The Modern Prison-Industrial Complex
“Where you find the laws most numerous, there you will find also the greatest injustice.” -Arcesilaus, Greek philosopher and student of Plato on power and personal sovereignty
There are no two ways about it: The United States of America and its 50 state governments love putting people in prison.
The U.S. has both the highest number of prisoners and the highest per capita incarceration rate in the modern world at 655 adults per 100,000. (It’s worth noting that China’s incarceration statistics are dubious, and they execute far more people than the United States. Indeed, the so-called People’s Republic executes more people annually than the rest of the world combined.) Still, that’s more than 2.2 million Americans in state and federal prisons as well as county jails.
