19 Actual Statistics About America's Prison System

19 Actual Statistics About America's Prison System
Mic.com by Laura Dimon
4/13/14

​The U.S. imprisons a larger percentage of its black population than South Africa did at the height of apartheid. There is a reason for it — but not a good one.

Michelle Alexander is a civil rights lawyer, advocate, legal scholar and author of the highly acclaimed 2010 book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. The book is an impressive work of nonfiction in which Alexander disproves common misconceptions about criminal justice in the United States and paints an appalling picture of where the system stands today.

Alexander builds a compelling case through her thorough research: "We have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it." She swiftly awakens her readers to the harsh reality that they may not have realized they were living in. Public intellectual Cornel West wrote in the book's foreword that it is a "grand wake-up call in the midst of a long slumber of indifference to the poor and vulnerable." 

The predicament of mass incarceration is, in Alexander's words, "a human rights nightmare." Sadly, she is not exaggerating — the facts are startling. And our politicians are dropping the ball. Below is a mere snapshot.

​Read More