VICTORVILLE, Calif. - Every 20 seconds, someone in the United States is arrested for a drug violation. Every week, on average, a new jail or prison is built to lock up more people in the world's largest penal system.

It was not always so. Ten years ago, half as many people were arrested for drug crimes, and the nation's incarceration rate was closer to those of other democracies. But in the 1980s crack cocaine scared the country, and the criminal justice system has never been the same.

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