Police State; War State?

I heard several startling statements on the Sunday morning political talk shows yesterday. The one that sticks with me the most has do do with US prisons. The population of the United States is 3% of the world's population. However, we have 25% of the world's prisoners in our jails! What this says about our society and our values is troubling, to say the least. The overwhelming majority of our prisoners are members of minorities. Some of the reasons for this are the lack of job opportunities, combined with the ill effects of broken families on our young people, and our ridiculous drug policies that criminalize the use of "soft" drugs like marijuana. Where are we headed when two of our biggest expenditures are for our wars and our prisons, to the tune of a quarter of a trillion dollars a year?

Jim