I am astounded by the fact that this "provocative" new theory is based on extremely simple and trivially verifiable facts.

How many times have I heard, even here on HN, claims that the high incarceration rates are due to the war on drugs, and I just took them at face value without bothering to look up the figures? How many times have newspapers printed interviews and op-eds arguing the same point, without doing any fact checking?

(Disclaimer: this time, too, I have not actually checked the numbers myself. But at least at this point I can be sure that someone has lied to me!)