Skyrocketing Prison Population Devastating US Society: Report

Impacted communities have long slammed U.S. policies of mass incarceration that are locking up more people than any other country in the world. Now that criticism is also resounding from the highly-regarded National Research Council (an arm of the National Academy of Sciences), which issued a devastating report this week charging that "unprecedented" levels incarceration are spreading great social harm.
Following two years of data review, the 464-page report delivers a round indictment of four decades of skyrocketing incarceration that has quadrupled the prison population and torn apart families, communities, society, and the lives of the incarcerated people.
"Those in power have tried to dismiss and disparage the communities and organizations who have been calling attention to these issues and struggling to change things," Isaac Ontiveros of Critical Resistance told Common Dreams. "Now you have the center saying the same thing people having been vocal about for a generation."

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