Fortunately, policy makers have at their disposal a clear means of preventing epidemic outbreaks at jails, prisons, and ICE facilities. Several studies have shown that decarceration is extremely ...

If mass incarceration were an effective way to fight crime, then one would expect to see a strong correlation between higher rates of incarceration and reduced crime. States have been running a live ...

Right now, more than two million people in the United States are behind bars. This is a human tragedy, but it is also a crisis with far-reaching consequences for communities across America. A recent ...

October’s cover of The Atlantic carries a headline that, even a decade ago, you probably never would’ve seen: “The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration.” The 20,000-word article attached to ...

Over the past week, prominent political figures from both sides of the aisle have suggested that the prohibition of marijuana is to blame for mass incarceration. Former House Speaker John Boehner, a ...

When Ta-Nehisi Coates says that America’s bloated and enormously expensive dependence on imprisonment has created a “social service program … for a whole class of people,” he hits the nail on the head ...

It’s not just the prisoner who suffers. The U.S. incarcerates a higher percentage of its citizens than any other country in the world. There’s little doubt among researchers that mass incarceration is ...

More than 50 years have passed since the U.S. prison population surged, and advocacy organizers nationwide have since united to challenge mass incarceration. The U.S. will need continued leadership ...

More than 2 million Americans–about a quarter of the total inmates in the entire world–are kept in prisons and jails in this country. The penal state is vast and largely hidden from view. But if you ...

The rising tide of mass incarceration may slowly be subsiding. By the end of last year, the nation's overall prison population had dropped to below 1.5 million for the first time in more than a decade ...

I read with interest of singer John Legend’s “Free America” campaign, which aims to bring awareness to the problem of mass incarceration in the United States. “It’s destroying families, it’s ...