Race to Incarcerate: A Graphic Retelling

The United States' rate of incarceration is the highest in the world. Mauer's Race to Incarcerate is the essential text for understanding the exponential growth of the US prison system, and it has become canonical for those active in the US criminal justice reform movement. Now Sabrina Jones has collaborated with Mauer to adapt his seminal book into a vivid graphic narrative designed to reach a mainstream audience. Jones's dramatic artwork adds passion and compassion to the complex story of four decades of prison expansion and its corrosive effect on society.

Marc Mauer is the executive director of The Sentencing Project and one of the country's leading experts on sentencing policy, race, and the criminal justice system. He is the author of some of the most widely cited reports and publications in the field, including "Young Black Men and the Criminal Justice System" and the "Americans Behind Bars" series, comparing international rates of incarceration. His 1995 report on racial disparity and the criminal justice system led the New York Times to editorialize that the report "should set off alarm bells from the White House to city halls—and help reverse the notion that we can incarcerate our way out of fundamental social problems." Mauer is the co-editor, with Meda Chesney-Lind, of Invisible Punishment (The New Press), on the collateral consequences of mass incarceration. He lives in the Washington, D.C., area.