> Prisons are just the tip of the iceberg. Some of this has to do with African-Americans who have been living in poverty for generations stretching all the way

> Prisons are just the tip of the iceberg. Some of this has to do with African-Americans who have been living in poverty for generations stretching all the way back to slavery -- a situation which doesn't exist in Iceland. It also has to do with the US economic policies which promote the flight of low-skill jobs overseas. Not everyone has the intellectual ability to be a doctor or a web developer (especially given our dismal education system), and there are only a limited number of low-skill non-relocatable jobs like food service or retail. Things were much better for people with limited education when labor unions had a monopoly on many unskilled jobs and could set monopoly pricing on wages. Now, with tariffs and high shipping costs no longer keeping manufacturers from moving overseas, competition from workers in desperately poor countries is forcing wages downward; when the going rate for a given job falls below the US minimum wage, those jobs simply disappear from the US entirely. Unfortunately, global corporations who benefit from the situation have too much influence over US politics, opponents of this aspect of the status quo are too disorganized, and the analysis I outlined above is not widely enough accepted for change to happen in the near term.