The Rights Track

In Episode 3 of Series 6, Todd is joined by David Fathi, Director of the American Civil Liberties Union National Prison Project to discuss the impact of Covid19 on prisons and prisoners in the USA. 00.00 – 04.40 David provides an overview of the prison system in the USA. The country has: the largest prison population in the world at over 2 million people the highest per capita rate of prisoners at between 5 and 10 times the rate for countries like Canada, England, and Wales and even authoritarian countries like China Incarceration in the United States is highly decentralized across 51 different prison systems. Every state has its own prison system separate from and running alongside the federal prison system, and within that the private, for profit prisons account for around 10 percent of the national prison population.  There are concerns relating to private run prisons, which have led to the Biden administration removing private companies from operating federal prisons. Concerns raised include: lack of