- April 13, 2006 • 4:14 pm PDT
- + responses
If you think there's something wrong with the U.S. prison system, you might want to check out the "Prison Nation" exhibit at the Watts Towers Art Center in Los Angeles between now and June 4th. For those who think there's nothing wrong, attendance should be mandatory. The exhibit uses images to transcend the political and ideological debates that have shaped our national prison policy. Here are some facts that are not up for debate. Since 1970, the prison population has increased six-fold. A quarter of the inmates in state and federal prisons are there for drug charges. One in every eleven men will spend time behind bars in his lifetime. For black men, one in every four. Since 1980, spending-per-resident on state prisons has increased at six times the rate that spending-per-resident on education has increased. Prisons are being run like businesses, with a bigger emphasis on boosting the bottom line than rehabilitating inmates–and upon their release from prison, more than two-thirds are rearrested within three years. It is in all of our interests to not be okay with that.
Curated by the L.A.-based Center for the Study of Political Graphics and sponsored by the city of L.A.'s Cultural Affairs department, the exhibit is called "Prison Nation: Posters on the Prison Industrial Complex."
Here are some more statistics from PrisonSucks.com.
