Mass incarceration began in 1973, shortly after Nixon’s introduction of the War on Drugs. The economic disturbances of the 1970s were described in chapter 2; they led to an apparent rise in crime, although the reports may have only shown better crime measurement. Urbanization was increasing, the Great Migration had brought many African Americans into the North, and baby boomers born in the years after the Second World War were becoming young adults—the prime age to commit crimes.
