Tag: mass incarceration

Posted on

Joe Biden’s sorry history of legislating to lock up blacks and Latinos to please white people and cops

In this article, the New York Times provides all of the sordid the details required to make your heart ache by providing a time line chronicling how Joe Biden used his power as a young legislator to systematically pass laws which built more prisons and locked hundreds of thousands of black and brown people up in them … while he lied to black leaders, convincing them to support the draconian laws that hugely increased the number of inmates incarcerated in the 1980s and 90s – some, for life – and incinerated the stability of family life in these communities. read more

Posted on

The cost of “tough on crime” is $1B each year of your taxpayer money

people in prisonvlogbrothers has created a sobering video about the “massive $75 BILLION per year failed experiment” we’re living in – which is what it costs American taxpayers each year to keep almost 1% of our neighbors in prison.

The video’s done in a light-hearted animation style and is under 4 minutes long, but pay attention to the scary statistics:

  • By age 23, 41% of our country’s juveniles and young adults have been arrested.
  • Our prisons violate international standards.
  • Solitary confinement is considered torture under international law but in the United States it is a not governed or monitored by anyone except prison officials.
  • This massive system costs taxpayers $75 Billion dollars each year.
  • Private prison contractors have occupancy guarantees that mandate their prisons remain between 80 and 90 percent full.

    • read more