The American Prospects’ Adam Serwer has a good, comprehensive article on the changing attitudes at both the state and federal government level toward mass incarceration. Noting that the U.S. has the largest prison population in the world — 1 in 31 Americans are under supervision by the criminal justice system, either imprisoned or on parole/probation — Serwer writes: “Even among conservatives, there is a growing recognition that something is deeply wrong with a modern industrialized nation imprisoning such a large percentage of its population.”

Most of the article deals with how politically complicated it will be to decrease the prison population. But the growing recognition of a bloated criminal justice system counts for something.

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