School to Prison Pipeline

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A couple million people

and many innocents                   

are doing time, and lots of time –

time and time again

What a waste of their potential 

to make them waste away     

Seems like justice never was just   

in the American way

Involuntary labor

is slav’ry — that’s no lie

‘cause slavery wasn’t ended,

it was only corporatized    

Big business makes big profits

when people work for free

But the cost is 80 billion:

paid by you and me

The pipeline to the prisons

starts with kids in school

Locks ’em up like criminals 

for breaking minor rules

Moms, hold onto your babies,

if they are brown or black

‘cause the system’s rigged against ‘em:

you might not get them back

We love to punish people

and strip them of their worth

We’ve got the largest prison population 

on the earth

We keep filling up the prisons

just to watch them grow

We’re incarceration nation:

How low can we go?