Al Jazeera examines the impact of America's high incarceration rate on its penal system and on poor and minority communities. There are more prisoners in the US than any other nation in the world, with the U.S. making up five percent of the world's population, but accounts for 25 percent of its prison population. In just the last three decades, the number held in U.S. federal prisons has spiked by nearly 80 percent.

"There has been in this country over the last 30 years a relentless upward climb in the incarcerated population and disturbing as the situation is with the federal prison system, that is really only the tip of the iceberg because the federal prison system is only about 10 percent of the total number of people incarcerated in this country. On any given day, we have about 2.3 million people behind bars in federal, state and local facilities."

- David Fathi, ACLU National Prison Project

The number of inmates in U.S. federal prisons has increased from about 25,000 in 1980 to 219,000 in 2012, according to a report by the US Congressional Research Service.

The report says the federal prison system was 39 percent over its capacity back in 2011...and the situation is worse for high and medium security male facilities.

High-security prisons were overcrowded by 51 percent, while medium security prisons were overcrowded by 55 percent in 2011.

A report issued by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), states that overcrowding has contributed to worse safety and security conditions for both inmates and staff.

The overcrowded facilities have contributed to a multibillion dollar demand for private prisons. The industry claims it is helping the government save money. But others argue that for-profit prisons only increase the incentive to incarcerate more people.

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Five Ways Courts Say Texas Discriminated Against Black and Latino Voters

by Lois Beckett and Suevon Lee ProPublica, Sept. 4, 2012

How does Texas discriminate against minority voters? Federal judges counted the ways.

Last Tuesday, a panel of federal court judges ruled that new district maps drawn by Texas' Republican-controlled legislature weakened the influence of Latino voters and in some cases evinced "discriminatory intent" against both Latinos and African Americans. Two days later, another panel of federal judges unanimously struck down a voter-ID law passed by the legislature in March 2011, arguing that it would disproportionately harm African-American and Latino voters. The judges did not address whether there was discriminatory purpose behind the legislation, but they noted that the legislature failed to pass amendments that would have mitigated the law's discriminatory impact.

Minority groups have outnumbered whites in Texas since roughly 2004, and 55.2 percent of the state's residents are now minorities, according to Census figures. As of 2011, the state's legislature was more than two-thirds white.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott's office declined to comment on the specifics of the rulings, but Abbott has promised to appeal both cases to the U.S. Supreme Court. In news releases, he said that the Supreme Court had already upheld voter-ID laws, and that the redistricting decision "extends the Voting Rights Act beyond the limits intended by Congress and beyond the boundaries imposed by the Constitution."

Both decisions hinged on Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires certain states with a history of racial discrimination in voting — including Texas — to prove that any changes in their voting laws or procedures do not hamper the voting rights of minorities. Enacted in 1965, the Voting Rights Act aimed to eliminate discriminatory voting practices that had long been used to suppress the black vote, particularly in southern states. Section 5 has been challenged, including in two cases pending before the U.S. Supreme Court, as an outdated provision that unfairly singles out certain states. The Court has not decided if it will hear the cases.

The rulings detailed several examples of discriminatory practices in Texas:

1. Lawmakers drew some districts that looked like Latino majority districts on paper — but removed Latinos who voted regularly and replaced them with Latinos who were unlikely to vote.

In the redistricting case, a panel of three federal judges found that Texas lawmakers had intentionally created districts that would weaken the influence of Latino voters, while appearing to satisfy the requirements of the Voting Rights Act.

In drawing Texas' 23rd congressional district, the judges found that "The mapdrawers consciously replaced many of the district's active Hispanic voters with low-turnout Hispanic voters in an effort to strengthen the voting power of [Congressional District] 23's Anglo citizens. In other words, they sought to reduce Hispanic voters' ability to elect without making it look like anything in [Congressional District] 23 had changed."

In 2010, the 23rd district narrowly elected a Latino Republican, Francisco "Quico" Canseco. One email to a Republican mapdrawer, released during the legal battle over the maps, shows that Republicans were trying to increase the chances Canseco would be re-elected.

Lawmakers used a similar tactic in redrawing a state house district, modifying it "so that it would elect the Anglo-preferred candidate yet would look like a Hispanic ability district on paper," the court ruled. An "ability district" is one in which a minority group has the capability to elect representatives of its choosing. The judges concluded that the legislature had been trying to make this district appear as if it satisfied the requirements of the Voting Rights Act, while actually trying to benefit white voters.

Judge Thomas B. Griffith, writing the unanimous opinion of the three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, called it "a deliberate, race-conscious method to manipulate not simply the Democratic vote but, more specifically, the Hispanic vote."

2. Lawmakers widened the gap between the proportion of the population that is Latino and African Americans and the proportion of districts that are minority-controlled.

In the years leading up to the 2010 census, Texas' population increased by 4.3 million people, 65 percent of them Latino. As a result, Texas gained four seats in Congress.

In their decision, the federal judges in the redistricting case noted that minority voters have no constitutional right to proportional representation. But the Voting Rights Act says states can't weaken the electoral power of minorities. So, the judges reasoned, if there is already a gap between the minority population of a state and its political representation, states can't let that gap grow wider.

In Texas, the judges observed, African Americans and Latinos were already underrepresented in Congress. Given the number of voting-age minority citizens in the state, Texas's old maps should have had roughly 13 congressional seats that represent districts in which minorities have a strong voice, the judges calculated. Instead, Texas only had 10 such districts.

Instead of narrowing this "representation gap" as the minority population grew, the legislature increased it.

With four additional congressional seats, Texas should now have 14 districts in which minorities have the ability to elect their chosen representatives, the judges concluded. But the state's new plan still included just 10 minority districts.

3. Texas removed economic centers and district offices from African-American and Latino districts, while giving white Republicans perks.

In defending its new maps, Texas argued that the districts had been shaped to help Republicans and hurt Democrats — a perfectly legal tactic — and that race had been irrelevant to its choices.

The Associated Press reported that the state's lawyer had argued before the court that "'a decision based on partisanship' is not based on race, even if it results in minority voters having less political influence."

The judges noted that while there was no "direct evidence" that "discriminatory purpose" animated the new maps, circumstantial evidence indicated the design of the new congressional districts "was motivated, at least in part, by discriminatory intent."

Texas' gerrymandering was not limited to manipulating the kinds of voters within districts. By reshaping a district, mapdrawers can determine whether key businesses, schools and tourist attractions are removed from a district or added to another.

The redistricting opinion dwelled at length on "unchallenged evidence that the legislature removed the economic guts from Black ability districts." African-American Rep. Al Green testified that the "economic engines" of his district — including a medical center, a university, and the Reliant Park sports mega-complex that includes the Astrodome — were removed. African-American Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson's district lost a sports center and an arts district, while Latino Rep. Charles A. Gonzalez from San Antonio said that both a convention center and the Alamo were drawn out of his district.

These three members of Congress, and African-American Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, all Democrats, also testified that their district offices were drawn out of their districts — a detriment because constituents want easily accessible district offices.

"No such surgery was performed on the districts of Anglo incumbents," the judges found. "In fact, every Anglo member of Congress retained his or her district office."

"The only explanation Texas offers for this pattern is 'coincidence.' But if this was coincidence, it was a striking one indeed," Judge Griffith wrote. He noted that Texas had argued that "without hearing from the members, the mapdrawers did not know where the district officers were located." But, he wrote, "We find this hard to believe as well. We are confident that the mapdrawers can not only draw maps but read them."

The judges noted that members of Congress who represented minority districts testified that they were largely shut out of the map-drawing process. At the same time, white Republican members asked for tweaks to their districts and were often accommodated. "Anglo district boundaries were redrawn to include particular country clubs and, in one case, the school belonging to the incumbent's grandchildren," the judges wrote, referring to requests related to the districts of Republican Congressman Lamar Smith, and Kenny Marchant, respectively.

Not all white lawmakers were happy with their new districts. Democratic Congressman Lloyd Doggett, who was forced to run in a new district as a result of the Republicans' maps, told the Texas Tribune last year that map plans "plunged a dagger into the heart of our community."

4. Divide and conquer: Texas "cracked" minority voters out of one district into three.

One common tactic of racial gerrymandering is "cracking" a minority community into different districts so it cannot elect a minority politician.

Looking at a State Senate district in Fort Worth, the judges cited testimony that lawmakers reshaped the district in a way that "cracked the politically cohesive and geographically concentrated Latino and African American communities," and placed those voters "in districts in which they have no opportunity to elect their candidates of choice."

The judges cited "well supported" testimony that African Americans in Fort Worth had been "exported" into a rural, "Anglo-controlled" district to the South, while Latinos on the North side of the city had been put into another white, suburban district, leaving the "reconfigured" Senate District 10 a "majority Anglo" district.

The judges rejected Texas' argument that "its decision to 'crack' [Senate District] 10 is best explained by partisan, not racial, goals," and concluded that the district map "was enacted with discriminatory purpose."

5. Texas passed a voter-ID law with requirements that would make it disproportionately difficult for African Americans and Latinos to vote.

A three-judge panel found last Thursday that Texas' voter-ID law discriminates against minorities, since the costs of obtaining the required identification would place a greater burden on low-income Texans, who are more likely to be minorities than white.

Although the state issues free election IDs, the cost of a birth certificate, one of the underlying documents needed for the ID, is $22 — and that's if voters can get to the right government office in the first place. At least one-third of Texas' counties don't have a state Department of Public Safety office, which issues state IDs.

"It is virtually certain that these burdens will disproportionately affect racial minorities," wrote Judge David S. Tatel for the unanimous panel of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. He cited "undisputed U.S. Census data" showing that Hispanics and African Americans in Texas are more likely to be poor and more likely to live in households without a car.

"Simply put, many Hispanics and Africans Americans who voted in the last election will, because of the burdens imposed by [the new voter ID law], likely be unable to vote in the next election," he wrote.

The judges agreed ahead of last month's trial to keep out any evidence indicating motivations for the voter-ID law, so they didn't address whether or not there was intentional discrimination behind the creation of the law. But the 56-page decision pointed out that the Texas legislature could have made its law more accommodating by, among other things, waiving documentation fees for the election IDs, reimbursing travel-related costs or expanding DPS office hours to evenings and weekends — amendments that were either defeated or tabled.

Finally, the judges agreed with Texas that the state had an interest in preventing voter fraud, even though there is little documented evidence of current voter fraud in Texas. However, they noted that circumstantial evidence "could nonetheless suggest that Texas invoked the specter of voter fraud as pretext for racial discrimination."

The 2012 election

Whatever the Supreme Court's response to Texas' voter-ID law, Texans will not be required to present a photo ID to vote this November.

"As a result of the court's decision, Texas is not permitted to implement the photo ID law," Texas Secretary of State Hope Andrade announced in a news release last week.

As for the redistricting maps, Texas will use a set of interim maps drawn by federal judges in Texas. Those interim maps were part of a contentious battle that earlier went to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The glowing praise of the racist "Stop and Frisk" policy by the NYPD and city officials and the fuzzy math statistics that claim vastly reduced crime weren't enough to stop a federal judge today from granting class-action status in a lawsuit against the NYPD that claims the practice violates the constitutional rights of blacks and Hispanics.

Maybe it was the Jateik Reed video or the facts that revealed, among other things, that more young black men were stopped and frisked by police last year than actually live in the city, according to an analysis by the New York Civil Liberties Union.

The New York Times obtained Judge Shira Scheindlin's opinion, which stated that the evidence presented showed that the central tenets that make up the NYPD's stop-and-frisk policy led to many illegal stops. Judge Scheindlin writes:

It is rather audacious of the NYPD to argue that if it were possible to protect "the right of people to be secure in their persons" from unlawful searches and seizures by the NYPD, then the legislature would already have done so and judicial intervention would therefore be futile. Indeed, it is precisely when the political branches violate the individual rights of minorities that "more searching judicial enquiry" is appropriate.

(Emphasis is Judge Scheindlin's.) The NYPD is on track to break last year's record of 601,055 stops (that's 1,900 a day) in 2012.

Bank of America Corp. will pay a record $335 million to compensate Countrywide Financial Corp. borrowers who were charged more for home loans based on race and national origin. Occupy Wall Street protesters say that much more needs to be done.

Via:

Countrywide, acquired by Bank of America in 2008, assessed higher fees and interest rates to more than 200,000 black and Hispanic borrowers, the U.S. Department of Justice said yesterday in a statement. The lender also steered minorities into higher-cost subprime mortgages from 2004 to 2007, even when they qualified for prime loans, the agency said.

Occupy Wall Street protesters aren't too impressed by the settlement, but in an interview with CNN news, some acknowledge that it's a step in the right direction; a beginning with much more that needs to be done.

Thomas Perez, Asst. Attorney General for the DOJ's civil rights division, said most victims of the loan discrimination were unaware that they were improperly steered to the riskier mortgages.

"They were thrilled to have gotten the loan and to have realized the American dream," Perez said. "They had no idea they could have and should have gotten a better deal. This is discrimination with a smile."

MSNBC reports that there are two groups of consumers who may receive payments from the settlement:

Affected consumers include two different groups of victims who will be eleligible for two different types of damages, said Ira Rheingold, executive director of the National Association of Consumer Advocates, who spoke with Justice Department officials abou the settlement.

The first group involves Latinos and African Americans who had quality, prime loans with Countrywide but were charged more money, mostly in fees, for their mortgages than other consumers, Rheingold said. This group, which includes about 200,000 individuals can expect to get anywhere from $500 to $1,500.

The second set of victims, including about 10,000 Latino and African American borrowers, were steered into subprime loans even though they qualified for prime loans that carried a lower interest rate.

“Their damages may be more extensive,” Rheingold said, because in addition to being charged a higher rate many of these consumers ended up with greater financial problems as a result, including bad credit and possibly the loss of their homes. Such damages could total thousands of dollars per victim.

Kathleen Day, a spokeswoman for the Center for Responsible Lending, said that the settlements is a "good thing for the nation and for consumers,” and that it also “establishes what should a have been a line in the sand more than a decade ago. This never should have been allowed to happen.”

We can only hope that the settlement will cover at least the financial expenses incurred by the victims of these discriminatory lending practices. We've all seen the news reports of homeowners needing hospital admissions for heart attacks or other stress-induced medical conditions on foreclosure day, and the desperate measures some have been driven to when it became clear that they had only days left before they were tossed out on the street with their families.

No, this never should have been allowed to happen, but without criminal charges and someone doing prison time, there's no reason it won't happen again. Cheating people out of their money has become too acceptable on Wall Street.

The Justice Department has identified the victims and will be contacting consumers directly about the settlement, but if you believe you were a victim or have questions about the case you can email the agency at: countrywide.settlement@usdoj.gov.