1 in 32 Americans in Justice System (and That's Probably Not Enough)

Justice Department figures show that alot of Americans have run afoul of the law:

A record 7 million people _ or one in every 32 American adults _ were behind bars, on probation or on parole by the end of last year, according to the Justice Department. Of those, 2.2 million were in prison or jail, an increase of 2.7 percent over the previous year, according to a report released Wednesday.

More than 4.1 million people were on probation and 784,208 were on parole at the end of 2005. Prison releases are increasing, but admissions are increasing more.

Of course, it didn't take long for the AP article to go for the sympathy vote:

"Today's figures fail to capture incarceration's impact on the thousands of children left behind by mothers in prison," Marc Mauer, the executive director of the Sentencing Project, a Washington-based group supporting criminal justice reform, said in a statement. "Misguided policies that create harsher sentences for nonviolent drug offenses are disproportionately responsible for the increasing rates of women in prisons and jails."

So how many are too many? I'm not going to be bothered until they start locking up innocent people. Then there will be too many people in the justice system.