Jed Rakoff

We're much higher than either of those countries in terms of number of people we lock up.

And we've been the leader, I'm sorry to say, for the last 20 years.

We're locking up mostly people of color, 60% of that group, even more so people who are poor.

That's 80% of the group.

And we are ruining their lives.

We are ruining their families' lives.

We are ruining their communities in many respects.

By the way, it's very expensive.

It could cost $160 billion a year to lock up all those folks.

So it's having a devastating effect.

If you are a black male, your chances of being arrested sometime in your lifetime are one in three.

If you are a black male.

Your chances of spending time in jail or prison sometime in your lifetime is one out of nine.

So these are huge proportions of black male society that are being ripped away from their families, usually at a very important time in their life, taken away from their jobs, and they will never be able to get to the same kind of jobs again.

And yes, some of them did commit crimes, but not crimes warranting this kind of punishment.

U.S.

sentences are usually much higher than most Western countries.

The sentences on paper in China are even harsher than our sentences.

Lots of death sentences on paper.

But the number of people who are actually locked up in China or executed in China is massive.