John Oliver brilliantly attacked America’s broken prison system and the racist war on drugs in a 17-minute segment earlier this week.
Oliver begins by noting that America has the world’s highest incarceration rate with nearly 1-in-every-100 adults either in jail or prison.
Oliver puts this in context explaining that “Two million people are in jail in America. That’s more than in China. China! We don’t have anything more than China! Except, possibly, debt to China.”
Business Insider provides a great synopsis of the rather lengthy segment, breaking it down into 7 topics of discussion to include:
The growing population of prisoners in the U.S.: America’s prison population has been exploding since the war on drugs led to tough-on-crime laws being implemented in the 1980s and 1990s. The new mandatory minimums for even low-level drug offenses helped America’s prison population grow to be the biggest in the world. As Oliver points out, the U.S. now has more prisoners than even China, whose population is four times that of the U.S.
Racism: Not only have America’s harsh drug laws not solved the country’s drug problem, but they also affect black people disproportionately. Oliver notes that despite the fact that black people use drugs at roughly the same rate as white people, black people are 10 times more likely to be imprisoned for drug offenses.
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Sexual assault: Oliver points out that sexual assault is a big problem in America’s prison system. In its most recent report on the issue, the Bureau of Justice Statistics said there were nearly 9,000 allegations of sexual victimization in prisons and jails in 2011 alone. As Oliver highlights in video clips from “Friends,” Office Space,” and even the kids show “SpongeBob SquarePants,” this has become a running joke in America.
Business Insider also breaks down Oliver’s discussion regarding problems associated with the privatization of the prison industry and its impact on food, healthcare and overall efficiency of the prison system, plaguing it with inhumane conditions and sexual assaults.
Oliver ended the segment with a little help from some Muppet friends, singing “It’s a fact that needs to be spoken, America’s prisons are broken.”
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