The rate of incarceration in the US is one of the highest in the world – with 5% of world population, the country is home to 25% of the world’s prison population. This rate of incarceration raises its own issues, but for our purpose the chief importance of this large pool of convicted criminals is the part they play in one of the most puzzling phenomena in American life: the number of people, chiefly men, who have disappeared from the workforce. That is Eberstadt’s main concern too.
