* Drug arrests in the US have multiplied by more than ninefold since
1968, with arrests of blacks for drug offences rising almost 500%
between 1986 and 1991 (compared with 110% for whites), with prison
sentences after conviction on federal marijuana charges averaging 42
months with no parole, compared with 35 months for sexual assault.
Experts estimate that almost 90% of the 2m people in US prisons, about
six times per capita more than the average of Britain, France and
Germany, are there for non-violent offences.

But there is a lot in it for the usual suspects. Military-industrial
corporations selling to the prison boom, Wall Street bond merchants
lending to prison builders, corporate mass media fanning public fears,
law-and-order demagogues now running the US Senate - all of these do
very well out of caging the poor in ever greater numbers.

John McMurtry, University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada