The United States has the largest population behind bars (a record 2.3 million in 2016) and the highest incarceration rate of any country (698 per 100,000).

It’s a big problem, and yet many Americans accept this reality due to the widely held belief that prisons keep us safer.

That’s a myth, though, says journalist Victoria Law. Today on the show, she speaks with WORT news director Chali Pittman about the realities of mass incarceration (including the many woman and trans folx behind bars who often go unacknowledged in the national conversation) and shares insights from her new book, “Prisons Make Us Safer”: And 20 Other Myths about Mass Incarceration, out next week.

Victoria Law is a journalist and author who frequently writes about mass incarceration and its intersection with gender and resistance. She’s the author of Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles Of Incarcerated Women (PM Press, 2009), Prison By Any Other Name: The Harmful Consequences of Popular Reform (co-authored with Maya Schenwar; New Press, 2020), and “Prisons Make Us Safer”: And 20 Other Myths about Mass Incarceration (Beacon Press, 2021).