Why are so many Americans in prison? Right now, there are 2.3 million Americans held in US prisons. That's a HUGE number, relative to the overall US population. The US makes up just 5% of the world's population, but we hold 25% of the world's prison population. Put another way, 1 in 4 people held in prison around the world is an American citizen. And a disproportionate number of these inmates are people of color, mostly African American and Latino. Furthermore, this phenomenon of mass incarceration is a relatively recent one. In 1970 the incarceration rate in the US was roughly 150 people per 100,000. In 2017 it's well over 700 people per 100,000! How did we get here? What happened around 1970 that sent us down this path?  To answer these questions, I speak with historian Elizabeth Hinton, author of the book, From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration in America (Harvard University Press). She'll help us see the key public policy decisions regarding crime and criminal justice -- and the assumptions about race and poverty that shaped them -- that caused the US prison population to explode after 1970.  Show page with links, suggested readings, credits, and music at  http://inthepastlane.com/episode-022/