The past, present, and future of prisons in America, featured in Jonathan Simon's book "Mass Incarceration on Trial: A Remarkable Court Decision and the Future of Prisons in America." For nearly forty years the U.S. has been gripped by policies that have placed more than 2.5 million Americans in jails and prisons designed to hold a fraction of that number of inmates. The prisons are not only vast and overcrowded, they are degrading—relying on racist gangs, lockdowns, and Supermax-style segregation units to maintain a tenuous order. Mass Incarceration on Trial examines a series of landmark decisions about prison conditions that has opened an unexpected escape route from this trap of “tough on crime” politics.