Everyday Injustice Podcast Episode 183: Jeffrey Bellin Talks Mass Incarceration Nation

As most observers are well aware by now, the US incarcerates a much higher proportion of its population than any other nation. In Jeffrey Bellin’s book, “Mass Incarceration Nation,” he conceives of the system as having two distinct levels. The criminal justice system where the public seeks “justice” in response to serious crimes like murder and rape. And the criminal legal system, “where the government enforces a variety of laws ostensibly to achieve certain policy goals, like reducing drug abuse or gun violence or illegal immigration.” Bellin argues that while the increase in those serious crimes in the 1970s and 1980s did lead to a tough on crime crack down, “Increasing the penalties for crime in this country didn’t end crime.” Instead, it ebbs and lfows as it has. But what has changes is that our “tough on crime” policies have now filled prisons with a “small percentage but growing number of unlucky ‘criminals’” and once there, “tougher laws and tougher officials made sure they stayed locked up.”