Among the great untold stories of our time is this one: the last half of the twentieth century saw America's criminal justice system unravel. Signs of the unraveling are everywhere. The nation's record- shattering prison population has grown out of control. Still more so the African American portion of that prison population: for black males, a term in the nearest penitentiary has become an ordinary life experience, a horrifying truth that wasn't true a mere generation ago.
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The main effect of Brown v. Plata is to begin the process of undoing two of the most damaging and destructive mistakes that have been made in American life in the past half century, one in our criminal justice system, and the other ... Read Post
Our criminal justice system is broken. The US represents 5 percent of he world's population but accounts for nearly 25 percent of its prison population. We are incarcerating at a record rate with one in 100 American adults now locke... Read Post
Since the war on drugs started in 1971, America's prison population has surged 700 percent to 2.4 million. Prisoners have become part of the economy, manufacturing and assembling products for major corporations, while private prison... Read Post