America's prison population topped 2 million inmates for the first time in history on June 30, 2002 according to a new report from the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS).
The 50 states, the District of Columbia and the federal government held 1,355,748 prisoners (two-thirds of the total incarcerated population), and local municipal and county jails held 665,475 inmates.

By midyear 2002, America's jails held 1 in every 142 U.S. residents. Males were incarcerated at the rate of 1,309 inmates per 100,000 U.S. men, while the female incarceration rate was 113 per 100,000 women residents.

Of the 1,200,203 state prisoners, 3,055 were younger than 18 years old. In addition, adult jails held 7,248 inmates under 18.

U.S. prison population dwarfs that of other nations
By Adam Liptak Published: April 23, 2008


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The United States has less than 5 percent of the world's population. But it has almost a quarter of the world's prisoners.

Indeed, the United States leads the world in producing prisoners, a reflection of a relatively recent and now entirely distinctive American approach to crime and punishment. Americans are locked up for crimes — from writing bad checks to using drugs — that would rarely produce prison sentences in other countries. And in particular they are kept incarcerated far longer than prisoners in other nations.

Criminologists and legal scholars in other industrialized nations say they are mystified and appalled by the number and length of American prison sentences.

Fascism is an authoritarian nationalist ideology focused on solving economic, political, and social problems that its supporters see as causing national decline or decadence

The prosecution presented a case that has been criticized by numerous observers. The prosecution's case was completely reworked several times because problems developed with the witnesses, whose stories contradicted one another. The United States Attorney negotiated deals with 26 different drug felons, including Carlos Lehder, who were given leniency, cash payments, and allowed to keep their drug earnings in return for testimony against Noriega. Several of these witnesses had been arrested by Noriega for drug trafficking in Panama. Some witnesses later recanted their testimony, and agents of the CIA, Drug Enforcement Administration, Defense Intelligence Agency, and the Israeli Mossad, who were knowledgeable about Central American drug trafficking, have publicly charged that accusations were embellished. Noriega was found guilty and sentenced on September 16, 1992, to 40 years in prison for drug and racketeering violations. His sentence was reduced to 30 years in 1999.

Pending release
Noriega has stated his intention to return to Panama, and that he had no desire to return to politics. It is thought Noriega will get preferential treatment by the Panamanian government; even a presidential pardon.[citation needed] The current president of Panama is Martin Torrijos, son of Noriega's mentor and friend, Omar Torrijos.

As Commander-in-Chief, Bush oversaw two major U.S. military deployments. He ordered the invasion of Panama, which began just after midnight on December 20, 1989. It was the twelfth U.S. invasion of that country since 1903. The mission of U.S. forces was to depose long-time CIA asset General Manuel Noriega, an indicted drug trafficker. It was the largest airborne assault since World War II. When it was over, the Army excluded the press and Red Cross from entering heavily bombed areas for three days while soldiers incinerated some civilian casualties and buried others in mass graves. Bush’s Defense Secretary, Richard Cheney claimed a death toll of between 500 and 600. But independent human rights groups put the death toll between 3,000 and 5,000 with about 25,000 left homeless. This military operation turned out to be practice for even greater press censorship, propaganda and human rights violations during and after Operation Desert Storm, the U.S. air and ground attack that failed to depose Iraq’s leader, Saddam Hussein, in 1990. That failure eventually eroded public confidence in Bush and contributed to his defeat by Bill Clinton in the 1992 presidential election.