The US is the world's largest prison state, imprisoning more of its citizens than any nation on earth, both in  absolute numbers andproportionally. It imprisons people for longer periods of time, more mercilessly, and for more trivial transgressions  than any nation in the west . This sprawling penal state has been constructed over decades, by both political parties, and it punishes the poor and racial minorities at  overwhelmingly disproportionate rates .

But not everyone is subjected to that system of penal harshness. It all changes radically when the nation's most powerful actors are caught breaking the law. With few exceptions, they are gifted not merely with leniency, but full-scale immunity from criminal punishment. Thus have the most egregious crimes of the last decade been fully shielded from prosecution when committed by those with the greatest political and economic power: the construction of a worldwide torture regime, spying on Americans' communications without the warrants required by criminal law by government agencies and the telecom industry, an aggressive war launched on false pretenses, and massive, systemic financial fraud in the banking and credit industry that triggered the 2008 financial crisis.

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