'Foolishly sticking with failed system': Mississippi leads the world in mass incarceration

Mississippi is now the world’s leader in putting people behind bars — more inmates per capita than any state or nation, including China, Russia and Iran, according to the World Population Review.

“Is there a political price to be paid for foolishly sticking with a failed system that’s made us the world capital of mass incarceration?” asked Cliff Johnson, director of the MacArthur Justice Center at the University of Mississippi School of Law. “What’s it going to take for Mississippians to realize that the mass incarceration we have carried out for decades has made us less safe, rather than safer?”

Across the U.S., the number of those in prison in the U.S. is 16% lower today than before the pandemic, according to the Vera Institute of Justice, but Mississippi’s rate is skyrocketing, rising more than 1,500 in less than six months. That population now exceeds 18,000 — the highest rate since April 2020.

“We have perfected throwing people away for long periods of time,” Johnson said, “and yet after decades and decades of this approach, Mississippians are more fearful about violent crime than any time I remember.”

https://www.yahoo.com/news/mississippi-now-leads-world-mass-142133905.html