Mar 7, 2017
Why are so many Americans in prison? Right now, there are 2.3
million Americans held in US prisons. That's a HUGE number,
relative to the overall US population. The US makes up just 5% of
the world's population, but we hold 25% of the world's prison
population. Put another way, 1 in 4 people held in prison around
the world is an American citizen. And a disproportionate number of
these inmates are people of color, mostly African American and
Latino. Furthermore, this phenomenon of mass incarceration is a
relatively recent one. In 1970 the incarceration rate in the US was
roughly 150 people per 100,000. In 2017 it's well over 700 people
per 100,000! How did we get here? What happened around 1970 that
sent us down this path?
To answer these questions, I speak with historian Elizabeth Hinton,
author of the book,
From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass
Incarceration in America (Harvard University Press).
She'll help us see the key public policy decisions regarding crime
and criminal justice -- and the assumptions about race and poverty
that shaped them -- that caused the US prison population to
explode after 1970.
Show page with links, suggested readings, credits, and music
at http://inthepastlane.com/episode-022/