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3 of 3 Premium Clicks used this month SUBSCRIBE Print + Online Subscriber Activation | Register x Forgot Password | Need an Account? subscribe | newsletter | deals Home News Latest Stories Will the gender pay gap ever disappear? Ashland Recycling Center hits quarter-century Louie’s Restaurant hosts fourth annual Equal Pay Day Police Reports 10 things to know for Friday Education Official hopeful whooping cough case at John Muir contained Bracing for Common Core Ashland Kiwanis recognize Lillian Huang Chautauqua series brings author Jane Hamilton to Ashland Ashland Runs on Volunteers: OLLI classes pay dividends in joy of teaching, learning Environment Ashland Fire & Rescue Alarm Box: There are good fires and there are bad fires Lots to celebrate at SOU Arbor Day rites Mt. 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Mangino: Mass incarceration enters the national consciousness Jeffrey Gillespie: Buying the presidency Arthur I. Cyr: Cuba’s enduring challenge to American foreign policy – and American politics Chris Honore Council Corner Editor's Notes Jeffrey Gillespie Herb Rothschild Revels Latest Stories Community blog: Go to the poetry reading at the library on Sunday Community blog: Poems for parenting A tale of two plays at OSF Joanne Rand at the Unitarian Fellowship Five picks for entertainment this week Theater Ticket Availability Ticket Availability A tale of two plays at OSF Ashland New Plays Festival chooses new artistic director Backstage: 'Poof: Something that wasn’t there is there' Music On TV: Your guide to the Academy of Country Music Awards The Farr Side: Intriguing time on the Hot 100 Joanne Rand at the Unitarian Fellowship The Farr Side: Is Kelly Clarkson’s weight truly news?  Rhythm is on tap at the Northwest Percussion Festival Visual Art More films, excitement than ever for AIFF Ashland's First Friday Art Walk Movies Movie review: Based-on-fact ‘True Story’ asks, ‘Who’s fooling who?’ Movie review: Lots of monkey business in ‘Monkey Kingdom’ Russell Crowe discusses WWI and being a first-time director 'Cinderella' revisited is stunning, magical Ben Steelman: Big-screen showings to mark anniversary of ‘Sound of Music’ Food and Drink Business profile: Couple opens second Pita Pit in Ashland Tot owners buy Playwright, hire Amuse chef Cruelest Month: Poetry Blog Lifestyle Latest Stories App Finder: Best Earth Day apps Health Watch: How to avoid the dreaded weight-loss plateau Looking Up: Watching for the next big comet Adelante! Gallery showcases Zenga Official hopeful whooping cough case at John Muir contained Aging Happens Inner Peace Column Inner Peace Blog Rogues: Tales from the Valley Classifieds Jobs Autos Real Estate FEATURED » Obituaries Photos Videos Blogs Business Business Services NEWS NOW Guest Opinion: Allegations unfair to Dr. Tomashefsky ... Herb Rothschild Jr.: Spreading the risk of vaccination ... Ticket Availability ... Guest Opinion: Allegations unfair to Dr. Tomashefsky ... Herb Rothschild Jr.: Spreading the risk of vaccination ... Ticket Availability ... Matthew T. Mangino: Mass incarceration enters the national consciousness By Matthew T. Mangino More Content Now DailyTidings.com By Matthew T. Mangino More Content Now Posted Apr. 17, 2015 @ 7:36 am By Matthew T. Mangino More Content Now Posted Apr. 17, 2015 @ 7:36 am » Social News p bs:newslist StartDate="20121121" EndDate="p bs:datecalc Months="3"" DateSort="1" UseObjects="1" ObjectClass="81" Taxonomywords="2324,665" ExactTaxonomyMatch="1" Image="1" Count="4" --> This week, Grammy Award winner John Legend announced an initiative, Free America, a movement to bring attention to the ills of mass incarceration. He has scheduled a series of performances at correctional facilities in various states, along with press events, to raise awareness of the far-reaching impact of over-incarceration. “We have a serious problem with incarceration in this country,” Legend said in an interview with The Associated Press. “When you look deeper and look at the reasons we got to this place, we as a society made some choices politically and legislatively, culturally to deal with poverty, deal with mental illness in a certain way and that way usually involves using incarceration.” How serious is the problem? Last year, the New York Times described America’s mass incarceration problem in this way: “Since the early 1970s, the nation’s prison population has quadrupled to 2.2 million, making it the world’s biggest. That is five to 10 times the incarceration rate in other democracies.” Race and poverty often overlap and as a result a growing effort to crack down on crime has overwhelmingly fell on communities of color, and particularly on young black men. According to the Washington Post, minorities constitute 60 percent of the U.S. prison population. Men under the age of 40, the poorly educated, people with mental illness and those dependent on drugs and alcohol are also over-represented. In her book “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness,” Ohio State University associate professor Michelle Alexander wrote that many of the gains of the civil rights movement have been undermined by the mass incarceration of black Americans. She compared the modern criminal justice system to the Jim Crow system of the South that mandated the segregation of public schools, public places and public transportation. Under Jim Crow laws, black Americans were relegated to a subordinate status for nearly a century. Things like literacy tests for voters and laws designed to prevent blacks from serving on juries were commonplace in nearly a dozen Southern states, reported National Public Radio. Alexander wrote that although Jim Crow laws are now off the books, millions of blacks arrested for minor crimes remain marginalized and disfranchised, trapped by a criminal justice system that has branded them as felons and denied them basic rights and opportunities that would allow them to become productive, law-abiding citizens. Today, more than one out of every 100 Americans is behind bars, and the U.S. has the largest prison population in the world, both in terms of the actual number of inmates and as a percentage of the total population. According to the Prison Policy Institute, there are more people locked up in the U.S. than in China. In fact, the U.S. is home to nearly a quarter of the world’s prisoners, despite accounting for just 5 percent of the overall global population. With more prisoners comes more cost. Americans are spending $80 billion a year on incarcerating criminals. State spending on corrections increased by more than 400 percent, between 1980 and 2009. Spending at the state level has outpaced budget increases for just about every other function of government, including education, transportation and welfare. Only spending on Medicaid at the state level has grown faster in the last 20 years. Increased incarceration comes at more than just a monetary cost. John Legend is also championing the reduction of some crimes from felonies to misdemeanors. “Once you have that tag of a felony on your name, it’s hard for you to do anything,” Legend said. “Getting those reduced to misdemeanors really impacted a lot of lives and we hope to launch more initiatives like that around the country.” Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly & George P.C. His book “The Executioner’s Toll, 2010” was released by McFarland Publishing. You can reach him at www.mattmangino.com and follow him on Twitter at @MatthewTMangino. By Matthew T. Mangino More Content Now DailyTidings.com By Matthew T. 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