American Gulag: Inside the U.S.’ Massive Prison System, with Chris Hedges

For a supposedly developed, democratic nation, the United States locks up an extraordinary number of its citizens. Close to one quarter of the world’s prison population is in the United States.

In a country with a rising population and a falling demand for labor, the government decided to solve this problem by simply locking up millions of its poorest citizens, in the process allowing corporate America to make billions from their suffering. The prison industry is booming: between 1990 and 2005, the U.S. built, on average, a new prison every ten days.

Joining Lowkey to discuss how prisons became big business is Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges. Chris spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Balkans, and the Middle East for The New York Times and currently hosts the show On Contact on RT. His latest book, “Our Class: Trauma and Transformation in an American Prison,” was published in October.

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