by C. Stone Brown

About the author: C. Stone Brown is a Black history/political writer who resides in Philadelphia.

The United States of America has quietly become one of the world’s leaders in the rate of incarcerating its citizens. Federal and state prisons have reached the dubious milestone of having a million or more inmates in prison. That number does not even count America’s jail population, which according to the U.S. Justice Department is a record 490,442, double the jail population in the 1980s.

The custodians of America’s penal systems have abandoned the idea of rehabilitating convicts. No doubt, the custodians are acting on orders from an impatient mainstream America, who regard criminals (with exception to white collar criminals) to be innately corrupt, natural born predators of society.

What is America...