massive investments in punitive control over Black people, rather than massive investments that might have repaired the harm caused by centuries of racial oppression. For more than four decades, our nation has declared wars on drugs and crime, invested billions of dollars in highly militarized police forces, and embarked on a race to incarcerate in Black communities, while slashing funding from education, drug treatment, public housing, and welfare.93 The result has been disastrous. The United States now has the highest rate of incarceration in the world—the number of people behind bars has
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