Astoundingly high incarceration rates undermine both federalism and fiscal responsibility

Dan D’Amico, an economist at Loyola University in New Orleans, points out in a new video that the federal government is an aggressive incarcerator—beyond even California and Texas. So not only is incarceration in the United States off the charts—with a prison population greater than all other developed nations combined—it is undermining local governance in the realm of law enforcement.

Even at the state level alone, though, he cites a cost of $40 billion each year, which includes approximately $1.5 billion of corrections spending in North Carolina.