Women remain in their communities raising children, while men confront the possibility of separation through incarceration. ↩, This is the most recent data available until the Bureau of Justice Statistics begins administering the next Survey of Inmates in Local Jails. For example, the Council of State Governments asked correctional systems what kind of recidivism data they collect and publish for people leaving prison and people starting probation. If we are serious about ending mass incarceration, we will have to change our responses to more serious and violent crime. Moreover, work in prison is compulsory, with little regulation or oversight, and incarcerated workers have few rights and protections. What is the role of the federal government in ending mass incarceration? For example, in some jurisdictions, if one of the bank robbers is killed by the police during a chase, the surviving bank robbers can be convicted of felony murder of their colleague. Similarly, there are systems involved in the confinement of justice-involved people that might not consider themselves part of the criminal justice system, but should be included in a holistic view of incarceration. ↩, Even outside of prisons and jails, the elaborate system of criminal justice system fines and fees feeds a cycle of poverty and punishment for many poor Americans. This is the product of a bipartisan consensus that mass incarceration is a mistake. People new to criminal justice issues might reasonably expect that a big picture analysis like this would be produced not by reform advocates, but by the criminal justice system itself. For example, the data makes it clear that ending the war on drugs will not alone end mass incarceration, though the federal government and some states have taken an important step by reducing the number of people incarcerated for drug offenses. Slideshow 1. There are a plethora of modern myths about incarceration. It’s no surprise that people of color — who face much greater rates of poverty — are dramatically overrepresented in the nation’s prisons and jails. An additional 3,600 unaccompanied children are held in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), awaiting placement with parents, family members, or friends. In 2016, at least 168,000 people were incarcerated for such “technical violations” of probation or parole — that is, not for any new crime.9 Probation, in particular, leads to unnecessary incarceration; until it is reformed to support and reward success rather than detect mistakes, it is not a reliable “alternative.”. This … And while the majority of these children came to the U.S. without a parent or legal guardian, those who were separated from parents at the border are, like ICE detainees, confined only because the U.S. has criminalized unauthorized immigration, even by persons lawfully seeking asylum. In particular, the felony murder rule says that if someone dies during the commission of a felony, everyone involved can be as guilty of murder as the person who pulled the trigger. The number of prisoners has almost quadrupled in the past 50 years . Many millions more have completed their sentences but are still living with a criminal record, a stigmatizing label that comes with collateral consequences such as barriers to employment and housing. Particularly harmful is the myth that people who commit violent or sexual crimes are incapable of rehabilitation and thus warrant many decades or even a lifetime of punishment. As of 2014, 34% of the 6.8 million people currently incarcerated are African American. 9% were for being “ungovernable” and 9% were for running away. Nevertheless, 4 out of 5 people in prison or jail are locked up for something other than a drug offense — either a more serious offense or an even less serious one. Only a small number (about 160,000 on any given day) have been convicted, and are generally serving misdemeanors sentences under a year. State prison spending varies greatly and can be as high as $69,355 per inmate (the average cost of an inmate in New York). Mass Incarceration’s Slow Decline. Here are five key facts to better understand the issue. The incarceration rate has been growing faster among women in recent decades, but the social impact of mass incarceration lies in the gross asymmetry of community and family attachment. Despite accounting for only 4% of the population, Indigenous adults accounted for about 30% of admissions to provincial and federal custody in 2017/2018 (Statistics Canada, 2019). It also includes offenses that the average person may not consider to be murder at all. Sentencing policies, implicit racial bias, and socioeconomic inequity contribute to racial disparities at every level of the criminal justice system. The various government agencies involved in the justice system collect a lot of critical data, but it is not designed to help policymakers or the public understand what’s going on. Peter Wagner is an attorney and the Executive Director of the Prison Policy Initiative. The private prison system is another contributing factor for mass incarceration and associated troubles in the US concerning crime management. We must also consider that almost all convictions are the result of plea bargains, where defendants plead guilty to a lesser offense, possibly in a different category, or one that they did not actually commit. To avoid counting anyone twice, we performed the following adjustments: To help readers link to specific images in this report, we created these special urls: To help readers link to specific report sections or paragraphs, we created these special urls: Learn how to link to specific images and sections. Since 1970, our incarcerated population has increased by 700% – 2.3 million people in jail and prison today, far outpacing population growth and crime. This is a problem because of many private facilities that hold people for local jails also hold people for other agencies. ↩, In 2018, there were 1,654,282 drug arrests in the U.S., the vast majority of which (86%) were for drug possession or use rather than for sale or manufacturing. For this year’s report, the authors are particularly indebted to Heidi Altman of the National Immigrant Justice Center for feedback and research pointers on immigration detention, Emily Widra and Roxanne Daniel for research support, Wanda Bertram and Alexi Jones for their helpful edits, and Shan Jumper for sharing updated civil detention and commitment data. A small but growing number of states have abolished it at the state level. ↩, According to the most recent National Correctional Industries Association survey that is publicly available, an average of 6% of all people incarcerated in state prisons work in state-owned prison industries. Today, people of color make up 37% of the U.S. population but 67% of the prison population. ↩, Most children in ORR custody are held in shelters. A history of incarceration has been linked to vulnerability to disease, a greater likelihood of cigarette smoking, and even premature death. Social scientists are increasingly applying empirical methods to understand the impact of crime control policies and to supply data to judges, legislators, and policymakers. Looking at the “whole pie” also opens up other conversations about where we should focus our energies: Now that we can see the big picture of how many people are locked up in the United States in the various types of facilities, we can see that something needs to change. Swipe for more detailed views. The United States prisoner rate (number of prisoners per 100,000 people) is 639, the world's highest. Marshals Service, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). And it’s not to say that the FBI doesn’t work hard to aggregate and standardize police arrest and crime report data. Acting as lookout during a break-in where someone was accidentally killed is indeed a serious offense, but many may be surprised that this can be considered murder in the U.S.11. Even narrow policy changes, like reforms to money bail, can meaningfully reduce our society’s use of incarceration. ↩, Quick action could slow the spread of the viral pandemic in prisons and jails and in society as a whole. Do policymakers and the public have the stamina to confront the second largest slice of the pie: the thousands of locally administered jails? Drug offenses still account for the incarceration of almost half a million people,4 and nonviolent drug convictions remain a defining feature of the federal prison system. And then there are the moral costs: People charged with misdemeanors are often not appointed counsel and are pressured to plead guilty and accept a probation sentence to avoid jail time. The longer the time period, the higher the reported recidivism rate — but the lower the actual threat to public safety. While this may sound esoteric, this is an issue that affects an important policy question: at what point — and with what measure — do we consider someone’s re-entry a success or failure? The detailed views bring these overlooked systems to light, from immigration detention to civil commitment and youth confinement. For violent offenses especially, these labels can distort perceptions of individual “violent offenders” and exaggerate the scale of dangerous violent crime. Some of his most recent work includes Following the Money of Mass Incarceration and putting each state’s overuse of incarceration into the international context in States of Incarceration: The Global Context 2018. Is social distancing possible behind bars? In addition to these reports, Wendy frequently contributes briefings on recent data releases, academic research, women’s incarceration, pretrial detention, probation, and more. Mass Incarceration : Throughline The United States imprisons more people than any other country in the world, and a disproportionate number of those prisoners are Black. This problem is not limited to local jails, either; in 2019, the Council of State Governments found that 1 in 4 people in state prisons are incarcerated as a result of supervision violations. The national data do not exist to say exactly how many people are in jail because of probation or parole violations or detainers, but initial evidence shows that these account for over one-third of some jail populations. Once a bench warrant is issued, however, defendants frequently end up living as “low-level fugitives,” quitting their jobs, becoming transient, and/or avoiding public life (even hospitals) to avoid having to go to jail. ↩, Responses to whether someone reported being held for an authority besides a local jail can be found in V113, or V115-V118 in the Survey of Inmates in Local Jails, 2002 Codebook. The US is a leader in incarceration in the world. A small number are in secure juvenile facilities or in short-term or long-term foster care. To understand the main drivers of incarceration, the public needs to see how many people are incarcerated for different offense types. Most people who miss court are not trying to avoid the law; more often, they forget, are confused by the court process, or have a schedule conflict. The United States is the world leader in incarceration, despite the national incarceration rate being at its lowest in 20 years, with about 25% of the world's prison population being in the US. The effects of mass incarceration also disproportionately fall on marginalized groups and is especially felt by Indigenous people. Racial disparities, bloated budgets, the criminalization of homelessness, and more. By privatizing services like phone calls, medical care and commissary, prisons and jails are unloading the costs of incarceration onto incarcerated people and their families, trimming their budgets at an unconscionable social cost. It’s true that police, prosecutors, and judges continue to punish people harshly for nothing more than drug possession. [19] The Bureau of Justice Statistics has released a study which finds that, despite the total number of prisoners incarcerated for drug-related offenses increasing by 57,000 between 1997 and 2004, the proportion of drug offenders to total prisoners in State prison populations stayed steady at 21%. For this reason, the next updates to our “Whole Pie” reports will likely also follow a slower schedule. Recidivism data do not support the belief that people who commit violent crimes ought to be locked away for decades for the sake of public safety. While there is currently no national estimate of the number of active bench warrants, their use is widespread and in some places, incredibly common. With the exception of those in foster homes, these children are not free to come and go, and they do not participate in community life (e.g. A related question is whether it matters what the post-release offense is. Adding to the universe of people who are confined because of justice system involvement, 22,000 people are involuntarily detained or committed to state psychiatric hospitals and civil commitment centers. Swipe for more detail about what the data on recividism really shows. Given that the companies with the greatest impact on incarcerated people are not private prison operators, but. This report offers some much needed clarity by piecing together this country’s disparate systems of confinement. For example, “murder” is an extremely serious offense, but that category groups together the small number of serial killers with people who committed acts that are unlikely, for reasons of circumstance or advanced age, to ever happen again. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, it was reported in 2018, out of every 100,000 people 698 people are incarcerated daily worldwide; with numbers reporting over 2.2 million Americans incarcerated or currently serving time in prisons as inmates. But what is a valid sign of criminal offending: self-reported behavior, arrest, conviction, or incarceration? Our analysis of similar jail data in Detaining the Poor: All Prison Policy Initiative reports are collaborative endeavors, but this report builds on the successful collaborations of the 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017, 2018, and 2019 versions. ↩, Notably, the number of people admitted to immigration detention in a year is much higher than the population detained on a particular day. How many are incarcerated for drug offenses? Misdemeanor charges may sound like small potatoes, but they carry serious financial, personal, and social costs, especially for defendants but also for broader society, which finances the processing of these court cases and all of the unnecessary incarceration that comes with them. The “whole pie” incorporates data from these systems to provide the most comprehensive view of incarceration possible. In 1970, the prison population was 357,292. Are the profit motives of private companies driving incarceration? We included children held in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) in our immigration detention count in the main graphic, and in several detail slides. It's even harder than on cruise ships or in nursing homes. Rather than investing in community-driven safety initiatives, cities and counties are still pouring vast amounts of public resources into the processing and punishment of these minor offenses. The prison population in 1972 was 200,000, almost 2 million less than it is today. The prison populations in each state vary in each state, with the highest rates in Louisiana and Oklahoma. Will state, county, and city governments be brave enough to. Racial disparities in the prison population have also fallen. And how much of mass incarceration is a result of the war on drugs? Until last year (2019), we included only youth who were detained because they were awaiting a hearing or adjudication. ICE detainees are physically confined in federally-run or privately-run immigration detention facilities, or in local jails under contract with ICE. Slideshow 6. According to a presentation, The Importance of Successful Reentry to Jail Population Growth [Powerpoint] given at The Jail Reentry Roundtable, Bureau of Justice Statistics statistician Allen Beck estimates that of the 12-12.6 million jail admissions in 2004-2005, 9 million were unique individuals. Even in the best of times, jails are not good at providing health and social services. There is a growing consensus that incarceration has been misused, grossly overused, and used … What they found is that states typically track just one measure of post-release recidivism, and few states track recidivism while on probation at all: If state-level advocates and political leaders want to know if their state is even trying to reduce recidivism, we suggest one easy litmus test: Do they collect and publish basic data about the number and causes of people’s interactions with the justice system while on probation, or after release from prison? We thank the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Safety and Justice Challenge for their support of our research into the use and misuse of jails in this country. Read on for mass incarceration statistics and their context. She is the author of Youth Confinement: The Whole Pie, The Gender Divide: Tracking women’s state prison growth, and the 2016 report Punishing Poverty: The high cost of probation fees in Massachusetts. The US rate of incarceration is 750 per 100,000 people, vs 161 in the US in 1972 and 93 in Germany today. Mass incarceration is an intervening variable to more incarceration. ↩, According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics report Probation and Parole in the United States, 2016, Appendix Table 3, 98,698 adults exited probation to incarceration under their current sentence; Appendix Table 7 shows 69,855 adults were returned to incarceration from parole with a revocation. He co-founded the Prison Policy Initiative in 2001 in order to spark a national discussion about the negative side effects of mass incarceration. People of colour are brutalised within both justice and prison systems, and the state capitalises on their incarceration. Police still make over 1 million drug possession arrests each year,5 many of which lead to prison sentences. Our current methodology also includes youth whose status was “detained” while they were awaiting disposition or placement, because the court had not yet committed them to the facility where they were held. For a description of other kinds of prison work assignments, see our 2017 analysis. If someone convicted of robbery is arrested years later for a liquor law violation, it makes no sense to view this very different, much less serious, offense the same way we would another arrest for robbery. The mass incarceration of colored people in the United States is a major issue showcasing much needed prison reform. The number of people incarcerated for technical violations may be much higher, however, since nearly 78,000 people exiting probation and parole to incarceration did so for “other/unknown” reasons, and some states did not report data. We included all youth in residential placement for justice system involvement that were “detained” (as opposed to “committed”) in our pretrial detention detail slide. 7 Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (New York: New Press, 2010), 98. For black men the numbers are as listed above, there are about 1.4 million black men enrolled in higher education, and a cataclysmic 745,000 behind bars, with another large sum on probation and parole. No. The mass incarceration of African Americans coincides with a new era in criminal justice research. prison gerrymandering) and plays a leading role in protecting the families of incarcerated people from the predatory prison and jail telephone industry and the video visitation industry. For example, there are over 6,600 youth behind bars for technical violations of their probation, rather than for a new offense. In the last decade, prison populations have declined by about 10 percent. These delays are not limited to the regular data publications that this report relies on, but also special data collections that provide richly detailed, self-reported data about incarcerated people and their experiences in prison and jail, namely the Survey of Prison Inmates (conducted in 2016 for the first time since 2004) and the Survey of Inmates in Local Jails (last conducted in 2002 and now slated for 2021 — which would make a 2022 report about 15 years off-schedule). Why? Defendants can end up in jail even if their offense is not punishable with jail time. Alongside reports like this that help the public more fully engage in criminal justice reform, the organization leads the nation’s fight to keep the prison system from exerting undue influence on the political process (a.k.a. Focusing on the policy changes that can end mass incarceration, and not just put a dent in it, requires the public to put these issues into perspective. 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