Goodreads asked John Clarkson:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

John Clarkson It's usually a combination of things. But this book started with the persistent, disturbing fact that the United States incarcerates more people per-capita than any other country in the world (except for...get this...Seychelles). U.S. Bureau of Justice says we have 2,266,800 adults imprisoned at the end of 2011. But that doesn't even begin to describe the problem. There are also 4,814,200 adults on probation or on parole. And 71,000 juveniles in detention. I kept thinking, what does this mean? What happens to all those millions? So, that's how it started.

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