The U.S. continues imprisoning people at the highest rate in the world—far exceeding other countries. Black and Latine people remain disproportionately impacted by the system, including experiencing harsher surveillance and policing practices and longer sentences for the same crimes as their white counterparts. Given that the criminal legal system has deep roots in our history of chattel slavery, who remains most directly impacted by mass incarceration is not surprising.

On any given day in America, 450,000 people (roughly the population of Long Beach, CA) are being held in jails. These individuals haven’t been found guilty of a crime; they are being held because they can’t afford to pay cash bail to secure their release pre-trial. Wealth, not guilt, often determines who languishes inside.

Black and Latine people also receive disparate and excessive prison sentences in comparison to white people, with few opportunities for review and resentencing. Misguided laws passed during the “tough on crime” era doubled and tripled prison time, warehousing people for decades instead of preparing them to return to their families and rejoin society.

Mass incarceration and inadequate re-entry support systems undermine communities by separating families, removing workers from the economy, and barring people with records from housing, gainful employment, and voting.

Meanwhile, as of 2023, the carceral system continues to extract the labor of incarcerated people who are often forced to work for slave wages, producing goods and services that total an annual output of $11 billion.1 Financial incentives and corporate profits fuel the crisis of mass incarceration.