The United States incarcerates more people than any other country in the world. Overcriminalisation means courts have too many cases to try, so plea bargaining has become a convenient mechanism for mass adjudication.
This info sheet analyses why plea bargaining has become both a facilitator and a driver of mass incarceration and explains why restoring due process could help to slow the rush to mass convictions.
As part of our campaign to reduce the over-reliance on plea bargaining in the US, we have also produced a series of films, the first of which address the relationship between plea bargaining and mass incarceration, click here to watch it.
