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No Reason To Blame Liberals (Or, The Unbearable Lightness Of Perversity Arguments), Margo Schlanger

Reviews

In addition to the current extraordinary number of people behind American bars, the other key feature of our current carceral state is the very high concentration of non-whites in that population. That concentration of non-whites has grown significantly since the 1960s, when whites constituted nearly two thirds of American prison population; today, they are only a bit over one-third. Since 72% of Americans are white, the distinction in terms of incarceration rate is far more stark: among white men, the current imprisonment rate (counting only sentenced prisoners) is 4.7/1000; among Latino men it is two-and-a-half times that (11.3/1000); and among …