The answer to this question is astounding: the U.S. incarcerates 25% of the world’s prison population with only 7% of the world’s population. This is a disturbing anamoly in the history of the world. Never before has a country been able to incarcerate so many people at such a high rate, two million and 1 in 127 respectively. These large numbers are incredibly difficult to think about in meaningful terms. But if you can imagine the …showed first 75 words of 913 total…

…showed last 75 words of 913 total…incarceration rate for drugs was just 6%, and today it is about 28%. Thus, the decrease in the percentage of violent offenders came mostly with the increase of drug offenders, and this process was fueled by a sensationlized fear of drugs, not violent crime. This means that the electorate is not quite as fooled as Zimmring thinks, and that people quite knowingly went about creating a war on drugs and some of the people who use them.