The Tea Party is right. Our freedom is being stripped away. However, the threats to our liberty are not coming from gun laws. They aren’t coming from tax laws. In many cases, they aren’t even coming from the government. The threats to our freedom are coming from the prison industrial complex, and for nearly 2/3rds of American jail inmates, their crimes have not yet been proven.

A recent study by the Pretrial Justice Institute has found that 61% of people sitting in jail are still awaiting trial. Only 39% are serving actual sentences. As recently as 1996, that number was about evenly divided.