Introduction

Summary

In 2019, the United States locked up almost 2 million people. And there is no simple explanation for what is going on. There were 196,300 people imprisoned for homicides and another 176,300 people in prison for drug offenses. Each of those numbers is close to three times the entire prison population of countries like France (75,000) or Germany (60,000), and each number rivals the United States’ total prison population in the early 1970s (200,000). Add in all the people incarcerated for other crimes, and those awaiting trial in jail, and you get 2 million – a number that would have been incomprehensible fifty years ago.¹