In American Prisons, You’re Nothing More Than a Number

Often overlooked, ignored and damned, the cycle that throws people in the prison system and spits them out is a calamitous yet integral part of the American experience. People who find themselves at the short end of the stick—usually poor, uneducated and of a minority race—find themselves worse off, excommunicated from society and filled with more trauma and neglect. Keri Blakinger was not poor, was highly educated and white, yet found herself in the same spot and was treated in the same cold and dehumanized fashion. In prison, as Blakinger points out, “You become a number.”