joining me to discuss the incarceration crisis are barry scheck, attorney for the innocence project, monifa, program manager for the national coalition on black civic participation and michael rd, trial lawyer and activist. thank you for joining us. i think the most stunning number i've ever seen is the fact that in 1970, there were only somewhere between 250 and 300,000 people incarcerated in the whole country. 40 years later, 2.5 million people are incarcerated. how do we get from 250,000 in 1970 to 2.5 million in 2011? how does that happen? >> very simple. two things happened within our sentencing system. the first was, mand other minimum sentences. in state and federal courts. just completely took discretion away from judges and few -- if you committed certain crimes you were going to prison for long periods that's it. those were most often associated with drug laws. and the drug laws alone during that period are what accounts for the huge increase in incarceration. >> monifa, the war on drugs began in 1984 and over that time as barry points out we've seen a skyrocket in incarcer