Jailing Nation: How Did Our Prison System Become Such a Nightmare?

I read somewhere, someone's saying Americans aren't free. They like to say they are, but there are so many rules, regulations, laws that they are very regimented unless they choose to ignore such rules, regulations, laws.

I've challenged co-workers to pay special attention to their actions for one day. My position is they couldn't avoid breaking some law. Did they speed on the freeway? Did they take a company pen home? Did they photocopy a personal paper on the company machine? Did they jay walk, litter? How about parking illegally? Did they shoot someone. OK, none of my co-workers admitted to that last one.

Subheading: With five percent of the world's population, the U.S. has close to a quarter of the world's prisoners. How did the American criminal justice system go so wrong?

How can you tell when a democracy is dead? When concentration camps spring up and everyone shivers in fear? Or is it when concentration camps spring up and no one shivers in fear because everyone knows they're not for "people like us" (in Woody Allen's marvelous phrase) but for the others, the troublemakers, the ones you can tell are guilty merely by the color of their skin, the shape of their nose or their social class?

Add to all the rules, regulations, laws the "war on drugs", as an example, and you can create criminals.

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