The power of the collective awaits us. It beckons us to do more, for and among ourselves, to save ourselves and our children. "The Boycott Prisons Campaign" is an effort to turn our youth, and our adults, away from the criminal “justice” system and toward positive alternatives such as business ownership and higher education.

On December 31, 2004, there were 2,135,901 people in U.S. prisons and jails. The United States incarcerates a greater share of its population, 724 per 100,000 residents, than any other country on the planet. But when you break down the statistics you see that incarceration is not an equal opportunity punishment.

U.S. incarceration rates by race, June 30, 2004:

• Whites: 393 per 100,000
• Latinos: 957 per 100,000
• Blacks: 2,531 per 100,000

Gender is an important "filter" on the who goes to prison or jail, June 30, 2004:

• Females: 123 per 100,000
• Males: 1,348 per 100,000

Look at just the males by race, and the incarceration rates become even more frightening, June 30, 2004:

• White males: 717 per 100,000
• Latino males: 1,717 per 100,000
• Black males: 4,919 per 100,000

If you look at males aged 25-29 and by race, you can see what is going on even clearer, June 30, 2004:

• For White males ages 25-29: 1,666 per 100,000.
• For Latino males ages 25-29: 3,606 per 100,000.
• For Black males ages 25-29: 12,603 per 100,000. (That's 12.6% of Black men in their late 20's.)

Or you can make some international comparisons:
South Africa under Apartheid was internationally condemned as a racist society.

• South Africa under apartheid (1993), Black males: 851 per 100,000
• United States of America (2004), Black males: 4,919 per 100,000

What does it mean that the leader of the "free world" locks up its Black males at a rate 5.8 times higher than the most openly racist country in the world?