Drugs,poor education and unemployment are the problem.
In poor neighborhoods selling drugs are one of the few ways to earn money.
In Europe and Hong Kong, drugs can be obtained from physicians for those who register. There are no drug dealers and no drug crime in those countries.
Incarceration in such countries is a minute fraction of what is found in the US where 3 million are behind bars..
Nelson Rockefeller initiated the Drug Laws that resulted in prison construction and high rates of imprisonment. Many felt that prison construction was his response to the anger expressed as a result of his closing the State's mental hospitals and loss of upstate jobs.

Is that first comment person living on Mars
or a KKK member in denial? Angela Davis is no disgrace. You may not like how she tries to get justice for all but at least she has tried against all odds;tried unlike your commenter who probably just reads his small town newspaper. We HAVE a Prison industrial Complex just as we HAVE a Military industrial complex(Eisenhower). Prisons are built with the intention of creating employment for small towns. When their is not enough convictions to fill them; they eliminate vacancies by convicting the poor who can't afford decent legal representation.
That usuallty means poor minorities. The Majorities tend to walk competely of stay out on probation ie - Lindsay Lohan(4 times).

I though today's interview of
Angela Davis was a disgrace. No, Brian it is not the 'prison-idustrial complex', in the 'real world' it is the 'justice system." Your biases are worn on yr sleeve, how about aksing her how she feels about being part of the "left wing academic industrial complex." or having been part of a failed, murderous ideology. Bias beyond bias and another disgraceful interview

“The legal system’s injustice against her.” ???

Brian, it seems we hardly knew ye.

These "champions" of the downtrodden do so much damage to the class of people they aim to help. Never a word about the victims. The victims who are the neighbors of the criminals.

True, she comes from another time. And she served her time. Now she addresses new problems with incarceration industry which operates as a corporation, they need to turn a profit like any other business. This is the main problem with the justice system today. It is profit driven at the expense o freedom.
I am not for abolishing the prison system but it has its flaws.

Davis is no longer relevant, and listeners today got a firsthand look at why. Palaver, blather and utopian cliches. None of this solves genuinely difficult problems, and that is what we are facing.

The republicans should use her blather to spike their registration efforts.

Actually, to clarify a point Davis made, the level of visible drug related activity in a neighborhood is NOT an indication of the level of drug use in that neighborhood. It is an indication of different enforcement strategy across n'hoods and why illegal activity is more visible in deprived rather than resourced n'hoods.

I am a sociologist who studies drugs and drug control.

Brian - can you pls follow up your previous question re prison rate as factor in reducing crime - how does the guest explain the drop in crime rate? I'd like to hear her alternative theory.

They are called riots and looting, not uprisings.

Expensive rehabilitation programs will be needed to help transition released inmates into the workforce.

What jobs will these people be able to get?

With a felony record you are going to have a difficult time once you are out.

Brian, you are too white and liberal to ask her a hard question. She belongs in jail. Another "great Black Leader" what a joke.

"Legendary activist."???

How about: Accessory to the murder of an innocent man - by smuggling a gun to her vicious jailed boyfriend?

Brian,

It took real chutzpah for you to mention Angela Davis in the same sentence as a demagogue and race-baiter like Newt Gingrich.

I highly recommend Professor Michelle Alexander's recent book on this topic, "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.” Here is a link to Alexander's excellent New York Times Opinion piece from Saturday.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/15/opinion/15alexander.html?ref=opinion

Angela Davis is a legend (I even liked her "appearance" in Philip Roth's "American Pastoral) but this young professor amazes me almost as much. She has stellar credentials from elite universities - but chose to serve her country by writing "The New Jim Crow" - as opposed to becoming a banker or lobbyist or management consultant.