1.5 Million Missing Black Men

[Comrade Grumpy]

20. The worst may be over, but there is still a long way to go.

It seems like our decades-long mass incarceration fever may have broken.

In the past decade, a number of states have enacted sentencing reforms, and the total number of state prisoners is declining. Slowly. From record high levels.

And, under Obama, we've seen sentencing reforms at the federal level. He is also practically begging prisoners who are eligible for clemency to apply for it. That could effect thousands. It looks like the federal prison population has finally leveled off, if not declined.

But we still imprison people, especially black and brown ones, at an ungodly rate. I bet the biggest growth industry in America since the 1980s is the prison-industrial complex.

This is a harsh country. We are a punisher society (you see it all the time even here on this liberal board), and we all know who we punish the most and the harshest.