At the National Prayer Breakfast, President Trump declared that the nation’s fate depends on the opportunities available to society’s most vulnerable: “America will succeed so long as our most vulnerable citizens—and we have some that are so vulnerable—have a path to success.”
Although the president did not single out any group, incarcerated citizens and their families undoubtedly rank among the most vulnerable in our nation. The oft-repeated statistics were confirmed (once again) in a recent report by the Prison Policy Initiative: The United States of America has the highest incarceration rate in the world. We are home to only 5 percent of the world’s population, but nearly 25 percent of the world’s prison population—some 2.3 million imprisoned individuals.
