How Mass Incarceration Has Shaped History

Historian Heather Ann Thompson describes mass incarceration in the United States in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries as being “without international parallel or historical precedent.” In 2006, for instance, “one in every thirty-one U.S. residents was under some form of correction supervision, such as in prison or jail, or on probation or parole.” Despite this, Thompson asserts...read more.