https://goo.gl/qu4fXY
Hosted by Andrew Pulrang, Gregg Beratan, and Alice Wong, #CripTheVote Twitter chats explored various policy issues important to people with disabilities this spring. For our seventh chat, we are delighted to have guest host Talila “TL” Lewis to join us in a conversation about mass incarceration, the legal system, and how they impact people with disabilities. You can find the questions for this chat at the end of this post.
From the American Civil Liberties Union:
America, land of the free, has earned the disturbing distinction of being the world’s leading jailer. Representing just 5 percent of the world’s population, we now hold 25 percent of the world’s inmates. The “tough on crime” politics of the 1980s and 1990s fueled an explosion in incarceration rates.
According to the Prison Policy Initiative:
The American criminal justice system holds more than 2.3 million people in 1,719 state prisons, 102 federal prisons, 942 juvenile correctional facilities, 3,283 local jails, and 79 Indian Country jails as well as in military prisons, immigration detention facilities, civil commitment centers, and prisons in the U.S. territories.