The United States houses 25% of the world's inmates despite having only 5% of the world's population. This fact prompted former Senator Jim Webb of Virginia to say, "Either we have the most evil people on earth living in the U.S., or we are doing something dramatically wrong in terms of how we approach the issue of criminal justice." The prison industrial complex has a vested interest in keeping people locked up.

Back in June, Seattle resident Oscar Perez Giron committed the most minor of crimes, and ended up dead.

When fare enforcement officers approached 23-year-old Giron and his two companions on the light rail and asked for proof of fare payment, they could only produce two valid ticket stubs.

The movement challenging the criminal justice system's treatment of black people continues to build this week. On Monday morning, Bay Area organizers blockaded entrances to Oakland Police Department headquarters and brought traffic to a standstill on nearby Interstate 880.

The events in Ferguson, Missouri this past week have been both shocking and traumatizing. We are a nation at war with ourselves and have been since the late 1980s when the terrible “war on drugs” began to take on a paramilitary tone – as defined by Webster’s dictionary “of or relating to a group that is not an official army but that operates and is organized like an army.” 

From the War on Drugs to the militarization of police, these deeply unsettling milestones got us where we are