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Radical changes in crime control and sentencing policies led to an unprecedented buildup of the United States prison population over the last thirty years.! By the end of 2002, the number of inmates in the nation's jails and prisons exceeded two million. 2 Today's imprisonment rate is five times as high as in 1972 and surpasses that of all other nations. 3 The sheer scale and acceleration of US prison growth has no parallel in western societies. As David Garland put it," This is an unprecedented event in the history of the USA and, more generally, in the history of liberal democracy." 4 The extraordinary prison expansion involved young black men in grossly disproportionate numbers. Achieving another historic record, most of the people sentenced to time in prison today are black. On any given day, nearly one-third of black men in their twenties are under the supervision of the criminal justice system--either behind bars …