Offered in conjunction with an article in LA Progressive, which notes that ““More African American men are in prison or jail, on probation or parole than were enslaved in 1850, before the Civil War began.”
“Most of that increase is due to the War on Drugs, a war waged almost exclusively in poor communities of color,” she said, even though studies have shown that whites use and sell illegal drugs at rates equal to or above blacks…
However change is to come, a big impediment will be the massive prison-industrial system. “If we were to return prison populations to 1970 levels, before the War on Drugs began,” she said, “more than a million people working in the system would see their jobs disappear.”
[via azspot]
Ouch.
Musings 