By Paul Craig Roberts
PaulCraigRoberts.org
August 1, 2018
The United States has the highest incarceration rates in the world. The US not only has a far higher percentage of its population in prison than allegedly “authoritarian” governments, but also has a larger total number of citizens imprisoned than China, a country with four times the US population. The US is by far the largest prison camp in the world.
The conditions, such as solitary confinement, in which many US prisoners are kept are strictly illegal under international law, but that means nothing to “freedom and democracy America.” Solitary confinement, especially confinement inside tiny cells, is like being buried alive. Yet, “freedom and democracy America” is subjecting more than 100,000 citizens to this horror as I write. We hear so much about “America’s moral conscience,” but where is this conscience?
Other prisoners are used as a cheap workforce for US military and consumer industries. Prison labor and the privatization of prisons have created an enormous demand for prisoners. American citizens are shoveled into the profit-making prison system regardless of innocence or guilt… Read More