These revealing pictures illustrate America's prison system at breaking point - with overcrowding in the nation's jails at its highest for eight years.
Correctional institutions across the U.S are bursting at the seams with more than two million Americans behind bars. The worst hit state, California, houses 140,000 inmates when its 33 adult prisons are only designed to hold a maximum of 80,000.
Overall, the Bureau of Prisons Network is around 39 per cent over 'rated capacity' - their highest level since 2004 - with that figure expected to soar to 45 per cent above its limit by 2018.
Inmates are housed in a gymnasium at the California Institution for Men state prison in Chino, California. The Supreme Court has ordered California to release more than 30,000 inmates over the next two years
An inmate stands in his overcrowded cell at the Orange County jail in Santa Ana, California. The state's prisons are so overcrowded that they are said to provide inadequate mental and health care
Hundreds of prisoners at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego, California are also housed in makeshift living quarters in the prison's gymnasium
One inmate is forced to sleep next to phones where fellow prisoners make phone calls home at the Orange County jail
The Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego, pictured, is another of those drastically overstretched by increased prisoner numbers
no copyright intended image credit Reuters
No comments:
Post a Comment