The escalation was unrelated to crime rates, which were not unlike other industrial countries then and have remained stable or declined. Economic rewards are highly concentrated, and much of the population becomes superfluous for profit and power. Marginalisation of the superfluous population takes many forms. The experience is familiar, and carries severe costs - how great when distributed over a large population, we don't know, because they are not included among the highly ideological measures of economic performance. Incarceration might be regarded as an extreme version, for the least worthy.
Incarceration has other functions.
It is a form of interference in labour markets, removing working-age males, increasingly women as well, from the labour force. In pursuing these policies, the US has separated itself from other industrial countries. And the elections themselves illustrate the related conception of the political system of two horses with the same corporate owner. None of this is new, of course. Insofar as the November 2000 elections are worth discussing, they should, I think, be seen primarily from these perspectives.