Misery gets company: incarceration record.

• Author: Sullum, Jacob
• Position: Citings - Brief article

IN 2007, according to a December report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, a record 2.3 million Americans were behind bars. That was 1.5 percent more than in 2006. The number includes about 780,000 people in local jails, 1.4 million in state prisons, and 200,000 in federal prison. Roughly one in five state prisoners and more than half of federal prisoners were serving time for drug offenses.

If the percentage of drug offenders in jails is similar...