[ifelsethenyeah]

There are numerous holistic and historical factors that throw more people into the jaws of the unforgiving US criminal justice system:

1. School-to-prison pipeline [i]

2. For-profit prisons

3. Mandatory minimums

4. Three-strikes laws

5. Over-policing minority and poor areas

6. Racial profiling [ii]

7. Lack of adequate universal mental healthcare

8. The War on Drugs

9. Lack of opportunities + crimes of desperation and despair

10. Poverty leads to inadequate defense and conviction or pleading out to something they didn't do because overworked public defenders are a cruel joke

----

i. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School-to-prison_pipeline

ii. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_profiling

[jacquesm]

Let's name it for what it is: voter disenfranchisement on an industrial scale.