US prison system 'racist in nature from beginning to end': Analyst

The prison system in the United States is "horrific" and "racist in nature from beginning to end," says Daniel Patrick Welch, a political commentator.

"It's a horrific thing and it is hidden even from most members of the US citizenry that there is not only the highest percentage in the world but the highest absolute number of the incarcerated people in the world," Welch told Press TV on Tuesday.

He made the remarks when asked about a report, which shows thousands of prisons across the US are struggling to cope with mentally ill inmates. According to the report, many of the 3,300 jails across the country have seen a rise in the number of inmates with serious mental illnesses, most arrested for non-violent crimes.

Welch said the report highlights only a part of the US prison system and that "the larger issue is quite frightening."

He said the report shows "the incidents of mentally ill inmates crowding into jails increased sharply in the 70s," but he added, "the other unspoken part of that is the inherent racist nature of the US prison system from beginning to end and the incarceration of black citizens specially black men increased also precipitously after the 70s after the end of the American apartheid in legal terms."

He went on to say that there is no way to talk about the American prison system unless there is a full awareness of how it works.

"It's absolutely impossible to have a full discussion about this without looking at how the prison system treats these people. And usually when Americans talk about it, they speak about it from a kind of an apartheid-based knowledge, if you haven't been on the wrong side of the law in the United States or the wrong side of the state power, you have no idea how it treats people ... you don't really have much of an idea of what the American democracy or so-called freedom really is," he added.

The report shows the number of inmates with serious mental illnesses surpasses 20 percent in some jails.