Zócalo Public Square

With one in 108 Americans--2.2 million of us--behind bars, the U.S. is home to the world's largest prison population. Why do the number of people in our prisons vastly outstrip those of other democracies, and who are we incarcerating? At an event co-presented by the California Endowment at the Endowment's L.A. headquarters, former California Department of Corrections director Jeanne Woodford, UC Irvine legal scholar Keramet Reiter, and Prophet Walker and Susan Burton--both of whom spent time in the prison system before going on to advocate for its reform--talk with Tim Golden, an editor at The Marshall Project, about why so many Californians and Americans are in prison, and what can be done to lower their numbers.