Review: ‘The House I Live In’
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In January 1961, President Dwight D. Eisenhower referred to the dangers of the military-industrial complex, a network of political and economic relationships among politicians, the military, and the defense industry that threatened to become self-perpetuating and independent of criticism or effective oversight by anyone outside this iron triangle. The subject of Eugene Jarecki’s The House I Live In is a similarly self-perpetuating entity, the prison-industrial complex, as fueled by America’s so-called “War on Drugs.” The facts are shocking to anyone outside this triangle of politicians, correctional institutions, and private contractors:
The United States has 5 percent of the world’s population, but 25 percent of the world’s prison population. Today, more people in the United States are incarcerated for nonviolent drug offenses than were incarcerated for all crimes in 1970. One in eight state employees today works for a corrections agency. About 14 percent of drug users in the United States are African American, but 56 percent of those incarcerated for drug crimes are African American.