Today, the United States has just 5 percent of the world’s population but 25 percent of its incarcerated persons. While the reasons for this are many, some of the seeds were planted under Nixon’s administration when the federal government began issuing harsher sentences for criminal offenders, supporting the deployment of undercover police squads in cities, and providing incentives for the construction of prisons. The result was “a significant expansion in America’s carceral state.”
