CONCLUSION: Charting a New Course

Over the last half century, the U.S. prison population grew dramatically, largely fueled by the enforcement of policies associated with the War on Drugs. Over the same period of time, the American economy underwent radical transformation. With respect to labor market dynamics, there now exists an entrenched mismatch between labor supply and labor demand. The former exceeds the latter across all sectors of the economy, but this mismatch is intensified at the low end of the income and skills distribution, and prospects are particularly bleak for more recent cohorts. The transformation of the labor market has been fueled primarily by