When it comes to crime and punishment, America really is exceptional -- we have the highest incarceration rate in the entire world.

Why is our criminal justice system so uniquely repressive?

Donald Trump has now been president for 200 days.

And while his administration has virtually no legislative accomplishments to its name, it IS getting things done - especially over at the Justice Department, where Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions the Third is hard at work rolling back President Obama's long overdue push for criminal justice reform.

To borrow a phrase from the president himself - the Trump administration is making the Prison Industrial Complex Great Again.

Meanwhile, all over the world, countries as different as Thailand and Norway are forging ahead with new and more productive ways of dealing with the age old question of what to do with people who break the law.

Some countries have figured out how to do prisons right, why can't we?

-Thom

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