"[...] religious people vs. Atheist in US prisons (in 1997) from the Federal Bureau of Prisons is : Religious 99.791%, Atheist 00.209%. [...] That's a very disproportionately low total of Atheist in prison. In 2013 nearly 20% of US Citizens are currently non-religious. That's up from around 10% in the mid 90's. In 2013 %32 of people under 30 years old are non-religious. The non-religious US population has increased by 10% in the past 20 years. That's an average of .5% per year and it looks to be "snowballing". These figures indicate that as religion drops so does crime. Percentage of religious people in US prisons: http://www.holysmoke.org/icr-pri.htm Non-religious population in the US at 20% in 2012. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreligion_in_the_United_States".
Sorry to contradict you, but these figures alone indicate nothing, unless you are totally biased. Let's look at the second link, where we have a table indicating that, in the US, irreligious people make up to 20% among whites, 16% among lations and 15% among africans. Considering the majority of the population in the US is still the whites, or the fact that:
"On June 30, 2006, an estimated 4.8% of black non-Hispanic men were in prison or jail, compared to 1.9% of Hispanic men of any race and 0.7% of white non-Hispanic men. U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics"
it is not so easy to see a correlation. A graph may be more self-explicit:
Something else that I couldn't help doing was comparing the following maps:
(percentage of religious people in European coutries)
(World prison population per 100 000 people, per country)
Another comparison worth making would be between the highly religious Turkey and the relatively mid- or low religious Baltic Republics. According to the original inference, Turkey should have a higher prison population than any of the three Baltic Republics. However, it is the other way round. Further more, out of the Three, Estonia has the lowest percentage of believers (10-20% - which is, again, one of the lowest worldwide), but has the highest prison population in the European Union. What can one easily infer there, if one would not mind the possibility of maybe having incomplete information? And remember - now we have more data than we had at the beginning. Still, I refuse to accept the easy option that the less believers, the higher the jail population. Things are not that easy.
A last example: if we move to other places in the world than just the EU, let's compare India, with a 19% of the population describing themselves as atheist, not religious or not sure (click here for the source - again, wiki). It's jail population is less than 50 per 100 000 people, one of the lowest in the world. The US, with a similar percentage of non-believers, is on the other end, with the highest jail population in the world, as it was mentioned before.
It seems to be a correlation between prison population and belief in the US as a whole. However, our sources, which come from the same source as the ones provided in the original status, prove this correlation is not universal - not even in the US. We could just as simply infer that religious people don't mind paying with freedom for their crimes, while non-religious pay with money and remain free. But seriously, provided the given sources by either of us are reliable in their "wikiness", the only thing that we can
Live and let live. Give respect and you'll get respect back. If you connect religion with those that abuse religion, don't be surprised the day someone connects atheism with those that abuse atheism - hell, they exist too!! Surf the net and find them. Be serious.
My sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreligion_in_the_United_States
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_atheism
And for an extra map: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreligion
