A huge number of Americans—disproportionately those from underprivileged backgrounds—are trapped in a cruel and senseless system of mass incarceration. According to New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice, “The United States has less than five percent of the world’s population and nearly one-quarter of its prisoners. Astonishingly, if the 2.3 million incarcerated Americans were a state, it would be more populous than 16 other states. All told, one in three people in the United States has some type of criminal record. No other industrialized country comes close.”
