the clinton dynasty built the world's largest prison system

salon |  Hillary Clinton wants to run for president as an economic populist, as a humane progressive interested in bolstering the fortunes of poor and middle class Americans. But before liberals enthusiastically sign up for Team Hillary, they should remember this: In the late 1990s, Bill Clinton played in instrumental role in creating the world’s largest prison system — one that has devastated our inner cities, made a mockery of American idealism abroad, and continues to inflict needless suffering on millions of people. And he did it with his wife’s support.

That liberals are now being asked to get excited for Hillary’s Clinton’s candidacy, announced on Sunday, almost requires the suspension of disbelief. That the best progressive alternative to Clinton is a long-shot from Vermont is a tragedy. This is not to say that President Hillary Clinton would pursue the same prison policies as her husband — the political headwinds on criminal justice reform have shifted considerably in the past two decades, and the Clintons, accordingly, have shifted with them. But past actions should matter, and what they show is that the Clinton Dynasty embraced and exacerbated one of the late 20th Century’s greatest public policy disasters.

The explosion of the prison system under Bill Clinton’s version of the “War on Drugs” is impossible to dispute. The total prison population rose by 673,000 people under Clinton’s tenure — or by 235,000 more than it did under President Ronald Reagan, according to a study by the Justice Policy Institute. “Under President Bill Clinton, the number of prisoners under federal jurisdiction doubled, and grew more than it did under the previous 12-years of Republican rule,combined,” states the JPI report (italics theirs). The federal incarceration rate in 1999, the last year of the Democrat’s term, was 42 per 100,000 — more than double the federal incarceration rate at the end of President Reagan’s term (17 per 100,000), and 61 percent higher than at the end of President George Bush’s term (25 per 100,000), according to JPI.