Prisons in Crisis

From Los Angeles we're joined by Carol Williams, legal affairs reporter for the Los Angeles Times. She's been covering the aftermath of the Chino riot: see "At Chino, mute evidence speaks of violent riot" and "Report predicted violence at Chino prison dorm hit by race riots."

Joining us from Berkeley, Calif., is Kara Dansky, executive director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center.

Joining us from Washington, DC, is Marc Mauer, executive director of The Sentencing Project. He's author of "Race to Incarcerate" and editor of "Invisible Punishment: The Collateral Consequences of Mass Imprisonment."

And from Houston, Texas, we're joined by Byron Price, professor of political science at Texas Southern University and Interim Director of the Barbara Jordan Institute for Policy Research. He's author of "Merchandizing Prisoners: Who Really Pays for Prison Privatization?"

More links:
You can see the aftermath of the Chino riots, in panorama shots at the LA Times website: outside and inside.
The U.S. tops the world in both prison population and incarceration rate.  This interactive graphic at NYTimes.com shows the data.