Louisiana loves prisoners

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Watch as this GIF details state imprisonment rates from 1979 to 2012. The color gradient represents a scale of zero-900 incarcerations per 100,000 residents, and comes to us via the National Prisoner Statistics Program.

As a Midwesterner, I have to say that I was more than a little pleased to see the nation’s heartland start off on the right foot.

In the early 80s the Midwest and Northern American states show lower concentrations of imprisonment residents. As the years tick up, however, it becomes increasingly clear that no state is safe from skyrocketing rates of imprisonment.

Rates rose across all regions of the US and by the time we reach 2012, the country looks like a checkerboard.

Nowhere were imprisonment rates more consistently concentrated than in the great state of Louisiana. That, I did not see coming.

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