The PEW Center in Washington, D.C., just released a report that confirmed over one out of every 100 U.S. citizens is behind bars today. So, this is what "The Land of the Free" has become. The U.S. not only has the largest percentage of its citizenry under lock and key, but with only about 4% of the world’s population, the U.S. has the largest number locked up. But we knew that already. We have been reading these stats for years. The only difference is that they just keep getting worse. There appears to be no bottom.

It is almost laughable how CNN’s Wolf Blitzer mentions this latest report in passing. To him, it is hardly news worthy. So, true to form, the U.S. is the first in incarceration and we trail behind almost all other westernized countries in education. It does not take an esteemed social scientist to put these pieces together, although a few have: no education = no job = prison.

Kentucky, the state that holds me, consistently ranks among the poorest educated in the country. So, when I read that the Pew study found a 12% increase in Kentucky’s prison population in the last year alone, the largest increase in the country, I remained unfazed. The license plates we make in prison industries proclaims, "Education Pays!" Apparently, Kentucky isn’t buying.

Every year, growing prison systems require more and more funds, which are siphoned off of the very social programs, like education, that could divert people from prison. Surely, this sounds familiar in your own state. But instead of turning this around, we get the same old hype about "CRIME" and hackneyed stumps from politicians to garner votes, all the while, prison contractors like Keefe, Aramark, CCA, Wackenhut (need I go on?) make billions of dollars. Even your common every day businesses, like proctor & Gamble or Kroger’s Grocery Stores continue to find the cheapest outsourced labor in the world. Don’t forget those prison building contracts and jobs for the rural folks since the coalmines and the factories closed down long ago. All of this on the backs of the taxpayers.

Please don’t get me started on the clear, unequivocal fact that we have two systems of justice in the U.S.: one for the poor and one for the wealthy. Please, please don’t remind me about the injustice and sheer idiocy of criminalizing addition or the vario9us habitual offender statutes. And you have read all the studies that prove the arbitrary nature of the parole system – or in worse cases, release based on keeping the prison census at maximum capacity. No, please help me stay on point.

Countless souls have been washed away in an incarceration tsunami. I am never amazed when I hear of yet another man catching a felony for coming back to a misdemeanor work release program five minutes late or for being caught with a single match in a non-smoking corrections facility. These are felonies? So, as we continue to lock people up at alarming rates, there is no doubt that every corner of our society is being affected.

Still, no one bats an eye to these outrageous statistics. We are digging America’s grave and the fact remains: as long as it is not me, why care? With these numbers, odds are getting pretty good that it will be you or someone close to you, and in the near future. The prisonization of America is spreading like a malignant disease. When is America going to wake up and take its medicine?

If we do not reverse the trends that lead to mass incarceration, how bad will it get? Where is the bottom? I can’t imagine. Nothing surprises me anymore. The numbers show that we are committing societal suicide in the U.S. and no one seems to care.