Here's a fun exercise for you:

Line up 100 people.

Guess which one of the 100 people has been in jail or prison.

That's right. According to figures recently released by the Justice Department, one in one hundred U.S. Citizens has paid a visit to either the pokey or the big house at some point in their lifetimes (redneck translator: pokey - jail....big house - prison).

According to 2006 JD figures, 1 in 36 hispanics have seen some time behind bars, and 1 in 15 blacks - these are all males, btw. The JD also reports it costs an average of $23,876 to imprison someone (I assume annually).

There are more interesting statistics floating around out there, on the JD site and in other media outlets that talk about the breakdown about the crimes folks are incarcertated for - soft crimes versus hard crimes (drug use versus, oh, say, murder).

Again, tell me why people go to jail for soliciting sex from hookers or using drugs? WTF?

Anyway, interesting stat.