'American Prison' presents a highly disturbing insider's view of a private prison

With 2.1 million people in prison, the United States has the largest incarcerated population in the world. The only other country with a number of prisoners that comes even close is China, with 1.6 million.  American incarceration rates skyrocketed beginning in the 1980s with draconian sentencing for drug violations that disproportionately targeted African-Americans and continued in the 1990s with 3-strikes-you’re out laws that condemned many repeat offenders to life sentences. 

However, the US penal system was unable to house