Teaching Students about Their Civic Obligation—Jury Duty
n recent years, we have witnessed an I increase in highprofile criminal trials and an almost explosive growth of criminal courts and comction budgets across the country. The number of incarcerated adults in the United States has tripled between 1980and 1995, with 1.5 million people in prison, on probation, or on parole at year end (Bureau of Justice Statistics [BJS] 1999). The Justice Policy Institute estimated the nation’s prison and jail population to be 2 million by February 15, 2000. The United States accounts for 5 percent of the world’s population and 25 percent of its incarcerated adults (Justice Policy Institute 1090). Equally alarming, the number of people arrested annually in the United States is more than the combined population of its fourteen least-populous stales. At the present time, more than $100 billion is spent annually on