The U.S. has a "love affair with incarceration," says England's respected Guardian newspaper. Spanking-new prisons dot the landscape. Prison population has risen 500% since 1972, while the population on the whole only rose 28%. African Americans constitute most of the inmates. They receive longer and harsher sentences than whites. In addition, blacks are disproportionately represented on death row.

Angela Davis
Angela Davis is one of the iconic figures of this era. She was acquitted of conspiracy charges in 1972 after one of the most famous trials in U.S. history. She went on to become an internationally regarded scholar and writer. She is the author of many books, including "Women, Culture and Politics" and "Blues Legacies and Black Feminism." Her latest is, "Abolition Democracy." Governor Ronald Reagan of California vowed when he fired her from her position at UCLA that she would never again teach in the state system. Today, she is a tenured professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz.