Incarceration in the United States
Incarceration in the United States is one of the primary means of punishment for crime in the United States. In 2023, over five million people were under supervision by the criminal justice system,[2][3] with nearly two million people incarcerated in state or federal prisons and local jails. The United States has the largest known prison population in the world, it has 5% of the world’s population, and 20% of the world’s incarcerated persons. China, with four times more inhabitants, has fewer persons in prison.[4][5] Prison populations grew dramatically beginning in the 1970s, but began a decline around 2009, dropping 25% by year-end 2021.[6]
Drug offenses account for the incarceration of about 1 in 5 people in U.S. prisons.[7] Violent offenses account for over 3 in 5 people (62%) in state prisons.[7] Property offenses account for the incarceration of about 1 in 7 people (14%) in state prisons.[7]
The United States maintains a higher incarceration rate than most developed countries.[8] According to the World Prison Brief on May 7, 2023, the United States has the sixth highest incarceration rate in the world, at 531 people per 100,000. Expenses related to prison, parole, and probation operations have an annual estimated cost of around $81 billion. Court costs, bail bond fees, and prison phone fees amounted to another $38 billion in costs annually.[9]
Since reaching its peak level of imprisonment in 2009, the US has averaged a rate of decarceration of 2.3% per year.[7][10] This figure includes the anomalous 14.1% drop in 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. There is significant variation among state prison population declines. Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York have reduced their prison populations by over 50% since reaching their peak levels.[11] Twenty-five states have reduced their prison populations by 25% since reaching their peaks.[11] The federal prison population downsized 27% relative to its peak in 2011.[12]
Although
History
This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (July 2014) |
In the 18th century, English philanthropists began to focus on the reform of convicted criminals in prison, whom they believed needed a chance to become morally pure to stop or slow crime. Since at least 1740, some of these philosophers have thought of solitary confinement as a way to create and maintain spiritually clean people in prisons. As English people immigrated to North America, so did these theories of penology.[18]
Spanish colonizers in Florida also brought their own ideas of confinement, and Spanish soldiers in St. Augustine, Florida, built the first substantial prison in North America in 1570.[19]
Some of the first structures built in English-settled America were jails, and by the 18th century, every English-speaking North American county had a jail. These jails served a variety of functions, such as a holding place for debtors, prisoners-of-war, and political prisoners, those bound in the penal transportation and slavery systems; and those accused but not tried for crimes.[18][20] Sentences for those convicted of crimes were rarely longer than three months and often lasted only a day. Poor citizens were often imprisoned for longer than their richer neighbors, as bail was rarely refused.[18]
One of the first prisons in America was founded in 1790 by the Pennsylvanian Quakers, to make a system they viewed as less cruel than dungeon prisons. They created a space where imprisoned people could read scriptures and repent as a means of self-improvement.[21]
In 1841,
Following the
Year | Count | Rate |
---|---|---|
1940 | 264,834 | 201 |
1950 | 264,620 | 176 |
1960 | 346,015 | 193 |
1970 | 328,020 | 161 |
1980 | 503,586 | 220 |
1985 | 744,208 | 311 |
1990 | 1,148,702 | 457 |
1995 | 1,585,586 | 592 |
2000 | 1,937,482 | 683 |
2002 | 2,033,022 | 703 |
2004 | 2,135,335 | 725 |
2006 | 2,258,792 | 752 |
2008 | 2,307,504 | 755 |
2010 | 2,270,142 | 731 |
2012 | 2,228,424 | 707 |
2014 | 2,217,947 | 693 |
2016 | 2,157,800 | 666 |
2018 | 2,102,400 | 642 |
2020 | 1,675,400 | 505 |
2021 | 1,767,200 | 531 |
On June 18, 1971, President
The
Researcher Valerie Jenness writes, "Since the 1970s, the final wave of expansion of the prison system, there has been a huge expansion of prisons that exist at the federal and state level. Now, prisons are starting to become a private industry as more and more prisons are starting to become privatized rather than being under government control."[21]
Incarcerated population
As of 2023, 59% of incarcerated people are in state prisons; 12% are in federal prisons; and 29% are in local jails.[2] Of the total state and federal prison population, 8% or 96,370 people are incarcerated in private prisons. An additional 2.9 million people are on probation, and over 800,000 people are on parole.[2][3] At year-end 2021, 1,000,000 people were incarcerated in state prisons; 157,000 people were incarcerated in federal prisons; and 636,000 people were incarcerated in local jails.[2][7]
Approximately 1.8 million people are incarcerated in state or federal prisons or local jails.[2][7] There are over 1 million people who are incarcerated in state prisons. There are 656,000 people incarcerated for violent offenses, 142,000 for property offenses, 132,000 for drug offenses, and 110,000 for public order offenses. The percentage breakdown of people in state prisons by offense-type is as follows: 63% of people are incarcerated for violent offenses, 13% for property offenses, 13% for drug offenses, and 11% for public order offenses.[30]
The federal prison population is approximately 209,000. 148,000 of these people are incarcerated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Of these people, there are 69,000 people incarcerated for drug offenses, 61,000 for public order offenses, 11,000 for violent offenses, and 6,000 for property offenses. The percentage breakdown of people incarcerated by offense-type is as follows: 47% of people are incarcerated for drug offenses, 42% for public order offenses, 7% for violent offenses, and 4% for property offenses. A further 60,000 people are incarcerated by the U.S. Marshals Service. Of these people, there are 21,000 incarcerated for drug offenses, 14,000 for immigration offenses, 9,000 for weapons offenses, and 7,000 for violent offenses.[30]
Finally, 619,000 people are incarcerated in local jails. Jail incarceration accounts for a third of all incarceration. Over 80% of people incarcerated in local jails have not yet been convicted.[30]
Demographics
Race and ethnicity
2021. People incarcerated in state or federal prisons by race and ethnicity.[7][31] | |||
Race, ethnicity | % of US population | % of incarcerated population |
Incarceration rate (per 100,000) |
White (non-Hispanic) | 59 | 31 | 181 |
Hispanic | 19 | 24 | 434 |
Black | 14 | 32 | 901 |
Racial and ethnic disparities are a significant feature of the American prison system. These disparities accumulate across the criminal legal system. The National Academies of Sciences explains:
"Blacks are more likely than whites to be confined awaiting trial (which increases the probability that an incarcerative sentence will be imposed), to receive incarcerative rather than community sentences, and to receive longer sentences. Racial differences found at each stage are typically modest, but their cumulative effect is significant."[32]
Broader socioeconomic inequality and disparities at each stage of the criminal legal process result in the disproportionate imprisonment of people of color.[33] In 2021, people of color constituted over two-thirds (69%) of the prison population.[2] Black Americans are imprisoned at 5 times the rate of white people, and American Indians and Hispanic people are imprisoned at 4 times and 2 times the white rate, respectively.[2] Black and Hispanic people make up 33% of the U.S. population but 56% of the incarceration population.[2][31] Nationally, one in 81 Black adults are serving time in state prison.[34]
Although significant gaps remain, there have been reductions in imprisonment disparities over the past decades.[35] The extent of decarceration has varied by race and ethnicity, but all major racial and ethnic groups experienced decarceration since reaching their highest levels.[2][36] The Black prison population has decreased the most. Since 2002, the year it reached its peak levels, the number of Black people in prison declined from 622,700 to 378,000 (a 39% decrease).[2][36] Since 1998, the year the white prison population reached its peak, the number of white people in prison declined from 533,200 to 356,000 (a 25% decrease).[2][36] Since 2011, the year the Hispanic prison population reached its peak, the number of Hispanic people in prison declined from 347,300 to 273,800 (a 21% decrease).[2][36] Since 2010, the year the American Indian prison population reached its peak, the number of American Indians in prison declined from 23,800 to 18,700 (a 21% decrease).[2][36] Finally, since 2016, the year the Asian prison population reached its peak, the number of Asian people in prison declined from 18,000 to 14,700.[2][36]
Gender
2010 adult incarceration rates by race, ethnicity, and sex per 100,000 adult US residents[37] | |||
---|---|---|---|
Race or ethnicity |
Male | Female | |
White | 678 | 91 | |
Black | 4,347 | 260 | |
Hispanic | 1,775 | 133 |
In 2013, there were 102,400 adult females in local jails in the United States, and 111,300 adult females in state and federal prisons.
However, since the early 2000s, the incarceration rates for African American and
In 2011, it was reported that 85 to 90% of women incarcerated were victims of sexual and domestic violence, which is significantly higher than the national average of 22.3% of women in the United States.[47] Women who face sexual or domestic violence are more likely to commit crimes themselves and become incarcerated.[48] The history of black women experiencing higher rates of abuse than white women provides one of many explanations for why African American women have faced higher rates of incarceration than white women.[1]
In 2013, there were 628,900 adult males in local jails in the United States, and 1,463,500 adult males in state and federal prisons.[38] In a study of sentencing in the United States in 1984, David B. Mustard found that males received 12 percent longer prison terms than females after "controlling for the offense level, criminal history, district, and offense type," and noted that "females receive even shorter sentences relative to men than whites relative to blacks."[49] A later study by Sonja B. Starr found sentences for men to be up to 60% higher when controlling for more variables.[50] Several explanations for this disparity have been offered, including that women have more to lose from incarceration, and that men are the targets of discrimination in sentencing.[51]
Youth
Juveniles in residential placement, 1997–2015. US[52] | |||
---|---|---|---|
Year | Male | Female | Total |
1997 | 90,771 | 14,284 | 105,055 |
1999 | 92,985 | 14,508 | 107,493 |
2001 | 89,115 | 15,104 | 104,219 |
2003 | 81,975 | 14,556 | 96,531 |
2006 | 78,998 | 13,723 | 92,721 |
2007 | 75,017 | 11,797 | 86,814 |
2010 | 61,359 | 9,434 | 70,793 |
2011 | 53,079 | 8,344 | 61,423 |
2013 | 46,421 | 7,727 | 54,148 |
2015 | 40,750 | 7,293 | 48,043 |
Through the juvenile courts and the adult criminal justice system, the United States incarcerates more of its youth than any other country in the world, a reflection of the larger trends in incarceration practices in the United States. This has been a source of controversy for a number of reasons, including the overcrowding and violence in youth detention facilities, the prosecution of youths as adults and the long term consequences of incarceration on the individual's chances for success in adulthood. In 2014, the United Nations Human Rights Committee criticized the United States for about ten judicial abuses, including the mistreatment of juvenile inmates.[53] A UN report published in 2015 criticized the US for being the only nation in the world to sentence juveniles to life imprisonment without parole.[54]
According to federal data from 2011, around 40% of the nation's juvenile inmates are housed in private facilities.[55]
The incarceration of youths has been linked to the effects of family and neighborhood influences. One study found that the "behaviors of family members and neighborhood peers appear to substantially affect the behavior and outcomes of disadvantaged youths".[56]
Nearly 53,000 youth were incarcerated in 2015.[57] 4,656 of those were held in adult facilities, while the rest were in juvenile facilities. Of those in juvenile facilities, 69% are 16 or older, while over 500 are 12 or younger.[57] As arrest and crime rates are not equal across demographic groups, neither is prison population. The Prison Policy Initiative broke down those numbers, finding that, relative to their share of the U.S. population, "black and American Indian youth are over represented in juvenile facilities while white youth are under represented.",[57] Black youth comprise 14% of the national youth population, but "43% of boys and 34% of girls in juvenile facilities are Black. And even excluding youth held in Indian country facilities, American Indians make up 3% of girls and 1.5% of boys in juvenile facilities, despite comprising less than 1% of all youth nationally.".[57]
Students
The term "school-to-prison pipeline", also known as the "schoolhouse-to-jailhouse track", is a concept that was named in the 1980s.
In 1994, the Gun-Free Schools Act was passed. It required that students have at least a year long suspension from school if they brought a weapon to school. Many states then adopted the Zero-tolerance policy which lead to an increase in suspensions, mainly for Black and Hispanic kids.
At the same time these policies were growing, school districts adopted their own version of the "broken windows theory". The broken windows theory emphasizes the importance of cracking down on small offenses in order to make residents feel safer and discourage more serious crime. For schools, this meant more suspensions for small offenses like talking back to teachers, skipping class, or being disobedient or disruptive. This led to schools having police officers in schools, which in turn led to students being arrested and handled more harshly.
Zero-tolerance policies are regulations that mandate specific consequences in response to outlined student misbehavior, typically without any consideration for the unique circumstances surrounding a given incident.[61] Zero-tolerance policies both implicitly and explicitly usher the student into the prison track. Implicitly, when a student is extracted from the classroom, the more likely that student is to drop out of school as a result of being in class less. As a dropout, that child is then ill-prepared to obtain a job and become a fruitful citizen.[62] Explicitly, schools sometimes do not funnel their pupils to the prison systems inadvertently; rather, they send them directly.[63] Once in juvenile court, even sympathetic judges are not likely to evaluate whether the school's punishment was warranted or fair. For these reasons, it is argued that zero-tolerance policies lead to an exponential increase in the juvenile prison populations.[64]
The national suspension rate doubled from 3.7% to 7.4% from 1973 to 2010.[65] The claim that Zero Tolerance Policies affect students of color at a disproportionate rate is supported in the Code of Maryland Regulations study, that found black students were suspended at more than double the rate of white students.[66] This data is further backed by Moriah Balingit, who states that when compared to white students, black students are suspended and expelled at greater rates according to the Civil Rights Data Collection, that has records with specific information for the 2015–2016 school year of about 96,000 schools.[67] In addition, further data shows that although black students only accounted for 15% of the student population, they represented a 31% of the arrests.[67] Hispanic children share this in common with their black counterparts, as they too are more susceptible to harsher discipline like suspension and expulsion.[68] This trend can be seen throughout numerous studies of this type of material and particularly in the south.[69][70] Furthermore, between 1985 and 1989, there was an increase in referrals of minority youth to juvenile court, petitioned cases, adjudicated delinquency cases, and delinquency cases placed outside the home.[71] During this time period, the number of African American youth detained increased by 9% and the number of Hispanic youths detained increased by 4%, yet the proportion of White youth declined by 13%.[70] Documentation of this phenomenon can be seen as early as 1975 with the book School Suspensions: Are they helping children?[72] Additionally, as punitive action leads to dropout rates, so does imprisonment. Data shows in the year 2000, one in three black male students ages 20–40 who did not complete high school were incarcerated.[73] Moreover, about 70% of those in state prison have not finished high school.[73] Lastly, if one is a black male living post-Civil Rights Movement with no high school diploma, there is a 60% chance that they will be incarcerated in their lifetime.[73]
Elderly
The percentage of prisoners in federal and state prisons aged 55 and older increased by 33% from 2000 to 2005 while the prison population grew by 8%. The Southern Legislative Conference found that in 16 southern states, the elderly prisoner population increased on average by 145% between 1997 and 2007. The growth in the elderly population brought along higher health care costs, most notably seen in the 10% average increase in state prison budgets from 2005 to 2006.
The SLC expects the percentage of
State governments pay all of their inmates' housing costs which significantly increase as prisoners age. Inmates are unable to apply for Medicare and Medicaid. Most Departments of Correction report spending more than 10 percent of the annual budget on elderly care.[74][75]
The American Civil Liberties Union published a report in 2012 which asserts that the elderly prison population has climbed 1300% since the 1980s, with 125,000 inmates aged 55 or older now incarcerated.[76]
LGBT people
LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender) youth are disproportionately more likely than the general population to come into contact with the criminal justice system. According to the National Center for Transgender Equality, 16 percent of transgender adults have been in prison and/or jail, compared to 2.7 percent of all adults.[77] It has also been found that 13–15 percent of youth in detention identify as LGBT, whereas an estimated 4–8 percent of the general youth population identify as such.[78]
According to Yarbrough (2021), higher rates of poverty,
LGBT people in jail and prison are particularly vulnerable to mistreatment by other inmates and staff. This mistreatment includes solitary confinement (which may be described as "protective custody"), physical and sexual violence, verbal abuse, and denial of medical care and other services.[77][81] According to the National Inmate Survey, in 2011–12, 40 percent of transgender inmates reported sexual victimization compared to 4 percent of all inmates.[82]
Mentally disabled
In the United States, the percentage of inmates with
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, over half of all prisoners in 2005 had experienced mental illness as identified by "a recent history or symptoms of a mental health problem"; of this population, jail inmates experienced the highest rates of symptoms of mental illness at 60 percent, followed by 49 percent of state prisoners and 40 percent of federal prisoners.[87] Not only do people with recent histories of mental illness end up incarcerated, but many who have no history of mental illness end up developing symptoms while in prison. In 2006, the Bureau of Justice Statistics found that a quarter of state prisoners had a history of mental illness, whereas 3 in 10 state prisoners had developed symptoms of mental illness since becoming incarcerated with no recent history of mental illness.[87]
According to
Mental illness rarely stands alone when analyzing the risk factors associated with incarceration and recidivism rates.[87][90] The American Psychological Association recommends a holistic approach to reducing recidivism rates among offenders by providing "cognitive–behavioral treatment focused on criminal cognition" or "services that target variable risk factors for high-risk offenders" due to the numerous intersecting risk factors experienced by mentally ill and non-mentally ill offenders alike.[90]
To prevent the recidivism of individuals with mental illness, a variety of programs are in place that are based on criminal justice or mental health intervention models. Programs modeled after criminal justice strategies include
Immigrants and foreign nationals
The United States government holds tens of thousands of immigrants in detention under the control of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). These immigrants seek asylum into the United states and are detained prior to release into the United States or deportation and removal from the country. During 2018, 396,448 people were booked into ICE custody: 242,778 of whom were detained by CBP and 153,670 by ICE's own enforcement operations.[92]
The BOP receives all prisoner transfer treaty inmates sent from foreign countries, even if their crimes would have been, if committed in the United States, tried in state, DC, or territorial courts.[93] Non-US citizens incarcerated in federal and state prisons are eligible to be transferred to their home countries if they qualify.[94]
Class and poverty
The poor in the United States are incarcerated at a much higher rate than their counterparts in other developed nations.[95] According to a 2015 study by the Vera Institute of Justice, jails in the U.S. have become "massive warehouses" of the impoverished since the 1980s.[96]
A December 2017 report by Philip Alston, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, asserted that the justice system throughout the U.S. is designed to keep people mired in poverty and to generate revenue to fund the justice system and other governmental programs.[97]
Sociologist Matthew Desmond of Princeton University writes that the "overwhelming majority" of prisoners and former prisoners of the US prison system, which "has no equal in any other country or any other epoch," are extremely poor. And they stay poor as prison jobs pay an average wage of between 14 cents and $1.41 an hour. He notes that the carceral state also "disappears" the incarcerated poor by erasing them from poverty statistics and national surveys, "which means there are millions more poor Americans than official statistics let on."[98]
Features of the criminal justice system
Duration
Many legislatures continually have reduced discretion of judges in both the sentencing process and the determination of when the conditions of a sentence have been satisfied.
Violent and nonviolent crime
In 2016, there were an estimated 1.2 million violent crimes committed in the United States.[100] Over the course of that year, U.S. law enforcement agencies made approximately 10.7 million arrests, excluding arrests for traffic violations.[100] In that year, approximately 2.3 million people were incarcerated in jail or prison.[101]
As of September 30, 2009, in federal prisons, 7.9% of sentenced people were incarcerated for violent crimes,[102] while at year end 2008 of sentenced people in state prisons, 52.4% had been jailed for violent crimes.[102] In 2002 (latest available data by type of offense), 21.6% of convicted inmates in jails were in prison for violent crimes. Among unconvicted inmates in jails in 2002, 34% had a violent offense as the most serious charge. 41% percent of convicted and unconvicted jail inmates in 2002 had a current or prior violent offense; 46% were nonviolent recidivists.[103]
From 2000 to 2008, the state prison population increased by 159,200 imprisoned people, and violent offenders accounted for 60% of this increase. The number of
In 2013, The Week reported that at least 3,278 Americans were serving life sentences without parole for nonviolent crimes, including "cursing at a policeman and selling $10 worth of drugs. More than 80 percent of these life sentences are the result of mandatory sentencing laws."[104]
In 2016, about 200,000, under 16%, of the 1.3 million people in state jails, were serving time for drug offenses. 700,000 were incarcerated for violent offenses.[105]
Nonviolent crime was the main driver of the increase in the incarcerated population in the United States from 1980 to 2003. Violent crime rates had been relatively constant or declining over those decades. The prison population was increased primarily by public policy changes causing more prison sentences and lengthening time served, for example through mandatory minimum sentencing, "three strikes" laws, and reductions in the availability of parole or early release.
Perhaps the single greatest force behind the growth of the prison population has been the national "
Pre-trial detention
In 2020, the non-profit Prison Policy Initiative issued a report, "Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2020", that said, based on the most recent census data and information from the Bureau of Prisons, an overwhelming majority of inmates in county and municipal jails were being held pre-trial, without having been convicted of a crime. The Pre-Trial Justice Institute noted, "Six out of 10 people in U.S. jails—nearly a half million individuals on any given day—are awaiting trial. People who have not been found guilty of the charges against them account for 95% of all jail population growth between 2000–2014."[110][111]
In 2017, 482,100 inmates in federal and state prisons were held pre-trial.[112]
Advocates for decarceration contend the large pre-trial detention population serves as a compelling reason for bail reform anchored in a presumption of innocence.[113] "We don't want people sitting in jails only because they cannot afford their financial bail," said Representative John Tilley (D) of Kentucky, a state that has eliminated commercial bail and relies on a risk assessment to determine a defendant's flight risk.[114]
In March 2020, the Department of Justice issued its report, noting the county and municipal jail population, totaling 738,400 inmates, had decreased by 12% over the last decade, from an estimated 258 jail inmates per 100,000 U.S. residents in 2008 to 226 per 100,000 in 2018. For the first time since 1990, the 2018 jail incarceration rate for African Americans fell below 600 per 100,000, while the juvenile jail population dropped 56%, from 7,700 to 3,400.[115]
In 2018, sixty-eight percent of jail inmates were behind bars on felony charges, about two-thirds of the total jail population was awaiting court action or held for other reasons.[116]
Prison education
Prison education has proven to lower recidivism rates and increase employment for graduates upon release. A 2013 study conducted by the RAND Corporation found that correctional education led to a significant reduction in recidivism rates, and those who participated in prison education programs showed "43% lower odds of recidivating than inmates who did not."[119] That same study showed that individuals who received vocational education and training saw a 28% increase in employment following incarceration, and those who participated in strictly academic educational programs saw an 8% increase in employment.[119]
Recidivism
A 2002 study survey, showed that among nearly 275,000 prisoners released in 1994, 67.5% were rearrested within 3 years, and 51.8% were back in prison.[120] However, the study found no evidence that spending more time in prison raises the recidivism rate, and found that those serving the longest time, 61 months or more, had a slightly lower re-arrest rate (54.2%) than every other category of prisoners. This is most likely explained by the older average age of those released with the longest sentences, and the study shows a strong negative correlation between recidivism and age upon release. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, a study was conducted that tracked 404,638 prisoners in 30 states after their release from prison in 2005. From the examination it was found that within three years after their release 67.8% of the released prisoners were rearrested; within five years, 76.6% of the released prisoners were rearrested, and of the prisoners that were rearrested 56.7% of them were rearrested by the end of their first year of release.[121]
Comparison with other countries
With around 100 prisoners per 100,000, the United States had an average prison and jail population until 1980. Afterwards it drifted apart considerably.[122] The United States has the highest prison and jail population (2,121,600 in adult facilities in 2016) as well as the highest incarceration rate in the world (655 per 100,000 population in 2016).[5][123][124] According to the World Prison Population List (11th edition) there were around 10.35 million people in penal institutions worldwide in 2015.[125] The US had 2,173,800 prisoners in adult facilities in 2015.[126] That means the US held 21.0% of the world's prisoners in 2015, even though the US represented only around 4.4 percent of the world's population in 2015.[127][128]
Comparing other English-speaking developed countries, whereas the incarceration rate of the US is 655 per 100,000 population of all ages,[5] the incarceration rate of Canada is 114 per 100,000 (as of 2015),[129] England and Wales is 146 per 100,000 (as of 2016),[130] Australia is 160 per 100,000 (as of 2016)[131] and Ireland is 82 per 100,000 (as of Aug 2022).[132] Comparing other developed countries, the rate of Spain is 133 per 100,000 (as of 2016),[133] Greece is 89 per 100,000 (as of 2016),[134] Norway is 73 per 100,000 (as of 2016),[135] Netherlands is 69 per 100,000 (as of 2014),[136] and Japan is 48 per 100,000 (as of 2014).[137]
According to a 2021 report by the
A 2008
The number of incarcerated individuals in U.S. jails and prisons jumped 500% in the three decades following the implementation of tougher sentencing laws associated with the War on Drugs and the "tough on crime" movement.
Operational
Prison systems
The American prison system is one of significant heterogeneity. In fact, it would be misleading to suggest that the U.S. has one "criminal justice system." Instead, there are thousands of systems across federal, state, local, tribal levels. In 2023, there were a reported "1,566 state prisons, 98 federal prisons, 3,116 local jails, 1,323 juvenile correctional facilities, 181 immigrant detention facilities, and 80 Indian country jails, as well as military prisons, civil commitment centers, state psychiatric hospitals, and prisons in the U.S. territories."[30]
Despite the country's disparate systems of confinement, the U.S. prison system may be generally identified with four main institutions: state prisons, federal prisons, local jails, and juvenile correctional facilities.[32] State prisons are run by state departments of correction, holding sentenced people serving time for felony offenses, usually longer than a year.[32] Federal prisons are run by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons and hold people who have been convicted of federal crimes and pretrial detainees.[32] Local jails are county or municipal facilities that incarcerate defendants prior to trial, and also hold those serving short sentences, typically under a year.[32] Juvenile correctional facilities are operated by local authorities or the state and serve as longer-term placements for youth who have been adjudicated as delinquent and ordered by a judge to be confined.[144]
Security levels
This section needs additional citations for verification. (November 2012) |
In some, but not all, states' department of corrections, inmates reside in different facilities that vary by security level, especially in security measures, administration of inmates, type of housing, and weapons and tactics used by
In a maximum security prison or area (called high security in the federal system), all prisoners have individual cells[145] with sliding doors controlled from a secure remote control station. Prisoners are allowed out of their cells one out of twenty four hours (one hour and 30 minutes for prisoners in California). When out of their cells, prisoners remain in the cell block or an exterior cage. Movement out of the cell block or "pod" is tightly restricted using restraints and escorts by correctional officers.
Under close security, prisoners usually have one- or two-person cells operated from a remote control station. Each cell has its own toilet and sink. Inmates may leave their cells for work assignments or correctional programs and otherwise may be allowed in a common area in the cellblock or an exercise yard. The fences are generally double fences with watchtowers housing armed guards, plus often a third, lethal-current electric fence in the middle.
Prisoners that fall into the medium security group may sleep in cells, but share them two and two, and use bunk beds[145] with lockers to store their possessions. Depending upon the facility, each cell may have showers, toilets and sinks. Cells are locked at night with one or more correctional officers supervising. There is less supervision over the internal movements of prisoners. The perimeter is generally double fenced and regularly patrolled.
Prisoners in minimum security facilities are considered to pose little physical risk to the public and are mainly non-violent "
Correspondence
Inmates who maintain contact with family and friends in the outside world are less likely to be convicted of further crimes and usually have an easier reintegration period back into society.[147] Inmates benefit from corresponding with friends and family members, especially when in-person visits are infrequent.[148] However, guidelines exist as to what constitutes acceptable mail, and these policies are strictly enforced.
Mail sent to inmates in violation of prison policies can result in sanctions such as loss of
There have been several notable challenges to prison corresponding services. The
Conditions
The non-governmental organization
In August 2003, a Harper's article by Wil S. Hylton estimated that "somewhere between 20 and 40% of American prisoners are, at this very moment, infected with hepatitis C".[157] Prisons may outsource medical care to private companies such as Correctional Medical Services (now Corizon) that, according to Hylton's research, try to minimize the amount of care given to prisoners to maximize profits.[157][158] After the privatization of healthcare in Arizona's prisons, medical spending fell by 30 million dollars and staffing was greatly reduced. Some 50 prisoners died in custody in the first 8 months of 2013, compared to 37 for the preceding two years combined.[159]
The poor quality of food provided to inmates has become an issue, as over the last decade corrections officials looking to cut costs have been outsourcing food services to corporations such as Aramark, A'Viands Food & Services Management, and ABL Management.[160] A prison riot in Kentucky has been blamed on the low quality of food Aramark provided to inmates, which was tainted with worms and human feces.[161] A 2017 study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that because of lapses in food safety, prison inmates are 6.4 times more likely to contract a food-related illness than the general population.[162]
Also identified as an issue within the prison system is gang violence, because many gang members retain their gang identity and affiliations when imprisoned. Segregation of identified gang members from the general population of inmates, with different gangs being housed in separate units often results in the imprisonment of these gang members with their friends and criminal cohorts. Some feel this has the effect of turning prisons into "institutions of higher criminal learning".[163]
Many prisons in the United States are overcrowded. For example, California's 33 prisons have a total capacity of 100,000, but they hold 170,000 inmates.[164] Many prisons in California and around the country are forced to turn old gymnasiums and classrooms into huge bunkhouses for inmates. They do this by placing hundreds of bunk beds next to one another, in these gyms, without any type of barriers to keep inmates separated. In California, the inadequate security engendered by this situation, coupled with insufficient staffing levels, have led to increased violence and a prison health system that causes one death a week. This situation has led the courts to order California to release 27% of the current prison population, citing the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment.[165] The three-judge court considering requests by the Plata v. Schwarzenegger and Coleman v. Schwarzenegger courts found California's prisons have become criminogenic as a result of prison overcrowding.[166]
In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court case of Cutter v. Wilkinson established that prisons that received federal funds could not deny prisoners accommodations necessary for religious practices.
According to a Supreme Court ruling issued on May 23, 2011, California – which has the highest overcrowding rate of any prison system in the country – must alleviate overcrowding in the state's prisons, reducing the prisoner population by 30,000 over the next two years.[167][168][169][170][needs update]
Solitary confinement is widely used in US prisons, yet it is underreported by most states, while some do not report it at all. Isolation of prisoners has been condemned by the UN in 2011 as a form of torture.[171] At over 80,000 at any given time, the US has more prisoners confined in isolation than any other country in the world. In Louisiana, with 843 prisoners per 100,000 citizens, there have been prisoners, such as the Angola Three, held for as long as forty years in isolation.[172][171] A June 2023 study by Solitary Watch found that over 120,000 people on any given day are in solitary confinement in the United States.[173]
In 1999, the Supreme Court of Norway refused to extradite American hashish-smuggler Henry Hendricksen, as they declared that US prisons do not meet their minimum humanitarian standards.[174]
In 2011, some 885 people died while being held in local jails (not in prisons after being convicted of a crime and sentenced) throughout the United States.[175] According to federal statistics, roughly 4,400 inmates die in US prisons and jails annually, excluding executions.[176]
As of September 2013, condoms for prisoners are only available in the U.S. State of Vermont (on September 17, 2013, the California Senate approved a bill for condom distribution inside the state's prisons, but the bill was not yet law at the time of approval)[177] and in county jails in San Francisco.[178]
In September 2016, a group of corrections officers at Holman Correctional Facility have gone on strike over safety concerns and overcrowding. Prisoners refer to the facility as a "slaughterhouse" as stabbings are a routine occurrence.[179]
During the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in the US, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) requested health data from 54 state and territorial health department jurisdictions. 32 (86%) of 37 jurisdictions that responded reported at least one confirmed COVID-19 case among inmates or staff members. As of April 21, 2020, there were 4,893 cases and 88 deaths among inmates and 2,778 cases and 15 deaths among staff members.[180]
Conditions for Women
The conditions for women, especially Black women, are often poor. Many prisons are known to do less to help Black women get out of the prison system. Because prisons are male dominated, a larger portion of the resources are allocated towards them. Another major issue that women face in prisons is sexual assault, which often comes from guards. Though this is a major issue for women, these types of assaults do not usually get the attention that they need, and the victims are often left not being taken care of.[181]
Based on Angela Davis' "Are Prisons Obsolete?", the prison industrial complex and mass incarceration is shaped by gender. There are significant differences in the treatment of imprisoned men and women. Women endure physical, mental, and emotional trauma as they are forced to endure sexual abuse and a lack of resources for their intimate needs. In prison, women are dehumanized and treated like objects in a way that has become normal. Like many other socio-political issues, women seem to be left out of the conversation when it comes to prison reform. Again, not many people consider the experiences that women have endured in their time of imprisonment. Women were degraded to an extreme extent, and sexual abuse was often brought on by the guards and officers who are supposed to watch over them. They are sexualized, and often sent to prison for a longer duration than men.[citation needed]
The petty crimes of women are also not met with the same intensity of murder charges for men. According to Davis, "masculine criminality has always been deemed more "normal" than feminine criminality" (Davis, 2011). When a woman commits a crime, it is not as common and so it is practically considered psychotic. Because of this, "deviant women have been constructed as insane" (Davis, 2011). Women are treated as if their crimes are more irrational because of their gender, and their sentencing can be harsher as a result. Women are even more inclined to be imprisoned in psychiatric hospitals than men, and prescribed psychiatric treatment.[182]
Privatization
Prior to the 1980s, private prisons did not exist in the U.S. During the 1980s, as a result of the
A 1998 study was performed using three comparable Louisiana medium security prisons, two of which were privately run by different corporations and one of which was publicly run. The data from this study suggested that the privately run prisons operated more cost-effectively without sacrificing the safety of inmates and staff. The study concluded that both privately run prisons had a lower cost per inmate, a lower rate of critical incidents, a safer environment for employees and inmates, and a higher proportional rate of inmates who completed basic education, literacy, and vocational training courses. However, the publicly run prison outperformed the privately run prisons in areas such as experiencing fewer escape attempts, controlling substance abuse through testing, offering a wider range of educational and vocational courses, and providing a broader range of treatment, recreation, social services, and rehabilitative services.[187]
According to
In
Sociologist John L. Campbell of Dartmouth College claims that private prisons in the U.S. have become "a lucrative business".[196] Between 1990 and 2000, the number of private facilities grew from five to 100, operated by nearly 20 private firms. Over the same time period the stock price of the industry leader, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), which rebranded as CoreCivic in 2016 amid increased scrutiny of the private prison industry,[197] climbed from $8 a share to $30.[196] According to journalist Matt Taibbi, major investors in the prison industry include Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Fidelity Investments, General Electric and The Vanguard Group.[198] The aforementioned Bloomberg report also notes that in the past decade the number of inmates in for-profit prisons throughout the U.S. rose 44 percent.[190]
Controversy has surrounded the privatization of prisons with the exposure of the genesis of the landmark Arizona SB 1070 law. This law was written by Arizona State Congressman Russell Pearce and the CCA at a meeting of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in the Grand Hyatt in Washington, D.C.[199][200] Both CCA and GEO Group, the two largest operators of private facilities, have been contributors to ALEC, which lobbies for policies that would increase incarceration, such as three-strike laws and "truth-in-sentencing" legislation.[201][202][203][204][205] In fact, in the early 1990s, when CCA was co-chair of ALEC, it co-sponsored (with the National Rifle Association) the so-called "truth-in-sentencing" and "three-strikes-you're-out" laws.[206] Truth-in-sentencing called for all violent offenders to serve 85 percent of their sentences before being eligible for release; three strikes called for mandatory life imprisonment for a third felony conviction. Some prison officers unions in publicly run facilities such as California Correctional Peace Officers Association have, in the past, also supported measures such as three-strike laws. Such laws increased the prison population.[207][208]
In addition to CCA and GEO Group, companies operating in the private prison business include
Private companies which provide services to prisons combine in the
The industry is aware of what reduced crime rates could mean to their bottom line. This from the CCA's SEC report in 2010:
Our growth … depends on a number of factors we cannot control, including crime rates …[R]eductions in crime rates … could lead to reductions in arrests, convictions and sentences requiring incarceration at correctional facilities.[189]
Marie Gottschalk claims that while private prison companies and other economic interests were not the primary drivers of mass incarceration originally, they do much to sustain it today.[214] The private prison industry has successfully lobbied for changes that increase the profit of their employers. They have opposed measures that would bring reduced sentencing or shorter prison terms.[215][216] The private prison industry has been accused of being at least partly responsible for America's high rates of incarceration.[217]
According to The Corrections Yearbook, 2000, the average annual starting salary for public corrections officers was $23,002, compared to $17,628 for private prison guards. The poor pay is a likely factor in the high turnover rate in private prisons, at 52.2 percent compared to 16 percent in public facilities.[218]
In September 2015, Senator Bernie Sanders introduced the "Justice Is Not for Sale" Act,[219] which would prohibit the United States government at federal, state and local levels from contracting with private firms to provide and/or operate detention facilities within two years.[220]
An August 2016 report by the U.S. Department of Justice asserts that privately operated federal facilities are less safe, less secure and more punitive than other federal prisons.[221] Shortly after this report was published, the DoJ announced it will stop using private prisons.[222] On February 23, the DOJ under Attorney General Jeff Sessions overturned the ban on using private prisons. According to Sessions, "the (Obama administration) memorandum changed long-standing policy and practice, and impaired the bureau's ability to meet the future needs of the federal correctional system. Therefore, I direct the bureau to return to its previous approach."[223] The private prison industry has been booming under the Trump Administration.[224][225][226]
Additionally, both CCA and GEO Group have been expanding into the immigrant detention market. Although the combined revenues of CCA and GEO Group were about $4 billion in 2017 from private prison contracts, their number one customer was ICE.[227]
Labor
About 18% of eligible prisoners held in federal prisons are employed by
Initially, laws passed during the era of the New Deal prohibited the use of prison labor with the exception of state institutions. However, lobbying by corporations eventually allowed them to use prison labor by 1979, and by 1995 businesses won exemptions from minimum wage laws.[235]
It is estimated that one in nine state government employees works in corrections.[140] As the overall U.S. prison population declined in 2010, states are closing prisons. For instance, Virginia has removed 11 prisons since 2009. Like other small towns, Boydton in Virginia has to contend with unemployment woes resulting from the closure of the Mecklenburg Correctional Center.[236]
In 2010, Prisoners in Georgia engaged in the 2010 Georgia prison strike to garner more rights.
In September 2016, large, coordinated prison strikes took place in 11 states, with inmates claiming they are subjected to poor sanitary conditions and jobs that amount to forced labor and modern day slavery.[237][238][239][240] Organizers, which include the Industrial Workers of the World labor union, asserted that it was the largest prison strike in U.S. history.[237]
Starting August 21, 2018, another prison strike, sponsored by Jailhouse Lawyers Speak and the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee, took place in 17 states from coast to coast to protest what inmates regard as unfair treatment by the criminal justice system. In particular, inmates objected to being excluded from the 13th amendment which forces them to work for pennies a day, a condition they assert is tantamount to "modern-day slavery". The strike was the result of a call to action after a deadly riot occurred at Lee Correctional Institution in April of that year, which was sparked by neglect and inhumane living conditions.[241][242][243][244][245]
According to a 2022 report by the
In 2023, a nation-wide movement had called to close the 'slavery loophole' in the 13th Amendment, allowing an exception for punishment of crime. According to constitutional scholars, the 13th amendment had been violated as most US states forced inmates to work for no or marginal compensation.[247]
Cost
Judicial, police, and corrections costs totaled $212 billion in 2011 according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
In 2014, among facilities operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, the average cost of incarceration for federal inmates in fiscal year 2014 was $30,619.85. The average annual cost to confine an inmate in a residential re-entry center was $28,999.25.[254]
State prisons averaged $31,286 per inmate in 2010 according to a Vera Institute of Justice study. It ranged from $14,603 in Kentucky to $60,076 in New York.[255]
In California in 2008, it cost the state an average of $47,102 a year to incarcerate an inmate in a state prison. From 2001 to 2009, the average annual cost increased by about $19,500.[256]
Housing the approximately 500,000 people in jail in the US awaiting trial who cannot afford bail costs $9 billion a year.[257] Most jail inmates are petty, nonviolent offenders. In the early 1990s, most nonviolent defendants were released on their own recognizance (trusted to show up at trial). Now most are given bail, and most pay a bail bondsman to afford it.[258] 62% of local jail inmates are awaiting trial.[259] This rate varies from state to state. As of 2019, Illinois has the highest rate with 89% of inmates in local jails unconvicted.[260]
Bondsmen have lobbied to cut back local pretrial programs from Texas to California, pushed for legislation in four states limiting pretrial's resources, and lobbied Congress so that they won't have to pay the bond if the defendant commits a new crime. Behind them, the bondsmen have powerful special interest group and millions of dollars. Pretrial release agencies have a smattering of public employees and the remnants of their once-thriving programs.
—National Public Radio, January 22, 2010.[261]
To ease jail overcrowding over 10 counties every year consider building new jails. As an example Lubbock County, Texas has decided to build a $110 million megajail to ease jail overcrowding. Jail costs an average of $60 a day nationally.[258][262] In Broward County, Florida supervised pretrial release costs about $7 a day per person while jail costs $115 a day. The jail system costs a quarter of every county tax dollar in Broward County and is the single largest expense to the county taxpayer.[261]
The National Association of State Budget Officers reports: "In fiscal 2009, corrections spending represented 3.4 percent of total state spending and 7.2 percent of general fund spending." They also report: "Some states exclude certain items when reporting corrections expenditures. Twenty-one states wholly or partially excluded juvenile delinquency counseling from their corrections figures and fifteen states wholly or partially excluded spending on juvenile institutions. Seventeen states wholly or partially excluded spending on drug abuse rehabilitation centers and forty-one states wholly or partially excluded spending on institutions for the criminally insane. Twenty-two states wholly or partially excluded aid to local governments for jails. For details, see Table 36."[263]
As of 2007[update], the cost of medical care for inmates was growing by 10 percent annually.[264][140]
According to a 2016 study by researchers at Washington University in St. Louis, the true cost of incarceration exceeds $1 trillion, with half of that falling on the families, children and communities of those incarcerated.[265]
According to a 2016 analysis of federal data by the U.S. Education Department, state and local spending on incarceration has grown three times as much as spending on public education since 1980.[266]
Effects
Crime
Three articles written in the early 2000s claim that increasing incarceration has a negative effect on crime, but this effect becomes smaller as the incarceration rate increases.[268][269] Higher rates of prison admissions increase crime rates, whereas moderate rates of prison admissions decrease crime. The rate of prisoner releases in a given year in a community is also positively related to that community's crime rate the following year.[270]
A 2010 study of
According to a 2015 study by the Brennan Center for Justice, falling crime rates cannot be ascribed to mass incarceration.[272]
Society
Within three years of being released, 67% of ex-prisoners are re-arrested, and 52% are re-incarcerated, according to a study based on 1994 data.[273][120] Former inmate Wenona Thompson argues "I realized that I became part of a cycle, a system, that looked forward to seeing me there. And I was aware that ... I would be one of those people who fill up their prisons".[274]
In 1995, the government allocated $5.1 billion for new prison space. Every $100 million spent in construction costs $53 million per year in finance and operational costs over the next three decades.[275] The government spends nearly $60 billion a year for prisons, and in 2005, it cost an average of $23,876 a year to house a prisoner.[276] It takes about $30,000 per year per person to provide drug rehabilitation treatment to inmates. By contrast, the cost of drug rehabilitation treatment outside of a prison costs about $8,000 per year per person.[274]
In 2016, over 6 million Americans had lost their right to vote for conviction of a felony.[277] In addition, people who have been recently released from prison are ineligible for welfare in most states. They are not eligible for subsidized housing and must wait two years for eligibility for Section 8. It can be difficult for people to find employment, as employers often check a potential employee's criminal record.[278] Formerly incarcerated individuals may experience employment discrimination, and frequently have smaller social networks. This contributes to their struggle finding employment upon release into the community.[279]
In The New Jim Crow in 2011, legal scholar and advocate Michelle Alexander contended that the U.S. incarceration system worked to bar Black men from voting. She wrote "there are more African Americans under correctional control – in prison or jail, on probation or parole – than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began".[280] Alexander's work has drawn increased attention in the years since.
Yale Law Professor, and opponent of mass incarceration James Forman Jr. has countered that 1) African Americans, as represented by such cities as the District of Columbia, have generally supported tough on crime policies. 2) There appears to be a connection between drugs and violent crimes, the discussion of which, he says, New Jim Crow theorists have avoided. 3) New theorists have overlooked class as a factor in incarceration. Black people with advanced degrees have fewer convictions, and Black people without advanced education have more.[281]
Family
Incarceration of an individual does not have a singular effect: it affects those in the individual's tight-knit circle as well. For every mother that is incarcerated in the United States there are about another ten people (children, grandparents, community, etc.) that are directly affected.[282][283] Moreover, more than 2.7 million children in the United States have an incarcerated parent.[284] That translates to one out of every 27 children in the United States having an incarcerated parent.[285] Approximately 80 percent of women who go to jail each year are mothers.[286] This ripple effect on the individual's family amplifies the debilitating effect that entails arresting individuals. Given the general vulnerability and naivete of children, it is important to understand how such a traumatic event adversely affects children. The effects of a parent's incarceration on their children have been found as early as three years old.[287] Local and state governments in the United States have recognized these harmful effects and have attempted to address them through public policy solutions.
Impact on children
The effects of an early traumatic experience of a child can be categorized into health effects and behavioral externalizations. Many studies have searched for a correlation between witnessing a parent's arrest and a wide variety of physiological issues. For example, Lee et al. showed significant correlation between high
There has also been a substantial effort to understand how this traumatic experience manifests in the child's mental health and to identify externalizations that may be helpful for a diagnosis. The most prominent mental health outcomes in these children are
In addition to externalizing undesirable behaviors, children of incarcerated parents are more likely to be incarcerated compared to those without incarcerated parents.[298] More formally, transmission of severe emotional strain on a parent negatively impacts the children by disrupting the home environment. Societal stigma against individuals, specifically parents, who are incarcerated is passed down to their children. The children find this stigma to be overwhelming and it negatively impacts their short- and long-term prospects.[299]
Health
With rising levels of mass incarceration, the prison population faces significant health issues while incarcerated. Health surveys of inmates show that the prison population faces higher rates of chronic and infectious diseases, mental illness, and substance use disorders than the general U.S. population.[300] Based on analysis of the 2002-4 Survey of Inmates in Local Jails, incarcerated individuals had higher rates of hypertension, diabetes, myocardial infarction, asthma, arthritis, cervical cancer, and hepatitis.[300] The prison environment exacerbates chronic health conditions since they cannot be properly addressed and due to the stress of social isolation.[301] In addition, low-income and POC populations are often more susceptible to poor health outcomes due to social determinants of health prior to incarceration such as poor nutrition, lower average levels of education, higher levels of community violence and drug use, and lower rates of healthcare access.[300]
The incarcerated population also has lower rates of health literacy. A 2016 study found that over 60% of patients had inadequate health literacy in a sample of formerly incarcerated individuals.[302] According to the Health Resources & Services Administration, health literacy is the ability to obtain, process, and understand health information to make appropriate health decisions.[303] In the incarcerated population, low health literacy is linked with decreased confidence in taking medications, increased likelihood of emergency department visits, and difficulty self-managing chronic health conditions.[302]
Policy solutions
There are four main phases that can be distinguished in the process of arresting a parent: arrest,
Arrest phase
One in five children witness their parent arrested by authorities, and a study interviewing 30 children reported that the children experienced
Sentencing phase
During the sentencing phase, the judge is the primary authority in determining the appropriate punishment. Consideration of the sentencing effects on the defendant's children could help with the preservation of the parent-child relationship. A law passed in Oklahoma in 2014 requires judges to inquire if convicted individuals are single custodial parents, and if so, to authorize the mobility of important resources so the child's transition to different circumstances is monitored.[308] The distance that the jail or prison is from the arrested individual's home is a contributing factor to the parent-child relationship. Allowing a parent to serve their sentence closer to their residence allows for easier visitation and a healthier relationship. Recognizing this, the New York Senate passed a bill in 2015 that would ensure convicted individuals be jailed in the nearest facility.
In 1771, Baron Auckland wrote in Principles of Penal Law that: "Imprisonment, inflicted by law as a punishment, is not according to the principles of wise legislation. It sinks useful subjects into burdens on the community, and has always a bad effect on their morals: nor can it communicate the benefit of example, being in its nature secluded from the eye of the people."[309]
Incarceration phase
While serving a sentence, measures have been put in place to allow parents to exercise their duty as role models and caretakers. New York allows newborns to be with their mothers for up to one year.[310] Studies have shown that parental, specifically maternal, presence during a newborn's early development are crucial to both physical and cognitive development.[311] Ohio law requires nursery support for pregnant inmates in its facilities.[312] California also has a stake in the support of incarcerated parents, too, through its requirement that women in jail with children be transferred to a community facility that can provide pediatric care.[313] These regulations are supported by the research on early child development that argue it is imperative that infants and young children are with a parental figure, preferably the mother, to ensure proper development.[314] This approach received support at the federal level when then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates instituted several family-friendly measures, for certain facilities, including: improving infrastructure for video conferencing and informing inmates on how to contact their children if they were placed in the foster care system, among other improvements.[315]
Re-entry phase
The last phase of the incarceration process is re-entry back into the community, but more importantly, back into the family structure. Though the time away is painful for the family, it does not always welcome back the previously incarcerated individual with open arms.[316] Not only is the transition into the family difficult, but also into society as they are faced with establishing secure housing, insurance, and a new job.[317] As such, policymakers find it necessary to ease the transition of an incarcerated individual to the pre-arrest situation. Of the four outlined phases, re-entry is the least emphasized from a public policy perspective. This is not to say it is the least important, however, as there are concerns that time in a correctional facility can deteriorate the caretaking ability of some prisoners. As a result, Oklahoma has taken measurable strides by providing parents with the tools they need to re-enter their families, including classes on parenting skills.[318]
Caretakers
Though the effects on caregivers of these children vary based on factors such as the relationship to the prisoner and his or her support system, it is well known that it is a financial and emotional burden to take care of a child.[319] In addition to taking care of their nuclear family, caregivers are now responsible for another individual who requires attention and resources to flourish. Depending on the relationship to the caregiver, the transition to a new household may not be easy for the child. The rationale behind targeting caregivers for intervention policies is to ensure the new environment for the children is healthy and productive. The federal government funds states to provide counseling to caretaking family members to alleviate some of the associated emotional burden. A more comprehensive program from Washington (state) employs "kinship navigators" to address caretakers' needs with initiatives such as parental classes and connections to legal services.[320]
Employment
Felony records greatly influence the chances of people finding employment. Many employers seem to use criminal history as a screening mechanism without attempting to probe deeper.[321] They are often more interested in incarceration as a measure of employability and trustworthiness instead of its relation to any specific job.[322] People who have felony records have a harder time finding a job.[323] The psychological effects of incarceration can also impede an ex-felon's search for employment. Prison can cause social anxiety, distrust, and other psychological issues that negatively affect a person's reintegration into an employment setting.[324] Men who are unemployed are more likely to participate in crime[323] which leads to there being a 67% chance of a person with a previous felony conviction being charged again.[322] In 2008, the difficulties males with a previous felony conviction in the United States had finding employment lead to approximately a 1.6% decrease in the employment rate alone. This is a loss of between $57 and $65 billion of output to the US economy.[325]
Although incarceration in general has a huge effect on employment, the effects become even more pronounced when looking at race. Devah Pager performed a study in 2003 and found that white males with no criminal record had a 34% chance of callback compared to 17% for white males with a criminal record. Black males with no criminal record were called back at a rate of 14% while the rate dropped to 5% for those with a criminal record. Black men with no criminal background have a harder time finding employment than white men who have a history of criminal activity. While having a criminal record decreases the chance of a callback for white men by 50%, it decreases the callback chances for Black men by 64%.[321]
While Pager's study is greatly informative, it does lack some valuable information. Pager only studied white and Black men, which leaves out women and people of other races. It also fails to account for the fact that applying for jobs has largely shifted from applying in person to applying over the Internet. A study conducted at Arizona State University in 2014 accounts for this missing information. This study was set up similarly to the Pager study, but with the addition of female job applicants, Hispanic job applicants, and online job applications.[326] Men and women of white, Black, and Hispanic ethnicities account for 92% of the US prison population.[327]
The Arizona State University study also found that incarceration decreased employment opportunities. The findings indicated that the presence of a criminal record reduced callbacks by approximately 50%. Hispanic women with a prison record fared most favorably in receiving a phone call back from potential employmers, while African American women had modest results, and white women received the poorest results, having the lowest probability of receiving a phone call from a potential employer.[326]
For men with a criminal record, white men fared most favorably, being 125% more likely to receive a call back from an employer than black men, and 18% more likely than Hispanic men.[326] Males with a prison record were less likely than males without a prison record to receive a callback. However, the effects of incarceration on male applicants applying online were nearly nonexistent. In fact, the study found that "there was no effect of race/ethnicity, prison record, or community college [education] on men's success in advancing through the [online] hiring process". The Arizona State University study also had results that contradicted Pager's study.
Effects of other types of incarceration, such as shorter stays in local county jails, can also affect employment at both the individual and macro level. At the community level, for example, jail incarceration has been found to diminish local labor markets, especially in areas with relatively high proportions of Black residents.[328]
Environmental
Mass incarceration in the United States has created numerous environmental justice concerns, including both the environmental footprint of prisons and incarcerated individuals' exposure to environmental harm.
Prisons around the United States contribute to the water contamination of surrounding bodies of water.[329] Prisons also contribute high amounts of air pollution which affects individuals incarcerated within the prison, surrounding communities, and the ecosystems in the surrounding area.[329] Prisons around the country violate the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act frequently.[329] The Environmental Protection Agency is supposed to monitor prisons in the United States. However, prisons often fail to provide Environment Impact Statements to the EPA each year, making it difficult to fully understand their environmental impact.[330] Prisons also require a large amount of energy since they run 24 hours a day.[331]
Many prisons around the United States are built on or close to superfund sites which expose incarcerated individuals to environmental toxins such as high levels of lead and copper.[332] Some prisons in the United States are also built next to landfills, toxic waste sites, and old mining sites.[329] Since prisons are not strictly regulated, the existence of these prisons inherently validates toxins to be prevalent in the environment.[332] Incarcerated individuals are forced to breathe and consume these toxins with no government protection.[329]
Another concern that incarcerated individuals face is not having access to adequate heating and cooling during extreme weather conditions which are only becoming more common due to climate change.[333] As summers continue to get hotter, many prisons do not have air conditioning, and numerous incarcerated individuals die from extreme heat as a result.[333] Although prisons are supposed to provide fans and ice to individuals during extreme heat events, they do not always follow through.[334] During the winter, prisons do not have proper heating. Many incarcerated individuals complain that the Department of Corrections does not provide supplies such as blankets during cold weather, and they have to depend on donations or suffer with nothing.[335] Environmental justice and energy justice activists argue the lack of adequate heating and cooling in prisons is a form of "cruel and unusual punishment," which violates their Eighth Amendment.[335]
There has been a growing movement to make prisons more sustainable through numerous "green prison" programs.[331] Green prisons promote sustainable living while also focusing on the incarcerated individual's rehabilitation which will hopefully lead to low recidivism rates.[336] This includes reducing waste and transitioning to renewable energy sources. However, there has been some pushback to the spread of green programs within prisons as environmental justice activists argue they only reinforce mass incarceration.[331]
Criticism
Mass incarceration on a scale almost unexampled in human history is a fundamental fact of our country today—perhaps the fundamental fact, as slavery was the fundamental fact of 1850.
High rates of incarceration may be due to sentence length, which is further driven by many other factors.[337] Shorter sentences may even diminish the criminal culture by possibly reducing re-arrest rates for first-time convicts.[338] The U.S. Congress has ordered federal judges to make imprisonment decisions "recognizing that imprisonment is not an appropriate means of promoting correction and rehabilitation."[339]
Critics have lambasted the United States for incarcerating a large number of non-violent and victimless offenders;[340][341] half of all persons incarcerated under state jurisdiction are for non-violent offenses, and 20% are incarcerated for drug offenses (in state prisons; federal prison percentages are higher).[342][343] "Human Rights Watch believes the extraordinary rate of incarceration in the United States wreaks havoc on individuals, families and communities, and saps the strength of the nation as a whole."[340] The population of inmates housed in prisons and jails in the United States exceeds 2 million, with the per capita incarceration population higher than that officially reported by any other country.[140] Criminal justice policy in the United States has also been criticized for a number of other reasons.[344] In the 2014 book The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap, journalist Matt Taibbi argues that the expanding disparity of wealth and the increasing criminalization of those in poverty have culminated in the U.S. having the largest prison population "in the history of human civilization".[345] The scholars Michael Meranze and Marie Gottschalk contend that the massive "carceral state" extends far beyond prisons, and distorts democracy, degrades society, and obstructs meaningful discourse on criminal punishment.[346] More recently, scholars have argued that a system of mass incarceration necessarily interferes with a free society "characterized by industry, discovery, and creation."[347]
Some scholars have linked the ascent of
The sociologists John Clegg and Adaner Usmani assert that the high incarceration rates are partly the result of anemic social policy. As such, resolving the issue will necessitate significant redistribution coming from economic elites. They add that mass incarceration is "not a technical problem for which there are smart, straightforward, but just not-yet-realized solutions. Rather they argue, it is a political problem, the solution of which will require "confronting the entrenched power of the wealthy."[356]
Another possibly cause for this increase of incarceration since the 1970s could be the "war on drugs", which started around that time. More elected prosecutors were favored by voters for promising to take more harsh approaches than their opponents, such as locking up more people.[357]
Our vast network of federal and state prisons, with some 2.3 million inmates, rivals the gulags of totalitarian states.
Reporting at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association (August 3, 2008), Becky Pettit, associate professor of sociology from the University of Washington and Bryan Sykes, a UW post-doctoral researcher, revealed that the increase in the United States's prison population since the 1970s is having profound demographic consequences that affect 1 in 50 Americans. Drawing data from a variety of sources that looked at prison and general populations, the researchers found that the boom in prison population is hiding lowered rates of fertility and increased rates of involuntary migration to rural areas and morbidity that is marked by a greater exposure to and risk of infectious diseases such as tuberculosis and HIV or AIDS.[359]
Guilty plea bargains concluded 97% of all federal cases in 2011.[360]
As of December 2012[update], two state prison systems, Alabama and South Carolina, segregated prisoners based on their
In 2022, the
Department of Justice "Smart on Crime" Program
On August 12, 2013, at the American Bar Association's House of Delegates meeting, Attorney General Eric Holder announced the "Smart on Crime" program, which is "a sweeping initiative by the Justice Department that in effect renounces several decades of tough-on-crime anti-drug legislation and policies."[364][365] Holder said the program "will encourage U.S. attorneys to charge defendants only with crimes "for which the accompanying sentences are better suited to their individual conduct, rather than excessive prison terms more appropriate for violent criminals or drug kingpins…"[364][365] Running through Holder's statements, the increasing economic burden of over-incarceration was stressed.[364][365] As of August 2013[update], the Smart on Crime program is not a legislative initiative but an effort "limited to the DOJ's policy parameters".[364][365]
Strip searches and cavity searches
The procedural use of
References in popular culture
In relation to popular culture, mass incarceration has become a popular issue in the
In addition to references in popular music, mass incarceration has also played a role in modern film. For example, Ava DuVernay's Netflix film 13th, released in 2017, criticizes mass incarceration and compares it to the history of slavery throughout the United States, beginning with the provision of the 13th Amendment that allows for involuntary servitude "as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted". The film equates mass incarceration with the post-Civil War Jim Crow Era.[369]
The fight against mass incarceration has also been a part of the larger discourse in the 21st century movement for Black Lives. #BlackLivesMatter, a progressive movement created by Alicia Garza after the death of Trayvon Martin, was designed as an online platform to fight against anti-Black sentiments such as mass incarceration, police brutality, and ingrained racism within modern society. According to Garza, "Black Lives Matter is an ideological and political intervention in a world where Black lives are systematically and intentionally targeted for demise. It is an affirmation of Black folks' contributions to this society, our humanity, and our resilience in the face of deadly oppression." This movement has focused on specific racial issues faced by African Americans in the justice system including police brutality, ending capital punishment, and eliminating "the criminalization and dehumanization of Black youth across all areas of society."[370]
Federal prisons
The Federal Bureau of Prisons, a division of the United States Department of Justice, is responsible for the administration of United States federal prisons.
State prisons
Imprisonment by the state judicial systems has steadily diminished since 2006 to 2012, from 689,536 annually to 553,843 annually.[371]
Military prisons
Across the world, the U.S. military operates several detention facilities. At year-end 2021, a total of 1,131 prisoners were held under military jurisdiction.[7]
See also
- Capital punishment in the United States
- Death in custody
- Decarceration in the United States
- Equal Justice Initiative
- History of United States Prison Systems
- Religion in United States prisons
- Prison gangs in the United States
- Prisoner rights in the United States
- Prisoner suicide
- Prisoner abuse
- Social groups in male and female prisons in the United States
- United States incarceration rate
- Administration
- Federal Prison Industries, Inc.
- Inmate telephone system
- Conditions of confinement
- Controversies
- Prison advocacy groups
- Related
- Parole in the United States
- Crime in the United States
- Law enforcement in the United States
- Penal labor in the United States
- Penal populism
- Civilian noninstitutional population
- Felony disenfranchisement in the United States
- Human rights in the United States#Prison system
- Race in the United States criminal justice system
- Race and the War on Drugs
- Racial profiling in the United States
- By state
References
- ^ a b Jacob Kang-Brown, Chase Montagnet, and Jasmine Heiss. People in Jail and Prison in Spring 2021. New York: Vera Institute of Justice, 2021.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n "Correctional Populations in the United States, 2021 – Statistical Tables". Bureau of Justice Statistics. Retrieved June 3, 2023.
- ^ a b Wang, Leah. "Punishment Beyond Prisons: Incarceration and Supervision by State". Prison Policy Initiative. Retrieved July 6, 2023.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved October 21, 2023.
- ^ a b c d Highest to Lowest. World Prison Brief (WPB). Use the dropdown menu to choose lists of countries by region or the whole world. Use the menu to select highest-to-lowest lists of prison population totals, prison population rates, percentage of pre-trial detainees/remand imprisoned people, percentage of imprisoned females, percentage of imprisoned foreign people, and occupancy rate. Column headings in WPB tables can be clicked to reorder columns lowest to highest, or alphabetically. For detailed information for each country click on any country name in lists. See also the WPB main data page and click on the map links and/or the sidebar links to get to the region and country desired.
- ^ Ghandnoosh, Nazgol (February 8, 2023). "Ending 50 Years of Mass Incarceration: Urgent Reform Needed to Protect Future Generations". The Sentencing Project. Retrieved June 3, 2023.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Carson, E. Ann (December 2022). "Prisoners in 2021 – Statistical Tables" (PDF). U.S. Department of Justice.
- ^ Cullen, James (January 18, 2017). "The United States is (Very) Slowly Reducing Incarceration". Brennan Center of Justice.
- ^ "Mass Incarceration Costs $182 Billion Every Year". Equal Justice Initiative. February 6, 2017. Retrieved July 11, 2019.
- ^ "Prisoners, 1925–81". Bureau of Justice Statistics. Retrieved July 7, 2023.
- ^ a b "Search Publications". Bureau of Justice Statistics. Retrieved July 7, 2023.
- ^ "BOP: Population Statistics". www.bop.gov. Retrieved July 7, 2023.
- ^ Staff Writer (April 14, 2009). "Debtors' prison – again". The Tampa Bay Times. United States. Archived from the original on July 6, 2010. Retrieved June 21, 2013.
- ^ California, State of (2012). "CAL. PEN. CODE § 1205". Find Law.com. California Penal Code.
- The Huffington Post. Retrieved February 12, 2014.
- S2CID 145437287.
- ^ Timothy Williams (February 11, 2015). Jails Have Become Warehouses for the Poor, Ill and Addicted, a Report Says. The New York Times. Retrieved February 11, 2015.
- ^ a b c "Rise of the Penitentiary | Yale University Press". yalebooks.yale.edu. Retrieved November 19, 2018.
- ISBN 9781555534684.
Spanish soldiers in 1570 erected the first substantial prison, at St. Augustine, Florida.
- ISBN 9781555534684.
- ^ a b Jenness, Valerie (August 27, 2016). "United States Prison System History – Valerie Jenness". Valerie Jenness | UCI Professor | Criminology Department. Archived from the original on September 11, 2016. Retrieved September 11, 2016.
- ^ Dix, Dorothea L (1843), Memorial to the Legislature of Massachusetts 1843, p. 2, retrieved November 12, 2010
- ISBN 978-0-340-93526-2.
- ^ United States of America. World Prison Brief.
- ^ "Richard Nixon: Special Message to the Congress on Drug Abuse Prevention and Control". Archived from the original on December 12, 2013. Retrieved December 8, 2013.
- ^ Dufton, Emily (March 26, 2012). "The War on Drugs: How President Nixon Tied Addiction to Crime". The Atlantic. Retrieved June 28, 2020.
- ISBN 0195136268.
- ^ Hinton, Elizabeth. "From the War on Crime to the War on Drugs". From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: the Making of Mass Incarceration in America, by Elizabeth Hinton, Harvard University Press, 2017, pp. 307–332.
- ^ Nation Behind Bars: A Human Rights Solution. Human Rights Watch, May 2014. Retrieved May 8, 2014.
- ^ a b c d Sawyer, Wendy; Wagner, Peter. "Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2023". Prison Policy Initiative. Retrieved July 6, 2023.
- ^ a b "U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts: United States". www.census.gov. Retrieved July 17, 2023.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-309-29801-8.
- ISBN 978-0-309-69337-0.
- ^ PhD, Ashley Nellis (October 13, 2021). "The Color of Justice: Racial and Ethnic Disparity in State Prisons". The Sentencing Project. Retrieved July 21, 2023.
- ^ "National Trends – Racial Disparities". counciloncj.foleon.com. Retrieved July 21, 2023.
- ^ a b c d e f "Search Publications". Bureau of Justice Statistics. Retrieved July 21, 2023.
- US Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), published in December 2011. See PDF. See page 2 for explanation of the difference between number of prisoners in custody and the number under jurisdiction. See appendix table 3 for "Estimated number of inmates held in custody in state or federal prisons or in local jails per 100,000 U.S. residents, by sex, race and Hispanic/Latino origin, and age, June 30, 2010". See appendix table 2 for "Inmates held in custody in state or federal prisons or in local jails, December 31, 2000, and 2009–2010."
- ^ U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). By Lauren E. Glaze and Danielle Kaeble, BJS Statisticians. See PDF. See page 1 "highlights" section for the "1 in ..." numbers. See table 1 on page 2 for adult numbers. See table 5 on page 6 for male and female numbers. See appendix table 5 on page 13, for "Estimated number of persons supervised by adult correctional systems, by correctional status, 2000–2013." See appendix table 2: "Inmates held in custody in state or federal prisons or in local jails, 2000 and 2012–2013".
- ISBN 978-1-58826-228-8.
- ISBN 978-1-57607-929-4.
- ^ American Civil Liberties Union. "HOW INCARCERATING WOMEN FUELS OUR MASS INCARCERATION CRISIS". ACLU. Retrieved April 22, 2022.
- ISBN 9781583225813.
- ^ Sultan, Bonnie; Myrent, Mark. "Women and Girls in Corrections" (PDF). Justice Research and Statistics Association (JRSA).
- ^ Budd, Kristen (April 3, 2023). "Incarcerated Women and Girls". The Sentencing Project.
- ^ Humphreys, Keith (January 24, 2017). "White women are going to prison at a higher rate than ever before". Washington Post. Retrieved August 27, 2023.
- ^ Lane, Charles (July 12, 2023). "New data show a dire forecast about incarceration rates didn't come true". Washington Post. Retrieved August 27, 2023.
- ^ Gross, Kali Nicole. "African American women, mass incarceration, and the politics of protection." The Journal of American History 102.1 (2015): 25–33.
- ^ Potter, Hillary. Battle cries: Black women and intimate partner abuse. NYU Press, 2008.
- ^ Mustard, David B. "Racial, ethnic, and gender disparities in sentencing: Evidence from the U.S. Federal Courts". The Journal of Law, Economics & Policy. 285.
- ^ "Men Sentenced to Longer Prison Terms for Same Crimes, Study Says". The Huffington Post.
- doi:10.15779/Z38F32G.
- ^ Sickmund, M., Sladky, T.J., Kang, W., & Puzzanchera, C.. "Easy Access to the Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement". Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Click "National Crosstabs" at the top, and then choose the census years. Click "Show table" to get the total number of juvenile inmates for those years. Or go here for all the years. And here.
- ^ Ed Pilkington (March 13, 2014). US criticised by UN for human rights failings on NSA, guns and drones. The Guardian. Retrieved April 5, 2014.
- ^ Natasja Sheriff (March 9, 2015). UN expert slams US as only nation to imprison kids for life without parole. Al Jazeera America. Retrieved March 13, 2015.
- The Huffington Post. Retrieved October 22, 2013.
- ^ Case, Anne C., and Lawrence F. Katz. The company you keep: The effects of family and neighborhood on disadvantaged youths. No. w3705. National Bureau of Economic Research, 1991.
- ^ a b c d Sawyer, Wendy (February 27, 2018). "Youth Confinement: The Whole Pie". www.prisonpolicy.org. Retrieved March 22, 2019.
- ^ a b Heitzeg, Nancy. "Education Or Incarceration: Zero Tolerance Policies And The School To Prison Pipeline" (PDF).
- ^ Sarah Biehl, The School-to-Prison Pipeline, 28 OHIO LAWYER, Jan.–Feb. 2014,
- ^ David M. Pedersen, Zero-Tolerance Policies, in SCHOOL VIOLENCE: FROM DISCIPLINE TO DUE PROCESS 48 (James C. Hanks ed., 2004); see also CATHERINE Y. KIM, DANIEL J. LOSEN & DAMON T. HEWITT, THE SCHOOL-TO-PRISON PIPELINE: STRUCTURING LEGAL REFORM 79 (2010)
- ^ Ralph M. Gerstein & Lois A. Gerstein Education Law: An Essential Guide for Attorneys, Teachers, Administrators, Parents and Students 195 (2nd ed. 2007).
- ^ U.S. Dep't of Educ. Office for Civil Rights, School Climate and Discipline, http://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/school-discipline/index.html
- ^ Catherine Y. Kim, Policing School Discipline, 77 BROOK. L. REV. 861, 901–02 (2012); Moll & Simmons, supra note 22, at 7; Advancement Project, Clayton County, GA, http://safequalityschools.org/pages/clayton-county-ga [https://perma.cc/8CKX-URDD] (last visited February 1, 2017).
- ^ Heitzeg, Nancy A. (2009). "Education Or Incarceration: Zero Tolerance Policies And The School To Prison Pipeline" (PDF).
- ^ Koon, Danfeng Soto-Vigil. "Exclusionary School Discipline: An Issue Brief and the Review of Literature." The Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Law and Social Policy . University of California, Berkeley School of Law, n.d. Web. Apr. 2013.
- ^ O'Conner, R.; Porowski, A.; Passa (2014). "Disproportionality in school discipline: An assessment of trends in Maryland, 2009–12" (PDF).
- ^ a b Balingit, Moriah. "Racial disparities in school discipline are growing, federal data show". Washington Post. Archived from the original on September 2, 2019.
- ^ Balingit, Moriah. "Racial disparities in school discipline are growing, federal data show". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on September 2, 2019.
- ^ Mallet, Christopher A. (2016). "The School-to-Prison Pipeline: Disproportionate Impact on Vulnerable Children and Adolescents" (PDF).
- ^ a b Smith & Harper (2015). "Disproportionate impact of K-12 school suspension and expulsion on black students in southern states" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on October 21, 2017. Retrieved July 12, 2018.
- ^ Feld, Barry C. (1999). "Bad Kids: Race and the Transformation of the Juvenile Court".
- ^ Edelman & Smith (1975). School Suspensions: Are they helping children?. Washington Research Project.
- ^ a b c Desmond & Emirbayer (2016). Race in America. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.
- ^ a b "Aging inmates clogging nation's prisons". Associated Press. September 30, 2007.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-275-97123-6.
- ^ "Elderly Inmate Population Soared 1,300 Percent Since 1980s: Report". The Huffington Post. June 13, 2012.
- ^ a b Marksamer, Jody; Tobin, Harper (2013). Standing With LGBT Prisoners: An Advocate's Guide to Ending Abuse and Combating Imprisonment (PDF). Washington, DC: National Center for Transgender Equality. pp. 1–88. Retrieved February 14, 2015.
- ^ Tobin, Harper (April 1, 2014). "Putting Prisons on the LGBT Agenda". The Huffington Post. Retrieved February 14, 2015.
- ISSN 1462-4745.
- ^ a b Bassichis, Daniel (2007). "It's War In Here": A Report on the Treatment of Transgender and Intersex People in New York State Men's Prisons (PDF). Sylvia Rivera Law Project. pp. 1–50. Retrieved February 14, 2015.
- ^ Whitlock, Kay (December 15, 2005). "Corrupting Justice: A Primer for LGBT Communities on Racism, Violence, Human Degradation & the Prison Industrial Complex" (PDF). American Friends Service Committee. American Friends Service Committee. Retrieved February 14, 2015.
- ^ Beck, Allan; Berzofsky, Marcus; Caspar, Rachel; Krebs, Christopher (May 2013). Sexual Victimization in Prisons and Jails Reported by Inmates, 2011–12. National Criminal Justice Reference Service.
- ^ Horowitz, Alana (February 4, 2013). "Mental Illness Soars In Prisons, Jails While Inmates Suffer". Huffington Post. Retrieved February 15, 2015.
- ^ "Mentally Ill Persons in Corrections". nicic.gov. National Institute of Corrections. Retrieved February 15, 2015.
- ^ a b Geller, Adam (July 15, 2014). "U.S. Jails Struggle With Role As Makeshift Asylums". The Seattle Times. Retrieved October 18, 2018.
- S2CID 13116080.
- ^ a b c James, Doris; Glaze, Lauren (December 14, 2006). Mental Health Problems of Prison and Jail Inmates (PDF). U.S. Department of Justice: Office of Justice Programs: Bureau of Justice Statistics. pp. 1–12. Retrieved February 16, 2015.
- ^ a b Mental Illness, Human Rights, and US Prisons: Human Rights Watch Statement for the Record Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law (PDF). Human Rights Watch. September 22, 2009. pp. 1–14. Retrieved February 20, 2015. See p. 10.
- ^ Marisa Taylor (May 12, 2015). Report: Mentally ill inmates are routinely abused by corrections officers. Al Jazeera America. Retrieved May 17, 2015.
- ^ PMID 24730388. Retrieved February 20, 2015.
- ^ Carroll, Heather. "Serious Mental Illness Prevalence in Jails and Prisons". Treatment Advocacy Center. Retrieved October 26, 2022.
- ^ "ERO FY18 Achievements". www.ice.gov. Retrieved November 23, 2021.
- ^ "Transfer Of State Prisoners." United States Department of Justice. Retrieved on April 14, 2016.
- ^ "How The Program Works." United States Department of Justice. Retrieved on April 14, 2016.
- S2CID 17527457.
- ^ Tom Hall (February 13, 2015).Study says US jails have become "massive warehouses" for the poor. World Socialist Web Site. Retrieved September 1, 2023.
- ^ Alston, Philp (December 15, 2017). "Statement on Visit to the USA, by Professor Philip Alston, United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights". OHCHR. Retrieved December 21, 2017.
In many cities and counties the criminal justice system is effectively a system for keeping the poor in poverty while generating revenue to fund not only the justice system but diverse other programs. The use of the legal system, not to promote justice, but to raise revenue, as documented so powerfully in the Department of Justice's report on Ferguson, is pervasive around the country.
- ISBN 9780593239919.
- ^ Mauer, Marc; King, Ryan S; Young, Malcolm C (May 2004). "The Meaning of "Life": Long Prison Sentences in Context" (PDF). The Sentencing Project. p. 3. Archived from the original (PDF) on July 10, 2010. Retrieved January 11, 2010.
- ^ a b "2016 Crime Statistics Released". FBI.gov. Federal Bureau of Investigation. September 25, 2017. Retrieved November 25, 2017.
- ^ "Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2016". Prison Policy Initiative. March 16, 2016. Retrieved July 14, 2023.
- ^ a b c West, Heather; Sabol, William (December 2010). "Prisoners in 2009" (PDF). Bureau of Justice Statistics. Archived from the original (PDF) on October 27, 2011. Retrieved December 25, 2010.
- U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. See Table 3 of the PDF file Archived October 5, 2011, at the Wayback Machinefor the percent of inmates in for violent offenses.
- ^ "News brief". The Week. December 6, 2013. p. 16.
- ^ John Pfaff (January 28, 2017). "A Better Approach to Violent Crime". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved January 28, 2017.
- ^ "United States – Punishment and Prejudice: Racial Disparities in the War on Drugs". www.hrw.org. Retrieved April 24, 2017.
- ^ "Incarcerated America" Human Rights Watch (April 2003)
- ^ United States Crime Rates 1960–2009. Source: FBI, Uniform Crime Reports.
- ^ a b U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics: "Prisoners in 2012 Trends in Admissions and Releases, 1991–2012" by E. Ann Carson and Daniela Golinelli Table 11: Estimated sentenced state imprisoned people on December 31, by most serious offense and type of admission, 1991, 2001, 2006, and 2011 | December 2013
- ^ "Why We Need Pretrial Reform". Pretrial Justice Institute. Archived from the original on May 9, 2020. Retrieved May 31, 2020.
- ^ "Jail Inmates in 2016" (PDF). 2018.
- ^ "United States of America | World Prison Brief". www.prisonstudies.org. Retrieved May 31, 2020.
- ^ Hunter, Lea (March 16, 2020). "What You Need To Know About Ending Cash Bail". Center for American Progress. Retrieved May 31, 2020.
- ^ "Bail or Jail". www.ncsl.org. Retrieved May 31, 2020.
- ^ "Jail Incarceration Rate Decreased" (PDF). Bureau of Justice Statistics. March 31, 2020.
- ^ Watkins (March 31, 2020). "Jail Incarceration Rate Decreased by 12 Percent" (PDF). DOJ.
- ^ Altschuler, David Skorton and Glenn. "College Behind Bars: How Educating Prisoners Pays Off". Forbes. Retrieved May 19, 2023.
- ^ Strait, Abigail; Eaton, Susan (2016). "Post-Secondary Education for People in Prison" (PDF). Social Justice Funders Opportunity Brief. 1 – via The Sillerman Center for the Advancement of Philanthropy.
- ^ S2CID 148650060.
- ^ a b Langan, Patrick A.; Levin, David J. (June 2, 2002). "Recidivism of Prisoners Released in 1994" (PDF). Bureau of Justice Statistics. Archived from the original (PDF) on December 14, 2011. Retrieved January 11, 2010.
- ^ Durose, Matthew (April 2014). "Recidivism of Prisoners Released in 30 States in 2005: Patterns from 2005 to 2010" (PDF). Bureau of Justice Statistics.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-41-567344-0.
- ^ Gefangenenraten im internationalen und nationalen Vergleich (Prison rates international comparison) Archived July 14, 2018, at the Wayback Machine, University Greifswald, FRIEDER DÜNKEL • BERND GENG • STEFAN HARRENDORF, Bewährungshilfe – Soziales • Strafrecht • Kriminalpolitik, Jg. 63, 2016, Heft 2, S. 178–200, 2016.
- ^ New York Times. April 22, 2008. Page 1, Section A, Front Page.
- ^ Walmsley, Roy (February 2, 2016). World Prison Population List (11th edition) (PDF). From the Research & Publications page of the World Prison Brief website. From page 1 of the PDF: "The information is the latest available at the end of October 2015." And from page 2: "This report shows that more than 10.35 million people are held in penal institutions throughout the world, either as pre-trial detainees/remand prisoners or having been convicted and sentenced."
- ^ Correctional Populations in the United States, 2015. By Danielle Kaeble and Lauren Glaze, BJS Statisticians. Dec. 2016. Bureau of Justice Statistics. See PDF. Page 2 says: "At yearend 2015, an estimated 2,173,800 persons were either under the jurisdiction of state or federal prisons or in the custody of local jails in the United States".
- U.S. Census Bureau. 321,032,786 people in the US on June 30, 2015.
- ^ The World Population Prospects: 2015 Revision. July 29, 2015, article. From United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. 7.3 billion people in 2015.
- ^ Canada. World Prison Brief.
- ^ United Kingdom: England & Wales. World Prison Brief.
- ^ Australia. World Prison Brief.
- ^ Ireland Irish Penal Reform Trust.
- ^ Spain. World Prison Brief.
- ^ Greece. World Prison Brief.
- ^ Norway. World Prison Brief.
- ^ Netherlands. World Prison Brief.
- ^ Japan. World Prison Brief.
- ^ a b Widra, Emily; Herring, Tiana (2021). "States of Incarceration: The Global Context 2021". Prison Policy Initiative. Retrieved February 14, 2023.
- ^ The Times-Picayune. Archived from the originalon March 3, 2015. Retrieved April 4, 2013.
- ^ New York Times.
- ISBN 978-1-4051-1337-3.
- ISBN 978-0-7679-0056-0.
- ^ a b Gopnik, Adam (January 30, 2012). The Caging of America. The New Yorker.
- ^ Foundation, The Annie E. Casey (November 14, 2020). "Juvenile Detention Explained". The Annie E. Casey Foundation. Retrieved July 6, 2023.
- ^ a b c "What Do Security Levels Means". Injustice Security. Retrieved August 28, 2016.
- ^ "Correctional Populations in the United States, 2016". Bureau of Justice Statistics.
- ^ diZerega, M., & Agudelo, S. V. (2011). Piloting a tool for reentry: A promising approach to engaging family members. New York, NY: Vera Institute of Justice.
- .
- ^ DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS TO BAN INMATES FROM SOLICITING PEN PALS ON WEBSITES – Missouri Department of Corrections, press release May 13, 2007. "During our review, we have identified numerous offenders who, through misleading web postings and photos, have solicited thousands of dollars from individuals and have devised other creative and purposeful intents to defraud the public"
- Wired News. December 17, 2002. Retrieved January 26, 2008.
- ^ Neal Moore (March 28, 2011). "Employment Upon Release". CNN. Retrieved March 28, 2011.
- ^ "Prisoners' Rights – Legal Correspondence". FindLaw. Retrieved January 26, 2008.
- ^ "California Prison Reform and Rehabilitation". California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Archived from the original on February 18, 2011. Retrieved May 9, 2011.
- ^ Prison and Detention Conditions. Human Rights Watch, retrieved May 22, 2015.
- ^ "Inhumane Prison Conditions Still Threaten Life, Health of Alabama Inmates Living with HIV/AIDS, According to Court Filings". Human Rights Watch. February 27, 2005. Retrieved June 13, 2006.
- S2CID 145791880. Archived from the original(PDF) on February 17, 2012. Retrieved September 3, 2006.
- ^ a b Hylton, Wil S. (July 2003). "Sick on the Inside". Harper's Magazine. Retrieved February 29, 2012.
- ^ Liliana Segura (October 1, 2013).With 2.3 Million People Incarcerated in the US, Prisons Are Big Business. The Nation. Retrieved October 9, 2013.
- ^ Abigail Leonard & Adam May (May 28, 2014). Whistleblower: Arizona inmates are dying from inadequate health care. Al Jazeera America. Retrieved July 22, 2014.
- ^ David M. Reutter, Gary Hunter & Brandon Sample. Appalling Prison and Jail Food Leaves Prisoners Hungry for Justice. Prison Legal News. Retrieved January 4, 2013.
- ^ Marx, Rebecca (2009). "Prison Riot Caused by Prison Food". The Village Voice. Retrieved July 17, 2023.
- ^ Fassler, Joe; Brown, Claire (December 27, 2017). "Prison Food Is Making U.S. Inmates Disproportionately Sick". The Atlantic. Retrieved December 29, 2017.
- ^ "Gang and Security Threat Group Awareness". Florida Department of Corrections. Archived from the original on June 19, 2006. Retrieved June 13, 2006.
- ^ Thompson, Don (April 5, 2008). "Prison Attacks Calling Attention to Overcrowding". Associated Press. Retrieved August 6, 2009.
- ^ Moore, Solomon (August 5, 2009). "California Prisons Must Cut Inmate Population". New York Times. p. A10. Retrieved August 6, 2009.
- ^ Order for population reduction plan, pg. 9, three-judge court convened by the Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit hearing Plata v. Schwarzenegger and Coleman v. Schwarzenegger
- ^ Medina, Jennifer (May 24, 2011). "In a California Prison, Bunk Beds Replace Pickup Games". The New York Times.
- ^ "Calif. Faces Tough Choices on Overcrowded Prisons". PBS. Archived from the original on January 21, 2014. Retrieved September 1, 2017.
- ^ Liptak, Adam (May 23, 2011). "Justices, 5-4, Tell California to Cut Prisoner Population". The New York Times. Retrieved February 15, 2016.
- ^ "RBGG and Co-Counsel Win Affirmance at Supreme Court of the United States". Rosen Bien Galvan & Grunfeld LLP. San Francisco, CA. May 23, 2011. Retrieved February 15, 2016.
- ^ a b UN News (October 18, 2011). "Solitary confinement should be banned in most cases".
- ^ "How Many Prisoners Are in Solitary Confinement in the United States?". February 2012.
- ^ Young, Jeremy (June 27, 2023). "Solitary confinement is still widespread in US prisons and jails". Al Jazeera. Retrieved July 5, 2023.
- ^ Dana Larson (December 8, 1999). "Norway Grants Refuge to US Smuggler". Cannabis Culture. Archived from the original on May 2, 2013. Retrieved April 3, 2013.
- ^ Cara Tabachnick (December 27, 2013). There's an alarming number of deaths in US jails. The Guardian. Retrieved December 28, 2013.
- ^ Berman, Mark (July 23, 2015). "How often do prisoners die behind bars?". The Washington Post. Retrieved February 24, 2018.
- ^ Holly Richmond (September 18, 2013). "Everybody wants condom vending machines". Grist Magazine. Grist Magazine, Inc. Retrieved September 19, 2013.
- ^ George Lavender (January 21, 2015). "California Prisons Aim To Keep Sex Between Inmates Safe, If Illegal". Around the Nation. NPR. Retrieved June 17, 2017.
- ^ Alabama Guards Stage Work Strike Months After Prisoner Uprising at Overcrowded Holman Facility. Democracy Now! September 28, 2016.
- from the original on May 21, 2020. Retrieved May 25, 2020.
Among 37 jurisdictions reporting, 32 (86%) reported at least one confirmed COVID-19 case among incarcerated or detained persons or staff members, across 420 correctional and detention facilities. As of April 21, 2020, 4,893 cases and 88 deaths among incarcerated and detained persons and 2,778 cases and 15 deaths among staff members have been reported.
- . Retrieved April 22, 2022.
- ^ Davis, A. Y. (2011). How Gender Structures the Prison System. In Are prisons obsolete? (pp. 60–67). essay, Seven Stories Press.
- ^ Khalek, Rania. How private prisons game the system. Salon.com. December 1, 2011.
- ^
- ISBN 1442201738 p. xi
- ^ Smith and Hattery. African American Families.
- ^ Archambeault, William G.; Donald R. Deis Jr. (1997–1998). "Cost Effectiveness Comparisons of Private Versus Public Prisons in Louisiana: A Comprehensive Analysis of Allen, Avoyelles, and Winn Correction Centers". Journal of the Oklahoma Criminal Justice Research Consortium. 4.
- ^ Marie Gottschalk. Caught: The Prison State and the Lockdown of American Politics. Princeton University Press, 2014. p. 70
- ^ a b Shapiro, David. "Banking on Bondage: Private Prisons and Mass Incarceration" (PDF). American Civil Liberties Union. Retrieved March 31, 2013.
- ^ a b Margaret Newkirk & William Selway (July 12, 2013). "Gangs Ruled Prison as For-Profit Model Put Blood on Floor." Bloomberg. Retrieved July 16, 2013.
- ^ Jerry Mitchell (September 25, 2014). East Mississippi prison called 'barbaric'. The Clarion-Ledger. Retrieved December 1, 2014. See also: A Tour of East Mississippi Correctional Facility. ACLU.
- ^ Timothy Williams (November 6, 2014). Christopher Epps, Former Chief of Prisons in Mississippi, Is Arraigned. The New York Times. Received December 2, 2014.
- ^ Stroud, Matt (February 24, 2014). The Private Prison Racket. Politico. Retrieved February 25, 2014.
- The Huffington Post. Retrieved February 25, 2014.
- ^ Renee Lewis (February 23, 2015). Inmates riot at for-profit Texas immigrant detention facility. Al Jazeera America. Retrieved February 24, 2015.
- ^ S2CID 145694058.
- ^ Boucher, Dave (October 28, 2016). "CCA changes name to CoreCivic amid ongoing scrutiny". The Tennessean. Retrieved October 26, 2017.
- ISBN 081299342Xpp. 214–216.
- ^ "Prison Economics Help Drive Ariz. Immigration Law". NPR. October 28, 2010. Retrieved August 17, 2012.
- National Public Radio.
- ^ Elk, Mike and Sloan, Bob (2011). The Hidden History of ALEC and Prison Labor. The Nation.
- ^ Prison Privatization and the Use of Incarceration Archived July 14, 2007, at the Wayback Machine. The Sentencing Project, September 2004.
- ^ a b Whitehead, John (April 10, 2012). "Jailing Americans for Profit: The Rise of the Prison Industrial Complex". The Rutherford Institute. Retrieved April 2, 2013.
- ^ Pat Beall (November 22, 2013). Big business, legislators pushed for stiff sentences. The Palm Beach Post. Retrieved November 10, 2014.
- ^ Greenblatt, Alan (October 2003). "What Makes Alec Smart?". Governing.
- ^ Beau Hodai, "Corporate Con Game. How the private prison industry helped shape Arizona's anti-immigrant law", In These Times, June 20, 2010, http://inthesetimes.com/article/6084/corporate_con_game, retrieved July 25, 2015.
- ISBN 9780195384055.
- ^ California Prison Guards Union Pushes For Prison Expansion. The Huffington Post. September 9, 2013.
- The Huffington Post. Retrieved September 20, 2013.
- ^ Eric Schlosser (December 1998). The Prison-Industrial Complex. The Atlantic. Retrieved December 31, 2013.
- ^ Ray Downs (May 17, 2013). Who's Getting Rich Off the Prison-Industrial Complex? Vice. Retrieved December 31, 2013.
- ISBN 1442201738 p. 78
- Russia Todayon YouTube
- ^ Marie Gottschalk (March 5, 2015). It's Not Just the Drug War. Jacobin. Retrieved March 5, 2015.
- ^ Detention Watch Network, "The Influence of the Private Prison Industry in Immigration Detention", 2012, http://www.detentionwatchnetwork.org/privateprisons, retrieved July 25, 2015.
- ^ DiversityInc, "The Prison Industrial Complex: Biased, Predatory and Growing", October 8, 2010, http://www.diversityinc.com/diversity-management/the-prison-industrial-complex-biased-predatory-and-growing/ Archived June 7, 2015, at the Wayback Machine, retrieved July 25, 2015.
- Tikkun Daily, May 23, 2013, http://www.alternet.org/speakeasy/tikkundaily/americas-corrupt-justice-system-federal-private-prison-populations-grew-784-10 Archived July 20, 2015, at the Wayback Machine, retrieved July 25, 2015.
- ^ Camp, Camille; Camp, George (2000). "Corrections Yearbook 2000: Private Prisons". National Criminal Justice Reference Service. Retrieved June 14, 2015.
- ^ Justice Is Not For Sale Act. Sanders.senate.gov
- ^ Bernie Sanders declares war on the prison-industrial complex with major new bill. Salon. September 17, 2015.
- ^ Private federal prisons more dangerous, damning DoJ investigation reveals. The Guardian. August 12, 2016.
- ^ Justice Department Will Stop the Use of Private Prisons. Time. August 18, 2016.
- ^ U.S. reverses Obama-era move to phase out private prisons. Reuters. February 23, 2017
- ^ Watkins, Eli; Tatum, Sophie (August 18, 2017). "Private prison industry sees boon under Trump administration". CNN. Retrieved August 22, 2017.
- ^ Washington, John (December 14, 2017). "Under Trump, the Private-Prison Boom Shows No Sign of Slowing". The Nation. Archived from the original on December 17, 2017. Retrieved December 18, 2017.
- ^ Lartey, Jamiles (December 28, 2017). "Private prison investors set for giant windfall from Trump tax bill". The Guardian. Retrieved December 29, 2017.
- ^ Conlin, Michelle; Cooke, Kristina (January 18, 2019). "$11 toothpaste: Immigrants pay big for basics at private ICE lock-ups". www.reuters.com. Retrieved January 18, 2019.
- ^ Nathan James. Federal Prison Industries. CRS Report for Congress. Updated July 13, 2007.
- ISBN 978-0-7567-0060-7.
- The Huffington Post. Retrieved May 9, 2014.
- ^ Beth Schwartzapfel (February 12, 2009). Your Valentine, Made in Prison. The Nation. Retrieved April 15, 2015.
- The Huffington Post. Retrieved April 15, 2015.
- ^ Chris Hedges (April 5, 2015). Boycott, Divest and Sanction Corporations That Feed on Prisons. Truthdig. Retrieved April 4, 2015.
- ^ Marie Gottschalk. Caught: The Prison State and the Lockdown of American Politics. Princeton University Press, 2014. p. 61
- ISBN 978-1009275439.
- ^ Justin Jouvenal (January 28, 2012). "Town struggles to survive close of prison". Washington Post.
- ^ a b Inmates strike in prisons nationwide over 'slave labor' working conditions. The Guardian September 9, 2016.
- ^ The Largest Prison Strike in U.S. History Enters Its Second Week. The Intercept September 16, 2016.
- The Real News. September 20, 2016.
- PBS Newshour.
- ^ Tarr, Duncan; Onderchanin, Stephanie (August 21, 2018). "How the National Prisoner Strike Is Working to Help Incarcerated People in the United States". Teen Vogue. Retrieved August 23, 2018.
- ^ Neufeld, Jennie (August 22, 2018). "A mass incarceration expert says the 2018 prison strike could be "one of the largest the country has ever seen"". Vox. Retrieved August 23, 2018.
- ^ Pilkington, Ed (August 23, 2018). "Major prison strike spreads across US and Canada as inmates refuse food". The Guardian. Retrieved August 23, 2018.
- ^ Corley, Cheryl (August 21, 2018). "U.S. Inmates Plan Nationwide Prison Strike To Protest Labor Conditions". NPR. Retrieved August 23, 2018.
- ^ Bozelko, Chandra; Lo, Ryan (August 25, 2018). "As prison strikes heat up, former inmates talk about horrible state of labor and incarceration". USA Today. Retrieved August 30, 2018.
- ^ Anguiano, Dani (June 15, 2022). "US prison workers produce $11bn worth of goods and services a year for pittance". The Guardian. Retrieved June 20, 2022.
- ^ ‘Slavery by any name is wrong’: the push to end forced labor in prisons The Guardian. Accessed March 26, 2023.
- ^ U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). Retrieved January 1, 2012, by the Internet Archive. See BJS timeline graph based on the data.
- ^ U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). By Tracey Kyckelhahn, PhD, BJS statistician. See table 2 of the PDF. "Total justice expenditures, by justice function, FY 1982–2007 (real dollars)". A total of around $74 billion for corrections in 2007.
- Wall Street Journal.
- ^ White Paper on Security Fact Sheet. December 1, 2014. Retrieved October 16, 2020. ▲Church Publishing.
- The United States Department of Justice.
- ^ white paper On Security: 50 States' Departments of Corrections insert. February 2, 2015. Retrieved October 16, 2014. ▲Church Publishing.
- ^ Annual Determination of Average Cost of Incarceration. A notice by the Prisons Bureau on March 9, 2015, in the Federal Register.
- ^ The Price of Prisons: What Incarceration Costs Taxpayers Archived August 13, 2014, at the Wayback Machine. February 29, 2012, the Vera Institute of Justice. By Christian Henrichson and Ruth Delaney. "Total taxpayer cost per inmate. Among the 40 states surveyed, representing more than 1.2 million inmates (of 1.4 million total people incarcerated in all 50 state prison systems), the total per-inmate cost averaged $31,286 and ranged from $14,603 in Kentucky to $60,076 in New York (see Figure 4)."
- ^ California Criminal Justice FAQ: How much does it cost to incarcerate an inmate? California Legislative Analyst's Office.
- National Public Radio.
- ^ National Public Radio.
- U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. See Table 7 of the PDF file Archived December 14, 2011, at the Wayback Machinefor percent unconvicted.
- ^ Census of Jails, 2005–2019 – Statistical Tables. U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. October 2021.
- ^ National Public Radio.
- National Public Radio. Chart using 2008 jail statistics showing "50 U.S. counties with the largest numbers of inmates."
- ^ "Fiscal Year 2009 State Expenditure Report". National Association of State Budget Officers. Archived from the original on August 23, 2011. Retrieved October 10, 2011.
- The Pew Center on the States.
- ^ The Full Cost Of Incarceration In The U.S. Is Over $1 Trillion, Study Finds. The Huffington Post. September 13, 2016.
- ^ Emma Brown and Danielle Douglas-Gabriel (July 7, 2016). Since 1980, spending on prisons has grown three times as much as spending on public education. The Washington Post. Retrieved July 12, 2016.
- ^ "Violent crime rate per 1,000 persons age 12 and up".
- .
- .
- S2CID 145522279.
- .
- ^ Oliver Laughland (February 12, 2015). Mass incarceration does not explain dramatic fall in US crime, study finds. The Guardian. Retrieved February 14, 2015. "Researchers at the Brennan Center for Justice placed crime statistics from all 50 states over the past four decades against 13 other potential explainers of crime reduction, including decreases in alcohol consumption, growth in income and data-driven policing techniques. The conclusion was that the sharp increase in prison numbers has had a negligible effect on the downward trend in crime, with mass incarceration responsible for around 6% of property crime reduction in the 1990s and less than a single percentage point in the 2000s."
- ^ John J. Gibbons and Nicholas de B. Katzenbach (June 2006). "Confronting Confinement". Vera Institute of Justice.
- ^ a b Lyons, John. War on the Family: Mothers in Prison and the Children They Leave Behind (DVD). Peace Productions.
- ^ Alexander, Elizabeth (Fall 1998). "A Troubling Response To Overcrowded Prisons". Civil Rights Journal.
- ^ Aizenman, N.C. (February 29, 2008). "The high cost of incarceration". The Denver Post.
- ^ Uggen, Christopher; Ryan Larson; Sarah Shannon (October 6, 2016). "6 Million Lost Voters: State-Level Estimates of Felony Disenfranchisement, 2016". The Sentencing Project. Archived from the original on February 21, 2020. Retrieved February 22, 2020.
- ^ "Majority of employers background check employees … Here's why".
- ISSN 0192-3234.
- ^ Michelle Alexander (December 6, 2010). "How mass incarceration turns people of color into permanent second-class citizens". The American Prospect. Archived from the original on October 1, 2011. Retrieved November 9, 2014.
- ^ Michael O'Hear (November 8, 2014). "The "New Jim Crow" Reconsidered". Retrieved November 8, 2014.
- ^ Wakefield, Sara; Wildeman, Christopher. Children of the Prison Boom: Mass Incarceration and the Future of American Inequality. New York: Oxford University Press.
- )
- PMID 29622839.
- ^ "POP1 Child population: Number of children (in millions) ages 0–17 in the United States by age, 1950–2017 and projected 2018–2050". www.childstats.gov. Retrieved October 21, 2018.
- ^ Sawyer, Wendy (May 8, 2017). "Bailing moms out for Mother's Day". Prison Policy Initiative. Retrieved April 5, 2019.
- ^ PMID 20228880.
- PMID 23509174.
- S2CID 16824554.
- PMID 22203452.
- PMID 22201148.
- S2CID 1113521.
- PMID 16221015.
- PMID 34337696.
- PMID 22229730.
- PMID 870921.
- ^ Petsch, P., & Rochlen, A. B. (2009). Children of Incarcerated Parents: Implications for School Counselors. Journal of School Counseling, 7(40), n40.
- ^ Dacass, Tennecia (July 25, 2017). "Intergenerational Effects of Mass Incarceration" (PDF).
- ISSN 1751-9020.
- ^ S2CID 206990171.
- S2CID 204965417.
- ^ PMID 29943227.
- ^ "Health Literacy". Official web site of the U.S. Health Resources & Services Administration. March 31, 2017. Retrieved May 11, 2022.
- OCLC 31739788.
- ^ Peterson, Bryce (June 2015). "Children of Incarcerated Parents Framework Document" (PDF). Urban Institute. Retrieved October 2, 2018.
- ^ N.M. Stat. Ann. §29-7-7.3
- ^ "Safeguarding Children of Arrested Parents" (PDF). Bureau of Justice Assistance. Retrieved November 12, 2018.
- ^ Okla. Stat. tit. 22, §22–20
- ^ Eden, Lord Auckland, William (1771). Principles of Penal Law.
- ^ N.Y. Corrections Law §611
- PMID 28250823.
- ^ Ohio Rev. Code Ann. §5120.65
- ^ Cal. Penal Code §§3410–3424
- ^ Perry, Bruce (2013). "Bonding and Attachment in Maltreated Children" (PDF). The ChildTrauma Academy. Archived from the original (PDF) on October 22, 2018. Retrieved October 4, 2018.
- ^ "Deputy Attorney General Sally Q. Yates Announces Family-Friendly Prison Policies to Strengthen Inmate-Familial Bonds". April 26, 2016. Retrieved November 12, 2018.
- S2CID 142630617.
- S2CID 153754025.
- ^ 2007 Okla. Sess. Laws, Chap. 274
- .
- ^ "Having a Parent Behind Bars Costs Children, States". www.pewtrusts.org. May 24, 2016. Retrieved November 12, 2018.
- ^ S2CID 11568703.
- ^ a b "Marked: Race, Crime, and Finding Work in an Era of Mass Incarceration by Devah Pager, an excerpt". press.uchicago.edu. Retrieved April 9, 2017.
- ^ JSTOR 3088944.
- ^ "The Psychological Impact of Incarceration: Implications for Post-Prison Adjustment". ASPE. November 23, 2015. Retrieved April 9, 2017.
- ^ Schmitt, John; Warner, Kris (2010). Ex-Offenders and the Labor Market (PDF). Center for Economic and Policy Research.
- ^ a b c Carson, E. Ann (2014). Prisoners in 2013 (PDF). U.S. Department of Justice. pp. 36–37, 39, 50. "Pages 36–37: White women have odds of receiving a favorable response from hiring managers that are nearly 50 percent smaller than the odds of Hispanic women with a prison record, the odds of white women with a prison record are only five percent smaller than black women’s with a prison record. Page 39: More than half—52 percent—of the positive outcomes observed during the audit benefitted the employment prospects of Hispanic women. White women received 36 percent of favorable responses. A complete breakdown of the distribution of favorable responses is reported in Table 3." Page 50: "Black men with a prison record have the most difficulty moving through the hiring process—their odds of a getting a callback for an interview or offered a job are 125 percent smaller than white male ex-prisoners. The likelihood that Hispanic men with a record will get another interview or will be offered a job is 18 percent smaller than the likelihood for white men."
- ^ Carson, E. Ann (2014). Prisoners in 2013 (PDF). U.S. Department of Justice.
- S2CID 248899951. Retrieved June 2, 2022.
- ^ ISSN 1572-9877.
- ^ Mitchell, Melissa (2021). "Cruel, Unusual, and Toxic: The Environmental Implications of Mass Incarceration in the United States". Arizona Journal of Environmental Law & Policy. 11 (3): 268–285 – via HEINONLINE.
- ^ a b c Jewkes, Yvonne (2014). ""Green" prisons: rethinking the "sustainability" of the carceral state". Geographica Helvetica. 69 (5): 345–353 – via Copernicus Publications.
- ^ a b Toman, Elisa L (2022). "Something in the air: Toxic pollution in and around U.S. prisons". Punishment & Society. 25 (4): 867–887 – via Sage Journals.
- ^ a b "Global Study Evaluates Heat-Related Deaths Associated with Climate Change". Climate Change and Law Collection. Retrieved March 4, 2024.
- ^ "Heat-Related Prison Deaths Are Rising Due to Climate Change". TIME. May 22, 2023. Retrieved March 12, 2024.
- ^ a b Asgarian, Roxanna (December 13, 2019). "Why people are freezing in America's prisons". Vox. Retrieved March 12, 2024.
- ^ "The Rise of Green Prison Programs | Psychology Today". www.psychologytoday.com. Retrieved March 4, 2024.
- SSRN 2608698.
- ^ "The effect of prison on criminal behavior". Public Safety Canada. November 1999. Archived from the original on February 4, 2009. Retrieved August 28, 2009.
- ^
- ^ a b Fellner, Jamie (November 30, 2006). "US Addiction to Incarceration Puts 2.3 Million in Prison". Human Rights Watch. Retrieved June 2, 2007.
- ISBN 978-0-312-26811-4.
- U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). By Heather C. West, PhD, BJS Statistician. See PDF. See tables 18 and 19. The rates are for adults. Rates per 100,000 can be converted to percentages.
- ^ "America's One-Million Nonviolent Prisoners" (PDF). Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice. March 1999. Archived from the original (PDF) on October 28, 2010. Retrieved January 11, 2010.
- ^ Slevin, Peter (June 8, 2006). "U.S. Prison Study Faults System and the Public". The Washington Post.
- ^ READ: Matt Taibbi on "The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap". Democracy Now! April 14, 2014. Retrieved April 18, 2014.
- ^ Meranze, Michael (February 4, 2015). Pathology of the Carceral State. Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved February 16, 2015.
- SSRN 4269167– via SSRN.
- University of California, Hastings College of the Law. Retrieved December 27, 2014.
- ISBN 0816639019.
- ^ David Jaffee (December 29, 2014). Guest column: Real reason behind prison explosion. The Florida Times-Union. Retrieved January 8, 2015.
- ^ Marie Gottschalk. Caught: The Prison State and the Lockdown of American Politics. Princeton University Press, 2014. p. 10
- ISBN 978-0822344223.
- ISBN 0062305573pp. 59–60.
- ^ Bernard Harcourt (April 30, 2012). Laissez-faire with strip-searches: America's two-faced liberalism. The Guardian. Retrieved December 27, 2014.
- ISBN 978-0197519646.
- ^ Clegg, John; Usmani, Adaner (2019). "The Economic Origins of Mass Incarceration". Catalyst. 3 (3): 53.
- ^ "There is nothing inevitable about America's over-use of prisons". The Economist. Retrieved October 25, 2018.
- ^ Chris Hedges. The Shame of America's Gulag. Truthdig. March 17, 2013.
- ^ Schwarz, Joel (August 3, 2008). "Bulging Prison System Called Massive Intervention in American Family Life" (Press release). University of Washington.
- Wall Street Journal. New York City. pp. A1.
- ^ "Federal judge blocks Alabama policy of segregating HIV inmates". Washington Post. December 21, 2012. Archived from the original on December 21, 2012. Retrieved December 21, 2012.
- ^ "Federal Prison Oversight Act" (PDF). 2022.
- ^ "Bill Introduced To Bring Independent Oversight to Federal Prison System". September 30, 2022.
- ^ a b c d Carter, Terry (August 12, 2013). "Sweeping reversal of the War on Drugs announced by Atty General Holder". ABA's 560-member policy making House of Delegates. American Bar Association. p. 1. Retrieved August 16, 2013.
- ^ a b c d "Smart on Crime: Reforming The Criminal Justice System" (PDF). Remarks to American Bar Association's Annual Convention in San Francisco, CA. US Department of Justice. August 12, 2013. p. 7. Retrieved August 16, 2013.
- ^ "Prison Strip Search is Sexually Abusive". ACLU. Retrieved December 24, 2013.
- ^ Tibbs, Donald F. (Fall 2015). "Hip Hop and the New Jim Crow: Rap Music's Insight on Mass Incarceration". University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender & Class.
- ^ Kot, Greg (August 23, 2019). "Raphael Saadiq bears soulful witness to his family's anguish on 'Jimmy Lee'". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved October 26, 2019.
- ^ Butler, Bethonie (October 6, 2016). "Ava DuVernay's Netflix film '13th' reveals how mass incarceration is an extension of slavery". Washington Post. Retrieved April 23, 2017.
- ^ Garza, Alicia (October 7, 2014). "A Herstory of the #BlackLivesMatter Movement by Alicia Garza". The Feminist Wire. Archived from the original on October 9, 2014. Retrieved June 6, 2017.
- ^ Johnson, Kevin (March 31, 2014). "Toughness on Crime gradually gives way to fairness". USA Today. pp. 1B, 2B. Retrieved March 31, 2014.
Further reading
Books
- ISBN 1595586431
- Todd R. Clear; Natasha A. Frost (2015). The Punishment Imperative: The Rise and Failure of Mass Incarceration in America. NYU Press. ISBN 978-1479851690.
- ISBN 9781583225813
- Enns, Peter K. (2016). Incarceration Nation: How the United States Became the Most Punitive Democracy in the World. ISBN 9781316500613
- Gottschalk, Marie (2014). Caught: The Prison State and the Lockdown of American Politics. ISBN 9781400852147.
- ISBN 0674066162
- Hinton, Elizabeth (2016). From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration in America. Harvard University Press. ISBN 0674737237
- Murakawa, Naomi (2014). The First Civil Right: How Liberals Built Prison America. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199892808
- Pfaff, John (2017). Locked In: The True Causes of Mass Incarceration-and How to Achieve Real Reform. Basic Books. ISBN 978-0465096916.
- Selman, Donna and Paul Leighton (2010). Punishment for Sale: Private Prisons, Big Business, and the Incarceration Binge. ISBN 1442201738
- ISBN 081299342X
- ISBN 0816639019
- Wacquant, Loïc (2009). Punishing the Poor: The Neoliberal Government of Social Insecurity. ISBN 082234422X
- ISBN 978-1635900026
- Western, Bruce (2007). Punishment and Inequality in America. ISBN 087154895X
- Morris, M. W., "Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools", New York: The New Press
{{
ISBN 9781620973424