The Crisis in America's Prisons

"We are often tempted to think of  China as an oppressive country, but we incarcerate 500,000 more people in this country-despite the fact that we have less than one-fourth of the population of China. We lock up our poor, our uneducated, our unruly, our unstable and our addicted, where other countries provide treatment, mental hospitals and care." Minority groups in the U.S. are the most affected.  Elsner notes that one in eight African American males between the ages of 20 and 34 are behind bars.  One out of 25 Hispanics in the same age group is imprisoned.  Overall, one out of three African American males and one out of five Hispanic males will most probably be imprisoned in their lifetime. [more]