From: Rural Advancement Foundation Intl [rafi@rafi.org]
Sent: Friday, September 01, 2000 12:19 PM
Subject: RAFI Genotypes: Prisoners and Plowshares


RAFI Genotypes
31 August 2000
www.rafi.org

	Prisoners and Plowshares
	Who will feed the inmates?

The United States now has more prisoners than farmers.

According to the Washington, DC-based Justice Policy Institute the United States prison population recently topped 2 million.* The statistics are shocking, especially given that the US accounts for a quarter of the world's prisoners, but only 5% of the world's population.

According to the last farm census, there were 1.9 million farms in the US  (a farm is defined as any place selling $1,000 or more of agricultural products).  In other words, there are more people behind bars in the US than there are behind the wheel of a tractor.   

While some would argue that the US criminal justice system and industrial agriculture have little in common, the statistics reflect social systems in profound crisis:   

- Number of US farms – 1,911,859
- 2.5% of US farms are operated by blacks and other races.
- Direct federal payments to farmers in 1999:  $23 billion
 
 
- US prison population – 2,000,000
- Roughly half of the state and federal prisoners incarcerated in the US are African Americans, although they make up only 13% of the US population.
-  The cost of incarceration: approximately $40 billion per year.


*Jason Ziedenberg and Vincent Schiraldi, Justice Policy Institute, The Punishing Decade: Prison and Jail Estimates at the Millennium, December, 1999.