Although the United States makes up just five percent of the global population, America holds 25 percent of the world's prison population.
Five decades ago, lawmakers implemented policy changes that have led to mass incarceration today.
One of the largest factors in mass incarceration is the school-to-prison pipeline where marginalized students are pushed out of school and into prison. In the pipeline, as well as mass incarceration as a whole, African Americans are disproportionately affected.
Host Frank Stasio talks with James Williams, Orange County public defender; Heather Thompson, professor of Afro-American studies at the University of Michigan; Tamar Birckhead, professor of law at UNC-Chapel Hill School of Law; Dennis Gaddy, executive director of Community Success Initiative; and John Chisholm, district attorney of Milwaukee.
Williams, Thompson and Birckhead will speak at a mass incarceration symposium titled “Understanding and Dismantling Mass Incarceration: What Solutions Exist for North Carolina?” on Thursday in Cary at the North Carolina Bar Association.