A new report from the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics was released this afternoon. Probation and in the United States, 2001 has some disturbing figures.

The ever-increasing prison and correctional population in the U.S. reached 6.6 million at the end of 2001.

That means 1 of every 32 adults in America is now in prison, on probation or on.

The bulletin, "Probation and in the United States, 2001," was written by BJS statistician Lauren E. Glaze. Single copies may be obtained by calling the BJS Clearinghouse at 1-800-732-3277.

The full report is available online here.

As to what it all means:

"The overall figures suggest that we've come to rely on the criminal justice system as a way of responding to social problems in a way that's unprecedented," said Marc Mauer, assistant director of the Sentencing Project, an advocacy and research group that favors alternatives to incarceration. "We're setting a new record every day."

More stats:

"Texas had more adults under correctional supervision than any other state, 755,100. California was second with 704,900. Texas also had the most adults on probation, 443,684, followed by California at 350,768."

"Whites accounted for 55 percent of those on probation, while blacks made up 31 percent, statistics show. On the other hand, 46 percent of those incarcerated were black and 36 percent were white."

The number of women on probation and also increased.

Update: Instapundit took the words right out of our mouth but says them far more eloquently and persuasively than we could:

"How many people have to be under direct supervision of law enforcement before you have a police state? Whatever the number is, at the current rate of growth it won't take us long to get there. According to these DOJ figures one out of 32 American adults -- over three percent of the population -- is in jail, on, or on probation. This represents a whopping forty-nine percent increase over the last ten years. Most of this growth appears to come from nonviolent drug offenses. Another example of how the Drug War is leading -- in this case directly, not metaphorically -- to the creation of a police state.

Okay, I don't want to go over the top. But really -- prisons are hellholes for the most part. And some people deserve to be in hellholes. But not all that many. Certainly not this many. I think that future historians will look back on this mass imprisonment the way we look on the internment of Japanese-American citizens in World War Two."