"Between 1975 and 2009, the U.S. imprisonment rate grew at an average annual pace of 4.7 percent. This is a stunning increase considering that the imprisonment rate adjusts for population growth over the period. The incarceration rate, which includes inmates housed in local jails, grew almost as briskly, at 4.0 percent per year since 1982, when reliable data first became available."—p. 11, Invisible Men