Australia can show the US a thing or two in the lock-up stakes

[unhappycamper]

http://www.theage.com.au/comment/australia-can-show-the-us-a-thing-or-two-in-the-lockup-stakes-20150727-giknor



Indigenous Australians are imprisoned at a rate 13 times that of other Australians.

Australia can show the US a thing or two in the lock-up stakes
July 27, 2015 - 12:08PM
Tim Dick

Barack Obama, with his mojo replenished, is set on fixing the American tragedy of black over-incarceration. When he's done warming up, he should try the big league, Australia.

~snip~

The US might be the home of mass incarceration – and it is, with 5 per cent of the world's people, it has a quarter of the world's inmates – but America has nothing on Australia in its enthusiasm for disproportionately locking up black people.

On this side of the Pacific, achieving a black imprisonment rate six times that for whites would be a good news story, a moment to cherish, to celebrate.

~snip~

That's not 13 per cent higher, or twice as high, but 13 times the rate, 1300 per cent of the rate for the rest of the population.