Sept. 6, 2011 — Ernest Drucker, a scholar in residence and senior research associate at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice of The City University of New York, discusses his book, “A Plague of Prisons: The Epidemiology of Mass Incarceration in America.” Drucker is a long-time public health researcher and practitioner, and from 1970 to 1990 he directed a drug addiction treatment and AIDS research program in the South Bronx. His study describes the current “plague” of mass incarceration in the U.S., locating its origins in policies at the heart of the “War on Drugs” in the 1970s and then arguing that this social crusade became a damaging and self-perpetuating system. During the interview, Drucker also discusses attempts to fight back against this system, and he describes alternative approaches for dealing with drugs in modern America.
Note: The above dateline refers to this interview’s original airdate on WRCT-Pittsburgh. It was uploaded unchanged to Remapping Debate in March 2013.
