Let's take a look at the statistics. The United States contains 5 percent of the world's population, but it contains 25 percent of the world's prisoners. Think about this. A small country with 5 percent of the world's population holds 25 percent of the world's prisoners? 1 out of 4? 1 in 4 people imprisoned and chained in the world are imprisoned here, in the land of the free. NETFLIX ORIGINAL DOCUMENTARIES The number of prisoners in 1972 was 200,000. Today, the prison population is 2.3 million. The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. Suddenly people woke up and started saying, "Maybe we should downsize our prison system. It's getting too expensive and out of control." But the same people who often express concern about the cost and scope of the system are often unwilling to take any serious action to rectify the harm done. History is not just random events. We are the product of the history our ancestors chose, if we are white. Even if we are black, we are the product of a history that our ancestors did not choose. Yet here we are together, the product of that set of choices. We must understand this in order to escape from it. The 13th Amendment to the Constitution constitutionally prohibits slavery. "Abolishing slavery," in other words, gives freedom... to all Americans. The amendment excludes some categories, including criminals. There is a clause, a legal loophole. "Except as a punishment for a crime." If you put that into the structure of the law, into constitutional language, it can be used as a tool to achieve any goal one desires. People should remember that slavery was an economic system. The collapse of slavery at the end of the Civil War left the South's economy in poor condition. This raises an important question. There are 4 million people who were formerly slaves and were once an integral part of the economic production system in the South. Now these people are free. So, what do we do with these people? How do we rebuild the economy? The legal loophole in the 13th Amendment was immediately exploited. After the Civil War, African Americans were incarcerated en masse.