Incarceration stats

Was talking to a friend about racially-basketed usa incarceration stats the other day.  In general, US incarceration rates are much higher than the rest of the world at ~1% of our population in prison and jail at any given time. 

Except for Rwanda where I visited this spring, incidentally - the USA and Rwanda are top-two in incarceration per capita.  Champagne all around.

Here's some relevant information about the USA (link to source, Professor Pamela Oliver's website at U Wisc):

• About a third of African American men are under the supervision of the criminal justice system
• About 12% of African American men in their 20s and 30s are incarcerated.

Here's a summary from wikipedia:

And here's a uncomfortable chart taken from a paper by Dr. Oliver with stats covering 1920s to 1986 (link).  So stop before the straight-line extrapolation at the end.  Something bad happened in the late 70s early 80s.