Mass Incarceration Exam #1

From 1972 to 2007, the rate of citizens who were incarcerated increased from 161/100,000 to 767/100,000

true

1 multiple choice option

Criminal defendants became more likely to be sentenced to prison and remained there significantly longer than in the past due to the expansion of ______ _____ _________ & the _________ ____ __________

drug law enforcement & lengthening of sentences

Are incarceration rates higher among minority men or white men?

minority men

Between minority man #1 who has no high school diploma and minority man #2 who has college experience, which one is more likely to be incarcerated?

minority man #1

From 1925-1972, the federal imprisonment rate was relatively stable, but after 1972, the imprisonment rate _____ rapidly (grew or decreased?)

grew

State and Federal prison populations increased drastically in 1980s and 1990s

true

1 multiple choice option

After 1972, the expansion of community corrections/correctional supervision lead to a significant _________ in incarcerated individuals (increase or decrease?)

increase

The rate of people who are subjected to arrest/incarceration are affected by changes in _______ rates

crime

In what era did the rate of drug arrests, homicides, and property crime peak?

1980s

Between 1980 and 2010, the probability that being arrested would lead to being imprisoned _________

increased

During the 1990s, (when state incarceration rate grew rapidly) there was a push toward increasing _________/_____ _______

sentences/time served

By 1994, every state in the US adopted ________ ________ _________

mandatory minimum sentences

The Standard Story claims that increasingly long prison sentences have driven growth, and thus that cutting back sentences would effectively ________ prison populations

decrease

Standard Story claims that ______ plays a critical role in driving up prison populations

race

Standard Story believes that the imbalance in prison populations is driven by imbalances in who we lock up for drug crimes

true

1 multiple choice option

Pfaff critique of SS: it pays too much attention to the _______ criminal justice system & reform bills that go through Congress

federal

Standard Story says that: our decision to lock up innumerable low-level drug offenders through the 'war on drugs' is primarily responsible for driving up our _______ _________

prison population

About 87% of all prisoners are held in federal/state systems (Pfaff)

state

1 multiple choice option

Which country has the highest rate of incarceration in the world?

US

What event happened during the 1980s and 1990s where states began to "crack down" on drug offenders?

war on drugs

________ offenders rose from 6.5% of the state prison population in 1980 to almost 22% in 1990

drug

When someone with one or more drug offenses later commits a non-drug offense, prosecutors may treat them more ________ as a result

harshly

Since the 1990s, punishment in the US seems to focus on "throwing away the key" or making it so that incarcerated individuals do not have the opportunity to leave prison (Pfaff)

true

1 multiple choice option

During the 1980s & 1990s, states across the US had started to introduce mandatory minimums and "truth in sentencing" laws, which required violent offenders to serve at least ____% of their term before being eligible for release (some states had even abolished parole)

85%

Have the amount of conditions on parolees increased or decreased?

increased

Pfaff claim: what’s causing prison growth is rising ________ (since prison growth can’t be explained by sentences not being long enough or getting longer)

admission

Private prison firms have contributed to _______, a lobbying group that drafts model legislation on a wide range of topics for states to adopt, including several tough-on-crime initiatives (truth-in-sentencing laws & mandatory minimums)

ALEC

Banning _______ ________ tomorrow would drop state prison populations by no more than 7% (Pfaff)

private prisons

Heroin had long troubled D.C.... but by the late 1960s, what had been a problem became an _______

epidemic

In the late 1960s, heroin began to devour the city's _____/______ neighborhoods

poor/black

By 1971, there were about 15 times more heroin addicts in Washington, D.C., than in all of England. These addicts were overwhelmingly likely to be young ______ men (Forman)

black

Marijuana produces particularly blatant arrest disparities: in Washington D.C., the _____ arrest rate for marijuana possession in 2010 was 8 times that for ______

black, whites

In the early to mid-1960s, less than 3% of new inmates were addicted to heroin, but beginning in _____ the growth rate exploded, tripling by 1968, then tripling again by February 1969 (Forman)

1967

A study of Washington D.C., & three other cities found that the average heroin addict committed more than 300 crimes a year (Forman)

true

1 multiple choice option

Homicide/violent crime rates peaked in the early ______

1990s

_______ states put the most people in prison

southern

________ sentencing = type of sentence that gives a convicted person a range of years to serve (rather than a fixed amount)

indeterminant

_________ sentencing = a prison or jail sentence that has a set length & cannot be changed or reviewed by a parole board

determinant

_________ _________ sentencing = a legal requirement that judges impose a minimum prison term for certain crimes (regardless of the individual circumstance)

- ex: "3 strikes laws"

mandatory minimum

_________ ___ sentencing = a set of laws & policies that require people convicted of crimes to serve a significant portion of their sentence in prison (about 85%)

- limits/eliminates the ability of offenders to reduce their sentence time through good behavior or rehabilitation programs

truth in

After the Civil War, ________ _________ were arrested/incarcerated in mass

African Americans

The illegal killings of Blacks shifted to a more legal form of discrimination: _________

segregation

After the ______ ______ Movement, there was a rise in crime/violence (due to a demographic change)

Civil Rights

People blamed the Civil Rights Movement for the rise in crime; is this the actual case?

no

1 multiple choice option

_________ rates were already on a steady rise (since the 1960s), way before the war on drugs

incarceration

Pfaff claim: the war on drugs didn't cause the rise in mass incarceration, but __________ to it

contributed

During the war on drugs, laws made sentencing harsher for ______ offenses than ________ offenses

crack, cocaine

______ was more available on the streets of poor/POC inner cities

crack

________ was more available in white/suburban communities (private markets)

cocaine

Bill Clinton had done more damage than past presidents due to his new tough on crime bill that further pushed _____ _________ (DuVernay)

mass incarceration

_______ prisons are central to mass incarceration (DuVernay)

private

Corporations influence politics through ______ (DuVernay)

ALEC

Pfaff claim: doesn't believe that private prisons are that important when it comes to mass incarceration, but they stil contribute to it

true

1 multiple choice option

ALEC pushed for _______ sentences & to put _______ people in prisons (especially private prisons) - DuVernay

longer, more

the criminalization of immigrants

crimmigration

Many people stay in jail for years (without facing any charges) because they can't afford ______ while awaiting trial

bail

Courts give arrested individuals the choice to do a _____ (for a crime they may or may not have committed) & go home that day, or face the mandatory minimum sentence

plea

1/3 ______ men will be incarcerated in their lifetime

black

1/17 ______ men will be incarcerated in their lifetime

white

______ men make up 40.2% of the prison population

black

US incarceration rate stayed relatively stable and even declined some throughout the 20th century until the 1970s (1973, when the national rate increased

true

Starting in the mid-1970s the incarceration rate (which controls for population differences) began to increase/decrease sharply and continued to do so well into the 21st century

increase

US incarceration rate peaked in _______ and had increased by over 500% since the early 1970s

2009

Violent crime rates increased throughout the 1970s and 1980s, peaking in the early _______ before declining sharply from 1995-2005

1990s

Incarceration rates grew sharply despite declining _______ rates and remained at historically high levels despite consistently lower levels of violent crime

crime

Studies have shown that early increases in incarceration likely had some negative effect on violent crime rates, but that effect declined as ________ grew.

incarceration

Does more incarceration = less violent crime?

no

Racial minorities, especially African Americans, have always been overrepresented in US correctional systems

true

Incarceration removed/added more people from committing violent crimes against the public

- by 1978, this is reversed & mass incarceration eroded public safety

removed

With increased mass incarceration, there's a higher chance of ________ once they are released from prison

recidivism

criminals committing crimes again after serving time

recidivism

When criminals get released from prison, they have a far more difficult time getting a job, getting married, etc (true/false)

true

prisoners have a higher risk of becoming _______ after being released

homeless

Prisons create/reduce crime by increasing homelessness & unemployment rates among released prisoners

create

Alongside empathy for Rev. Harris and other victims’ relatives lay outrage at those who pulled the triggers. That anger found its political expression in the demand for tougher/fairer criminal penalties-especially for any crime involving guns (Forman)

tougher

the policies to combat drugs & guns have had a similar impact: the majority of those punished have been low-income, poorly educated ______ men

black

government/local policies have had a similar lack of impact: they have failed to prevent marijuana use, and they have failed to protect the community from gun violence (true/false)

true

Prohibiting gun possession in majority-black communities like D.C., while failing to curb the vibrant national gun market or to address crime's root causes made things worse (true/false)

true

Guns-and gun violence-saturate inner cities, while the people who go to prison for possessing guns are overwhelmingly _______ & _______ (Forman)

black & brown

Raising sentencing for gun crimes lowered homicide & gun violence rates (Forman)

false

While the crime crisis affected the entire city, ______ D.C. was hit hardest (Forman)

black

At the time of the Ware murder, 85% of those killed by guns in the District of Columbia were black, and so were a similar percentage of murder _______

suspects

Nationally, the black homicide rate was 7-11 times higher than the white homicide rate (true/false)

true

D.C's black ________ leaders were effective opponents of marijuana decriminalization

religious

In an era when great numbers of southern men carried sidearms, the crime of carrying a concealed weapon-enforced almost solely against black men-would become one of the most consistent instruments of black ________

incarceration

Guns remained essential to black _____-_______ into the twentieth century

self-defense

Congress tried to limit the availability of one class of guns; inexpensive, poor-quality handguns called _______ ______ ________

saturday night specials

A law singling out guns favored by the poor (saturday night specials) was a law 'passed not to control guns but to control ______

blacks

black citizens often refused to cooperate with police, which stymied police investigations, halfhearted to begin with, leaving blacks yet more vulnerable/empowered

vulnerable

discriminatory employment practices fueled crime by undermining black support for ____ ________ (Forman)

law enforcement

In a University of Michigan experiment studying black & white police, they found that What they found that black officers were not as ________ as white ones, but a significant minority of black officers still expressed anti-black attitudes

prejudiced

Researchers classified 28% of the black officers working in black precincts as 'highly prejudiced' or 'prejudiced' (true/false)

true

Most of the African Americans that wanted to become police officers in D.C. in the 1970s only joined the force because it payed well compared to other jobs in that area (not because they wanted to fight for ______ _______)

civil rights

John Wilson wanted to take everyone's guns away & threaten _______ prison terms for anyone who failed to turn them in

mandatory

For Ware & Wilson, reducing/increasing the number of guns in circulation was critical to bringing safety to the city’s streets

reducing

Opinion polls showed growing public support for _______ restrictions, especially after the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy in the 1960s

firearm

While Wilson argued that protecting blacks required getting rid of guns, Moore claimed the opposite: Blacks needed guns for _____-______

self-defense

In California, elected officials (ex: Governor Ronald Reagan) rushed to enact strict gun control laws after members of the _____ _______ armed themselves

Black Panthers

Guns developed a special meaning in African American communities in response to racist _________ that ignored & abetted-black death

governments

In 1976, by a 12-1 vote, D.C. passed one of the nation's strictest ____ control laws

gun