Robert Ferguson (Get this book) An eye-opening report about how the United States, with just 5 percent of the world's population, holds 25 percent of the world's incarcerated population. Ferguson charges that American prisons have "become an evil for all concerned." Federal, state and local governments spend $80 billion per year on a system that provides jobs for one out of nine state employees. In order to promote the system's growth, private prison companies, as well as the unions representing guards, have become a self-serving lobby wielding their clout over political decision-makers. An important wake-up call about an emerging crisis that threatens to become a human rights scandal of global proportions.--Kirkus
