Punishment over rehabilitation

A good overview of the American prison crisis--high rates of incarceration, bizarre and extreme sentences, and poor re-entry trends (e.g., high recidivism rates)--that ran as the front-piece to Mother Jones's series on crime and punishment in America.

Here's what it boils down to:

We've become a two-tier society in which millions of ostensibly free people are prohibited from enjoying the rights and privileges accorded to everyone else—and we continue to be defined by our desire for punishment and revenge, rather than by our belief in the power of redemption.