An excellent piece featured by the Brookings Institute:

This Hamilton Project policy memo provides ten economic facts highlighting recent trends in crime and incarceration in the United States. Specifically, it explores the characteristics of criminal offenders and victims; the historically unprecedented level of incarceration in the United States; and evidence on both the fiscal and social implications of current policy on taxpayers and those imprisoned.

Some of the key facts from this memo include: 

• There is nearly a 70 percent chance that an African American man without a high school diploma will be imprisoned by his mid-thirties.

• Low-income individuals are more likely than higher-income individuals to be victims of crime.

• By their fourteenth birthday, African American children whose fathers do not have a high school diploma are more likely than not to see their fathers incarcerated.

To read the full policy memo, visit:

http://www.brookings.edu/research/reports/2014/05/10-crime-facts