May 16, 2011 – Segment 3

The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world.  African Americans make up a disproportionate amount of the US prison population.  The current budget crunch is forcing political leaders around the country to rethink the amount of money spent on incarceration, but law professor and writer Michelle Alexander, who joins us for this segment, urges us to examine the motivations behind the needed push for prison reform closely.  You can read her op-ed in yesterday’s New York Times here.