Reply #18: All true - thanks - here's an excellent radio program on this... [View All]

[JackRiddler]

Tues 1.01.08| Alternatives to Incarceration

From the 1920s to the 1960s, America incarcerated about one in every 1,000 people. Yet something changed in the 1970s and by the year 2000, five in every 1,000 people were incarcerated. Critical Resistance organizer Rachel Herzing talks about why prisons are being built apace and about the movement for their abolition.

http://www.againstthegrain.org/AtG%202008.01.01_Incarceration.mp3

One note: while it's all true as far as the U.S. prison complex is concerned - and the drug war that keeps it going above all - let's not exonerate China. Its prison populations are probably dwarfed by the "free" labor camps/Walmart production locations that amount to prisons.