A cruel streak perhaps, but even more problematic: a perverse incentive. Came across an interesting somewhat contrarian argument recently in a New Yorker artic

A cruel streak perhaps, but even more problematic: a perverse incentive. Came across an interesting somewhat contrarian argument recently in a New Yorker article reviewing a new book about mass incarceration in America: So what makes for the madness of American incarceration? If it isn’t crazy drug laws or outrageous sentences or profit-seeking prison keepers, what is it? Pfaff has a simple explanation: it’s prosecutors. They are political creatures, who get political rewards for locking people up and almost unlimited power to do it. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/04/10/how-we-misunderstand-mass-incarceration http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/04/10/how-we-misunder...