Does America incarcerate too many people?

Incarceration rates have more than tripled over the last 30 years, in part because of stiffer drug sentencing laws. By 2008 the United States, which makes up less than five percent of the world’s population, held almost a quarter of the world’s prisoners. Nonviolent offenders make up more than 60 percent of the nation’s 2.3 million prisoners, with nonviolent drug offenders accounting for one quarter of that population.

The rising tide of prisoners has swamped prison systems and strained state budgets; in 2011 the Supreme Court said overcrowding in California amounted to "cruel and unusual punishment" and ordered the state to reduce its prison population.

And consider the case of New York City, which has managed to dramatically reduce both crime and incarceration rates simultaneously over the past 20 years, while prison rates have soared nationally.