Christopher Petrella – “The Color of Corporate Corrections”

As the prison population in the United States has skyrocketed over the last 30 years, cash-strapped states have turned to the private sector to resolve prison overcrowding. Privately-operated prisons claim that they run more efficiently and save more money than governmental facilities. How can they make such claims? The answer may lie in a recent study, which found that private prisons incarcerate African Americans and Latinos at even higher rates than government-run prisons. Christopher Petrella, a doctoral candidate at the University of California, Berkeley, conducted the study and joins us to discuss its findings.