Means and Ends (Joshua Cohen & Glenn Loury)

[bkjazfan]

I think a diavlog on incarceration would be appropriate. Josh made a comment on this subject and as have a few others who have appeared on BHTV. He lives in California which has a unusually high number of people that are incarcerated. In the state prison system alone there are 160,000 inmates.

Some of the questions I have are how many are imprisoned due to drug offenses, violent crime, white collar, in other words a breakdown of percentages relating to what caused this large mass of people to end up behind bars? Why do some states appear to incarcerate so heavily compared to others if that is the case? Perhaps, a discussion on sentencing guidelines would be helpful. Also, the elephant in the room is the high recidivism rates. Why do so many (70%) end up back in prison time after time? My immediate answer would be institutionalization but that would be way too simplistic so there must be a myriad of other reasons but what are they?

Perhaps, I have missed it but I can't remember a well rounded diavlog on this subject having taken place.