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| Federal prison rape law challenges state to do better |
| By crosscut.com - Judy Lightfoot |
| Published: 10/17/2012 |
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Of the more than 2 million prisoners in America today (the highest number of any nation in the world, including China) the vast majority come from our most disadvantaged populations. Overwhelmingly, they are badly educated. Most grew up on the nation’s mean streets or in ramshackle rural circumstances, at the bottom of an economy marked by grotesque income inequality and little upward mobility. Sixty percent belong to minority racial groups treated with contempt for generations. In comparison with about 11 percent of the wider population, 30 to 40 percent exhibit symptoms of mental illness at intake. The “less scrupulous class of lawbreaker” working in our financial industry and other wealthy sectors has the social capital and the caliber of legal representation that can soften the consequences of many misdeeds, wrote Michael Powell in The New York Times. But while rich people who ruin countless lives can escape the net of justice, poor people serve long sentences even for minor, nonviolent crimes. Read More. |
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