A plan to put more Americans in prison
Jeff Sessions has undone Obama-era reforms by telling prosecutors to pursue the most serious charges possible
By S.M. | NEW YORK
AMERICA’S prisons are not for claustrophobes. Since the early 1980s, when harsher sentencing laws were introduced, the number of people incarcerated in the land of the free has increased nearly five-fold—to 2.2m souls. The United States locks up its inhabitants at a rate of 670 per 100,000 people. By contrast, in most European countries, the figures hovers around 100; in Sweden it is 53. New charging guidelines announced on May 12th by Jeff Sessions, Donald Trump’s attorney-general, appear designed to maintain this high incarceration rate—and perhaps to run up the score.
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