These are all little known facts about the system dealing with inmates, prisons and the law in the USA

· The death penalty doesn't deter crime. Since the death penalty was reinstatedin 1976, the South has carried out 80% of the nation's executions, yet it has the highest murder rate of any region in the country.

· About 4% of American population is in prison, add that to the 4%-6% unemployment rate and that means about 1 out of 10 US citizens are either in jail or unemployed.

· A study by the US General Accounting Office found racial prejudice in death sentencing. The race of the murder victim was shown to be a determining factor; killers of whites were proportionately more likely to be executed than were killers of blacks.

· Most prison inmates are "kept" in their cells (sometimes at 200% capacity) for 20+ hours a day. Often inmates are confined to their cell 22+ hours a day, they are let out for meals and a very short time to exercise.

· Experts estimate that at least 1/2 of 1% of the current inmate population is innocent. Records of these statistics are not kept. That would be 8000 innocent out of 1.6 million.

· It is estimated that half of all death row inmates are minorities.

· State and Federal prisons held about 1.6 million prisoners at the end of 1996.