Social Control, Law, Crime, and Deviance Commons^™

Specter Of Reform: Understanding The Violent Crime Control And Law Enforcement Act Of 1994 And Its Role In Expanding The Modern Prison Industrial Complex, Timothy Nii-Okai Welbeck

Arlen Specter Center Research Fellowship

The United States incarcerates more of its citizens than any other nation in recorded history, and currently houses roughly 25% of the world’s prison population. Though the US prison population dipped in 2016 to its lowest rate since 1993, the sheer number of people under the supervision of the criminal justice system within the country is staggering. As of 2012, one in one hundred adults in the US are in jail or prison, which makes the US the nation with the world’s largest prison population. The US also leads the world in rate of incarceration. Thus, the nation’s prisons teem …