US Prison Population Increases by 35% in 10 Years

This little item in the Los Angeles Times Friday caught my eye reporting the latest report from Bureau of Justice Statistics.

About 7 million adults — accounting for 3% of the U.S. population — were incarcerated, on probation or on parole at the end of 2005, the Justice Department said Thursday.

Of that total, 2.2 million individuals were in federal and state prisons or local jails, 4.1 million were on probation and more than 784,000 were on parole.

[...]

California, the most populous state, held the largest number of inmates (170,676). Only the federal system housed more, according to the annual survey by the department's Bureau of Justice Statistics.

The total number of inmates rose 35% from 1995 to 2005, but their racial composition was little changed. In 2005, blacks made up 40% of inmates, whites 35% and Latinos 20% — small changes from a decade earlier.

The rise of the prison industrial complex is a very disturbing aspect of modern life in America.
Why do Americans think that "lock 'em up and throw away the key" is a viable strategy to combat crime?