AMERICAN GULAG: US Prison Population Soars to 2.3 MILLION People

 WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The US prison population has soared to 2.3 million people costing the government more than $7 billion per year to keep them behind bars, a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report said.

“The federal inmate population has increased more than eight-fold since 1980,” the report released on Friday said.

The Bureau of Prisons’ (BOP) operating costs “have increased over time, and in fiscal year 2014 amounted to more than $7 billion, or 19 percent of DOJ’s [Department of Justice] total obligations,” the report added.

The United States has only five percent of the world’s population but it incarcerates 25 percent of the global prison population, making the country the world’s largest jailer, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

To deal with the rapidly expanding prison population, the Justice Department has implemented three key initiatives to address overcrowding, rising costs and offender recidivism, the report explained.

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