Why is it that the United States of
America has to have the largest
incarcerated population in the entire
world?  Both in terms of absolute numbers
and in terms of per capita incarceration.
One out of every 100 adults is behind bars.
One out of every 37 adults is
either in jail in prison or under the
control of a correctional agency.
Twenty-five percent of the world's
incarcerated population lives in jails
and prisons in the United States of America.
It's interesting that when we
ask ourselves what is freedom?
What is the meaning of freedom?
One of the ways
in which we can determine that we are
free is by realizing that we're not in
prison.
It used to be during slavery that
people, white people knew they were free
because they weren't slaves.
That was the measure of freedom.
The mass incarceration that we are experiencing
in the latter 20th and the beginning of
the 21st century is imprisonment fueled by racism.
The prison population is
disproportionately black,
disproportionately people of color,
native people are incarcerated at a
higher rate per capita than any of the
group.
