The number of prisoners in the United States
has quadrupled in the last twenty years. With over two million people
behind bars, the U.S. now has the highest incarceration rate in the world.
This trend particularly targets people of color; one in three Black men between 20 and 29 years old are currently either incarcerated, paroled, or on probation.
In contrast to commonly held images of criminals, two thirds of prisoners are serving time for nonviolent crimes.
Punishment has replaced reform as prison education programs have been cut, drug rehabilitation has been defunded, and recidivism rates continue to grow. Yet taxpayers pay more to incarcerate these people yearly than it would cost to send each of them to Harvard University. The phenomenal profits secured by the corporations involved with every aspect of the corrections industry do not, in the eyes of many citizens, justify this process.
