I recently visited a young man named James who is serving a 15-to-life sentence that he began at 15 years old. He is now 26 and confined at a maximum-security prison in New York. By the time he is released, if ever, James will have spent more of his life behind bars than at home.
More and more Americans believe that our system of mass incarceration is not working. That it is unjust, too expensive. There has been a change in the perception of nonviolent drug users; the Supreme Court recently ruled that we cannot execute young people and that states must consider their youth before they sentence them to life without parole.
This is evidenced by reforms in federal and state policy and sentencing, and by large-scale decarceration efforts in prison and juvenile justice systems across the United States. Republicans and Democrats alike have decried our prison system. This chipping away at mass incarceration is to be welcomed.
[For more of this story, written by Alexandra Cox, go to http://jjie.org/the-perils-of-...ts-in-prison/108208/]
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