LIFE + 185: THREE STORIES OF INCARCERATION

The United States, Land of the Free, is the undisputed world leader in incarcerating its own citizens. Excessively long sentences are one part of a complex problem that emerged from the War on Drugs of the 1970s and 1980s and the “tough on crime” legislation of the 1990s.

Worse still, tens of thousands of these prisoners are nonviolent and never posed a threat to society. I spoke to three people who recently had their sentences commuted and were enjoying their freedom for the first time in decades. Their life stories are the stuff of nightmares.