Prison overcrowding has long been a thorny issue that has generated a great deal of political noise. But numbers released by the Federal government last month cast a new, and depressing, light on the subject, and challenge Americans to reconsider our imprisonment policies and laws.

The recent report by the Department of Justice shows that one in every 32 adult Americans, more than 6.6 million people, are under the supervision of some correction authority. That’s over 3 percent of our population.

To put these numbers in perspective, consider the rates of penal incarceration or supervision in a few other nations. In the United States, 690 out of every 100,000 Americans is in a state or federal prison, compared to 133 per 100,000 in the United Kingdom. The American rate of incarceration even exceeds the rate in Russia by almost 10 percent.

But if America is a land of the free, what has caused its government to imprison so many of its citizens? Are Americans truly that much more violent than the people of Europe or Canada? Or is there something deeper amiss in the bowels of the American judicial system?

The ramifications of imprisoning such a large portion of the American populace are too numerous to list. Aside from draining potential workers from the labor pool, in several states those who have been convicted of felonies are permanently barred from voting. This is also needlessly punitive — even those who have served their sentences are denied a voice in the affairs of their government — a strange policy for a nation who fought a revolution to prevent taxation without representation.

Until the early 1970s, incarceration rates in the United States were around 110 out of every 100,000 Americans. But then came the Federal government’s involvement in the drug war, and later the rise of mandatory sentencing requirements, and “three strikes” laws. The result is a prison population that has been swelling at a faster rate that America has been growing.

There are few easy answers to America’s growing correctional population problem. Ending the often excessive imprisonment requirements for non-violent or first-time offenders is a possibility, but it addresses only part of the situation. Resolving this situation will require a level of political will that is rarely seen in modern times. What laws need to be changed? Are we requiring more from our populace than we should? Are we imprisoning those we should instead be giving medical care?

Posing and answering such questions will not be easy, and could entail great political risk to the leaders who take up the reins and lead such a charge. But surely that should not be an insurmountable problem. For is not our land of the free also the home of the brave?