This is Ward, a podcast from Slate. I'm your host, Jason Johnson. Well, over a million

Americans are incarcerated, and a disproportionate number of them are black. The conditions

they often live under are brutal, even deadly, and hidden. But incarceration scholar Andrea

Armstrong says that bringing light to the problems is a critical step in solving them.

The biases and the problems that we have on the outside, those don't just stop at the

prison gate. They live there too. Documenting the brutality of America's prisons, coming

up on a word with me, Jason Johnson. Stay with us.

Welcome to a word, a podcast about race and politics and everything else. I'm your host,

Jason Johnson. Our carceral system is one way that America is truly exceptional, with

more than one and a half million of our citizens behind bars. The United States is second

only to China and the number of our own in prison. For black men, the numbers are even worse,

with an estimated one of three African-American men spending some part of their lives under

the control or supervision of the criminal justice system. The consequences of incarceration

for individuals, families, and communities are devastating and little understood. Even

the worst outcomes in prison, sickness, suicide, and other deaths are frequently overlooked

because the victims aren't valued and the incidents aren't even documented.

Correcting that is the chosen mission of Andrea Armstrong. She's a professor at Loyola

University of New Orleans College of Law and the chair of the Prison and Jail Innovation

Lab at the LBJ School of Public Affairs. She also recently won a MacArthur Fellowship, widely

known as a Genius Award for her work. And Andrea Armstrong joins us now. Congratulations

and welcome to a word. Thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited. I haven't

talked to that many geniuses. There's a high point in the podcast. What was the first

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