The US has the highest rate of incarceration in the world. The prison population has increased from 300,000 in the 1970s to more than two million now. One in every 15 people is expected to go to prison. For black men, this figure rises to one out of every three.

Bryan Stevenson is the executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative. Since graduating from Harvard law School and the Harvard School of Government, he has secured relief for dozens of condemned prisoners, argued five times before the Supreme Court, and won national acclaim for his work challenging bias against the poor and people of colour. He has won numerous awards, and is on the faculty of New York University Law School.