Opinion | Imprisoned for Trying to Save His Son – By Nicholas Kristof – The New York Times

By Nicholas Kristof

Opinion Columnist

• May 4, 2019
• • 235

Prisoners in a gymnasium that has been converted to house inmates, at California Institution for Men in Chino, in 2011.CreditAnn Johansson/Corbis, via Getty Images

“America’s biggest mistake over the last half-century arguably had nothing to do with the war in Vietnam or Iraq, or with Watergate or Donald Trump. Rather, I’d say that it was mass incarceration, fueled by the war on drugs.

The United States used to have incarceration rates similar to those of Europe — and then, beginning in about 1970, we increased the number of people behind bars sevenfold. About as many Americans now have a criminal record as have a college degree. Mass incarceration shattered America’s family structure, magnified race gaps, left millions of people marginalized — and has been brutally unfair.”