Some 480,000 suspects are currently locked up in American jails awaiting trial. About 75 percent of them are low-level offenders accused of nonviolent infractions, and are in jail simply because they can’t afford to post bail.
Read more
About a dozen inmates die behind bars each day, or about 4,400 jail and prison inmates each year. In jails, suicide is the leading cause of death.
Read more
Santa Barbara, Calif. More than 100 people were arrested and dozens—including six police officers—injured last week when a large spring break party near the University of California, Santa Barbara, deteriorated into a riot. An estimated 15,000 people were at the all-day annual “Deltopia” party at the beach community of Isla Vista, near the Santa Barbara campus. Fighting broke out when […]
Read more
Chicago Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. plead guilty this to spending $750,000 of campaign funds on luxury items for personal use, including furs, jewelry, and celebrity memorabilia. Jackson, 47, represented Illinois’s 2nd Congressional District for 17 years before taking a medical leave for bipolar disorder. He allegedly used campaign funds to buy such items as a $43,350 gold-plated Rolex watch, a […]
Read more
Nearly Half Of Black Males, 40 Percent Of White Males Are Arrested By Age 23. A large number of American men have already been arrested by the time they’re in their early 20s, according to a new report. A study, published in the journal Crime & Delinquency, found that nearly half (49 percent) of African-American men and 40 percent of […]
Read more
■ O.J. Simpson was caught red-handed trying to steal more than a dozen cookies from a Nevada prison cafeteria, says the National Enquirer. The former gridiron great who is serving 33 years for armed robbery, was walking to his cell after lunch when a guard noticed a bulge in his jumpsuit. “Everyone thought he had smuggled in a cellphone” said […]
Read more
Tokyo ‘Silver shoplifters’: Facing cuts in welfare and pensions, Japan’s swelling ranks of the elderly are turning to crime—many of them stealing food. Shoplifters are now more likely to be over 65 than under 18. Criminal offenses by the over-65 set have doubled in the past decade, even as overall crime has dropped. “Senior citizens shoplift lunch boxes and bread […]
Read more