Opinion: How to dismantle the pipeline from poverty to prison
“Part of the reason that grace is not offered by so many is that the criminal legal system does not ensnare people from all backgrounds equally. As has long been the case, white people are underrepresented in U.S. prisons while Black people are dramatically overrepresented. Wealth inequality plays a huge part in who is incarcerated as well, with a Prison Policy Initiative report finding in 2015 that incarcerated people aged 27 to 42 had a median annual income of $19,185 before incarceration, or 41% less than nonincarcerated people of similar age. While it might be hard to remember a time when the U.S. didn’t have one of the world’s largest percentages of people in prison in the world, it’s actually a fairly recent phenomenon, with the number of people incarcerated increasing 500% since 1970.”