Welcome to the Empire Files podcast. This is Abby Martin. This is the audio version of each episode of the Empire Files hosted on Telesaur English. You can watch every episode at the Empirefiles.tv.

U.S. leaders moan incessantly about how other governments should treat their own people. America's moral superiority is routinely touted as why the U.S. is legitimate to intervene

in the affairs of others around the world.

Time and again, they pull out the human rights card to admonish the human rights abuses

in other countries, justifying sanctions, bombing campaigns, or invasions to overthrow

their governments.

The U.S. is the most qualified to do this, of course, because it is the shining moral example

for how society should be run.

Yet 2.2 million people sit rotting in American jails, 7 million in the prison system,

counting probation and parole,

astronomically higher in absolute numbers and per capita than in any other country in the world.

The U.S. has only 5% of the world's population, yet a stunning 25% of its prisoners,

meaning one out of every 100 people in America is living behind bars.

With a prison population so enormous in a country that's the global arbitrator of human rights,

it must be leading with a great example of what prison should be. So what are conditions like

in these so-called correctional facilities? Prisoners aren't just warehoused in the millions.

They're packed on top of each other like animals.

At the end of 2010, the Federal Bureau of Prisons

was operating at 36% overcapacity on average.

California prisons are 144% of capacity.

In Alabama, the most overcrowded prison state sits at a hundred and ninety-five percent of capacity.

In 2009, one prison in the heart of Dixie was overflowing at 319% of capacity.

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