair: 5:2
12/95Minutes after an Oklahoma prisoner was released from the hospital for a drug overdose that he was executed: 40
12/95Gross revenue earned by U.S. telephone companies last year from phone calls made by prisoners: $1,000,000,000
4/95Days in jail served by a Michigan man last year after being convicted of secretly videotaping people using his bathroom: 75
5/95Rank of Georgia among states with the largest percentage of residents in prison, on parole, or on probation: 2
6/95Number of the 272 U.S. prisoners executed since 1976 who were white men convicted of killing a black man: 1
9/95Chances that a black resident of South Dakota is in prison: 1 in 10
1/96Amount Americans spend each day on goods produced by prison labor: $1,600,000
1/96Number of days after escaping a Danish prison last August that an inmate asked to be allowed back in: 26
10/96Percentage of Dan Rostenkowski’s congressional pension benefits he will forfeit during his stay in prison this year: 0
10/96Percentage change since 1989 in the number of federal prison inmates over the age of forty-nine: +88
2/96Number of plastic liners used by Florida prisons last year to combat chafing caused by leg irons: 280
2/96Years in jail a California man was sentenced to last year after his third burglary offense, the theft of four cookies: 26
6/96Chances a Californian lives or works in a prison: 1 in 200
7/96Days in jail to which a British retiree was sentenced in February for excessive pigeon feeding: 56
8/96Months after a child molester was paroled from prison in 1994 that a VA hospital gave him a penile implant: 10
8/96Amount of cash inmates compete to grab from between a bull’s horns each year at the Oklahoma State Prison Rodeo: $100
8/96Days in jail to which a Pennsylvania man was sentenced last March for repeatedly oinking at his ex-wife: 30
10/97Number of Illinois death-row prisoners released since 1977 after their convictions were overturned: 9
11/97Years it took a prisoner injured at the 1975 Attica prison riots to win a judgment against New York State last June: 26
Number of other Attica prisoners’ cases pending: 1,280
12/97Ratio of the number of prisoners per 100,000 people in China to the number per 100,000 in the U.S.: 2:5
12/97Number of Florida state prisons that have cell-door locks that can be broken by striking them with a shoe: 16
12/97Percentage change since last year in the number of prisoners beheaded in Saudi Arabia: +146
3/97Number of ex-inmates of South Africa’s Robben Island Prison who now serve as tour guides there: 4
Number of ex-guards who do: 2
5/97Chance that an African-American man was ineligible to vote last year due to former or current imprisonment: 1 in 7
9/97Chance that a U.S. prison inmate over the age of 55 has been incarcerated for less than a year: 1 in 4
11/98Estimated number of American women arrested for child abuse since 1977 after using drugs or alcohol while pregnant: 200
12/98Years in prison to which a former CIA agent was sentenced last fall for attempting to extort $1 million from the agency: 5
5/98Percentage of violent offenders in state prisons whose crime was committed under the influence of alcohol alone: 21
6/98Ratio of California prison jobs created between 1984 and 1994 to state jobs in higher education cut during that time: 3:1
7/98Amount the California prison system has spent since 1993 to prevent birds from being electrocuted by its fences: $3,400,000
4/99Settlement paid 3 female federal inmates last year after guards sold them as sex slaves to male prisoners: $500,000
5/99Days the President should spend in jail “simply for hitting on a dog like” Paula Jones, according to O.J. Simpson: 30
6/99Percentage change since 1991 in the number of U.S. inmates who were illegal-drug users at the time of their arrest: +68
1/00Percentage change since 1990 in the number of prison beds in privately owned or managed U.S. prisons: +856
11/00Days by which a Texan’s prison sentence for candy-bar theft this year exceeded his sentence for marijuana possession: 550
12/00Factor by which Texas’s incarceration rate has increased since 1990 for every 1 percent drop in its crime rate: 4
Factor by which New York’s incarceration rate has increased since then for every 1 percent drop in its crime rate: 0.7
12/00Percentage of Americans who say they would prefer being executed to serving a life sentence without parole: 48
12/00Number of Falun Gong members arrested in China who have died in, en route to, or shortly after their release from prison: 53
2/00Estimated profit earned by New York State last year on collect calls made by prisoners: $21,000,000
3/00Damages awarded this year to prisoners who “suffered reprisals” after the 1971 Attica prison uprising, per prisoner: $6,250
4/00Number of flowers that prison inmates plant each spring at the Illinois State Fairgrounds: 110,000
7/00Chances that a drug offense by a black U.S. juvenile with no prior jail time will result in imprisonment: 48 in 100,000
Chance that a drug offense by a white juvenile with no prior jail time will do so: 1 in 100,000
10/01Spending money that Slobodan Milosevic can earn per day for laundry duty at the U.N. prison at The Hague: $2
11/01Prison sentence, in years, received in June by an Oregon activist for setting fire to a car dealership: 23
12/01Years after Ernest Hemingway killed himself that his transsexual son died last fall in a Miami women’s jail: 40
2/01Estimated number of minors held in U.S. prisons in 1998 without segregation from adult inmates: 3,700
2/01Chances that a young black man living in Los Angeles’s Watts neighborhood is unemployed or in prison: 7 in 10
3/01Estimated chance that a U.S. prisoner is mentally retarded: 1 in 14
8/01Ratio of the starting salary of an Oklahoma prison guard to the federal poverty level for a family of four: 10:11
9/01Ratio of the number of pupils per teacher in Michigan’s schools to the number of inmates per guard in its prisons: 18:5
10/02Months since his release from prison that nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee has been looking for work: 24
10/02Number of corrections professionals who attended a mock riot at a former West Virginia prison in May: 1,235
12/02Number of Kurdish members of Turkey’s parliament jailed in 1994 when their party was declared illegal there: 7
3/02Percentage change since January 2001 in the share price of the largest private prison-management company: +440
4/02Number of Israeli military personnel jailed since September 2000 for refusing to serve in the Occupied Territories: 34
Minimum number of Israeli high school students who wrote Prime Minister Ariel Sharon last fall to refuse in advance: 62
4/02Number of people charged between 1988 and 1992 in connection with the U.S. savings and loan collapse: 1,098
Ratio of the average S&L jail term awarded in those years to the average term for a federal burglary conviction: 2:3
4/02Amount a Silverado executive later stole from his investment firm per day of his three and a half years in jail: $5,000
6/02Number of recommendations made by the S.E.C. since 1992 to file criminal charges against individuals: 609
Number of these recommendations that led to prosecution, conviction, and jail time, respectively: 189, 144, 87
8/02Number of months in jail to which one can be sentenced for discussing politics without a permit in Zimbabwe: 6
8/02Percentage of Afghans who will “soon” get AIDS if adulterous women are not jailed, according to a government deputy: 50
9/03Number of Canadian prison inmates who overdosed in March on fellow prisoners’ methadone-laced vomit: 2
Number of inmates charged with drug trafficking for providing the vomit: 3
3/04Months after the Justice Department began investigating Enron in 2001 that an Enron executive was jailed: 21
5/04Years in prison to which two ex-Pentagon officials were sentenced last year for taking bribes of money and prostitutes: 24
7/04Minimum number of prisoners under the age of 17 or over the age of 70 held by coalition forces in Iraq last April: 79
Amount the U.S. spent partially reconstructing it: $1,900,000
7/04Number of times after prison-abuse photos aired in April that the President boasted of freeing Iraq of torture chambers: 13
8/04Percentage change since then in the number of people serving a life sentence in a U.S. prison: +83
9/04Percentage recidivism rate of youth released from prison who can read at the 11th and 2nd grade level, respectively: 36, 62
9/04Number of HealthSouth executives charged with conspiracy, fraud, money laundering, or lying since March 2003: 20
Number who have pled guilty: 17
9/04Number of months of his term in office that a Kentucky county’s top elected official has served from jail: 9
1/05Percentage “more intelligence” given up by prisoners in Iraq since coercion of them was banned, according to a U.S. general: 25
10/05Minimum number of centuries in prison served by U.S. convicts for crimes of which DNA evidence later exonerated them: 19
5/05Number of female U.S. soldiers disciplined this year for mud-wrestling at an Iraqi prison camp: 2
7/05Number of Saudi men who were imprisoned and flogged for “ behaving like women ” at a party in March: 100
1/06Number of U.S. prisoners serving life sentences with no parole for crimes they committed while juveniles: 2,225
2/06Portion of prison inmates in Mozambique who have been tried in a court of law: 1/4
3/06Portion of New York Senate districts that would not meet the minimum population level without their inmates: 1/9
5/06Estimated number of Ugandan prisoners who escaped in February while guards celebrated the president’s reelection: 400
9/06Chance that a federal prisoner in the United States is a noncitizen: 1 in 5
11/07Percentage change since the start of the Iraq war “surge” in the number of Iraqis detained in U.S.-run prisons: +50
4/07Percentage of American adults held in either prisons or mental institutions in 1953 and today, respectively: 0.67, 0.68
Percentage of these adults in 1953 who were in mental institutions: 75
Number for the general population aged 15 to 64: 308
4/07Factor by which the overall death rate for U.S. blacks aged 15 to 64 exceeds the rate for blacks in state prisons: 2
Percentage who had been mistakenly identified by eyewitnesses: 77
7/07Amount that a Colorado state prisoner is paid to work a day as a field hand at a local farm: 60¢
7/07Chance that an inmate at any of the U.S.-run prisons in Iraq has been identified as a “foreign fighter”: 1 in 195
8/08Square footage of new jail space slated for construction at Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan: 1,742,400
9/08Days in jail that Canton, Ohio, now imposes on repeat offenders of the city’s lawn-mowing requirement: 30
1/09Percentage change during the first ten months of the Iraq war “surge” in the number of Iraqis detained in U.S.-run prisons: +63
3/09Extra points that a California student added to his GPA last year by hacking into a school computer: 1.9