Pork Barrel Prisons

February, 2002

The war on drugs staggers on. Since 1980, the number of people locked in jails and prisons has quadrupled, breaking the 2 million mark last year. A lawmaker in Louisiana observed that things had become so bad his state had "half the population in prison and the other half watching them."We continue to read stories of draconian sentences, of racist enforcement polices, of police brutality and violence, of families shattered by the crusade against marijuana and so-called hard drugs. The...