Our prison system manufactures violent white supremacists. [View all]

[cthulu2016]

Our prison system manufactures a lot of urban gang members, too.

A nation's prisons do not affect the nation merely in an abstract ethical sense. Our prisons are, whatever their value for other purposes (punishemnt, deterrance), just about the last environment one would want shaping violent men before reincorporating them into society.

This is something that really is overlooked. Whatever goes on in prison informs our civil society. It isn't a parallel dimension... it's real. It is part of our society. It shapes society, the same way the military shapes society, or universities or football or the boy scouts.