–
First, half the people in Federal prison are there on drug charges. And, as John Oliver points out, “on the one hand, the war on drugs has completely solved our nation’s drug problems…” (that’s sarcasm, folks).
Further, as Oliver explains, while white and Black people use drugs at about the same rate, African Americans are being sent to prison on drug offenses at up to ten times the rate as white people.
When you take into account how many of our men are in prison, and we look at the rates of sexual assault within the prison system (1 in 25 report sexual assault, imagine the unreported), it’s awesome to see a comedian actually calling out the horror of joking about rape in prison.
Once again, it’s Monday, and we all bow down to John Oliver, who is king of explaining how broken our systems are in a way we can really understand and relate to. And, of course, he’s funny.