U.S. justice system is "broken"

The American criminal justice system relies too heavily on imprisoning people and needs to consider more effective alternatives, according to a study by the American Bar Association, the nation's largest lawyers' organization. It is unclear whether the United States is any safer for having 2.1 million people behind bars (including 160000 in California), the report concludes. Between 1974 and 2002, the number of inmates in federal and state prisons rose six-fold. By 2002, 476 out of every 100,000 Americans were imprisoned, according to Justice Department statistics. That compares with 100 per every 100,000 in Western European countries such as England, Germany and Italy. In 1999, the states and federal government spent $49 billion on jails and prisons. - ten times more than in the early eighties.