America’s Durable Monstrosity
New figures show that the US prison population has dropped. But mass incarceration remains firmly intact.
A ray of sunshine recently poked through the otherwise gloomy holiday headlines: “US prison population falling as crime rates stay low.”
The prison population has indeed fallen, and crime rates are still down. But while the crime that politicians exploited to create mass incarceration has plummeted, the number of prisoners locked up in the name of public safety has only budged.
Mass incarceration, in short, remains a durable monstrosity.
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