Beth PazThere was a time in my life when I didn’t know a single person who had been in prison or jail (and I didn’t know the difference between prison or jail either)! I thought prison was simply a place where bad guys went who broke the law. I thought that the American legal system was the same as a justice system (it does its best, but we have much room to grow). All this has changed. I learned that in 2002 America surpassed the world in a category, a category that is not necessarily a cause to celebrate – we now incarcerate at the highest rate of any country in the world (Tsai and Scommegna 2012).
