Current Trends in Incarcertation

True or False, The United States is the world’s leader in incarceration.

True, the most

There are __ million people in the nation’s prisons and jails—a ___% increase over the last 40 years.

2, 500%

What explains this increase?

Changes in sentencing law and policy, not changes in crime rates, explain most of this increase.

These changes have resulted in…

prison overcrowding and fiscal burdens on states to accommodate a rapidly expanding penal system, despite increasing evidence that large-scale incarceration is not an effective means of achieving public safety.

Sentencing policies of the ______ era resulted in dramatic growth in incarceration for ____ offenses

War on Drugs, Drug

Since its official beginning in the 1980s, the number of Americans incarcerated for drug offenses has skyrocketed from ______ in 1980 to _____in 2019

40,900, 430,926

harsh sentencing laws such as _____ keep many people convicted of drug offenses in prison for longer periods of time:

mandatory minimums

in 1986, people released after serving time for a federal drug offense had spent an average of ___ months in prison. By 2004, people convicted on federal drug offenses were expected to serve almost ____ times that length: ___ months in prison.

22, three, 62

At the FEDERAL level, people incarcerated on a drug conviction make up nearly ___ the prison population

Half

At the state level, the number of people in prison for drug offenses has _____ nine-fold since 1980, although it has begun _____ in recent years. Most are ____ high-level actors in the drug trade, and most have ___ prior criminal record for a violent offense.

Increased, Declining, not, no

§The number of people serving life sentences ____ even while serious, violent crime has been ____ for the past 20 years and little public safety benefit has been demonstrated to correlate with increasingly lengthy sentences.

endures, declining

The prison population has nearly _____ since 1984.

quintupled

One in ___ people in prison are serving life with parole, life without parole, or virtual life (50 years or more).

seven

Lifetime likelihood of imprisonment of US Residents born in 2001

ALL MEN

1 in 9

Lifetime likelihood of imprisonment of US Residents born in 2001

WHITE MEN

1 in 17

Lifetime likelihood of imprisonment of US Residents born in 2001

BLACK MEN

1 in 3

Lifetime likelihood of imprisonment of US Residents born in 2001

LATINX MEN

1 in 6

Lifetime likelihood of imprisonment of US Residents born in 2001

ALL WOMEN

1 in 56

Lifetime likelihood of imprisonment of US Residents born in 2001

WHITE WOMEN

1 in 111

Lifetime likelihood of imprisonment of US Residents born in 2001

BLACK WOMEN

1 in 18

Lifetime likelihood of imprisonment of US Residents born in 2001

LATINX WOMEN

1 in 45

•Black men are ___ times as likely to be incarcerated as   

•white men.

six

Latinos are ___ times as likely •to be incarcerated as   

white men.

2.5

For Black men in their thirties, about 1 in every ___ is

in prison or jail on any given day.

12

§Black Americans are incarcerated in state prisons at nearly __times the rate of white Americans.

5

§Nationally, one in __ Black adults in the U.S. is serving time in state prison.

81

____ leads the nation in Black imprisonment rates; one of every Black __ is in prison.

Wisconsin , 36, Wisconsinites

In ___states, more than half the prison population is Black

12, Alabama, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia.

_____ states maintain a Black/white disparity larger than ___ to 1

Seven, 9, California, Connecticut, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, New Jersey, and Wisconsin.

Latino individuals are incarcerated in state prisons at a rate that is ___ times the incarceration rate of whites. Ethnic disparities are highest in _____, which reports an ethnic differential of ____

1.3, Massachusetts, 4.1:1.

“Because recidivism rates decline markedly with age, lengthy prison sentences, unless they specifically target very high-rate or extremely dangerous offenders, are an ______ approach to preventing crime by incapacitation.”

inefficient

After nearly ___ years of continued growth, the U.S. prison population has ______ in recent years.

40, stabilized

What do we need to do to reduce prison populations?

• Eliminating mandatory minimum sentences and cutting back on excessively lengthy sentences; for example, by imposing a 20-year maximum on prison terms.

• Shifting resources to community-based prevention and treatment for substance abuse.

• Investing in interventions to that promote strong youth development and respond to delinquency in age-appropriate and evidence-based ways.

• Examining and addressing the policies and practices, conscious or not, that contribute to racial inequity at every stage of the justice system.

• Removing barriers that make it harder for individuals with criminal records to turn their lives around.

Recommendations from Sentencing Project

• Eliminate mandatory sentences for all crimes.
  Mandatory minimum sentences, habitual offender laws, and mandatory transfer of juveniles to the adult criminal system give prosecutors too much authority while limiting the discretion of impartial judges. These policies contributed to a substantial increase in sentence length and time served in prison, disproportionately imposing unduly harsh sentences on Black and Latino individuals.

• Require prospective and retroactive racial impact statements for all criminal statutes.
  To undo the racial and ethnic disparity resulting from decades of tough-on-crime policies, states should repeal existing racially biased laws and policies.

• Decriminalize low-level drug offenses.
  Discontinue arrest and prosecutions for low-level drug offenses.

True or False, When the COVID-19 pandemic was first detected
in the United States, it was clear that the virus
would cause widespread suffering and death among
incarcerated people.

true, health concerns

After an unprecedented ___ percent drop in
incarceration in the first half of 2020—from ___
million people to ____ million—incarceration
declined only slightly from fall 2020 to spring 2021.
Generally, states that started 2020 with higher
incarceration rates made fewer efforts to reduce
incarceration through spring 2021.

14, 2.1, 1.8

§The BJS report on the 2020 jail population found that the national jail incarceration rate of Black people ______ between 2019 and 2020, while the jail incarceration rate of white people ____.§The same report also found that incarceration rate of Latinx people had ______. The jail incarceration rate of Asian American people had _________

declined 22 percent, declined 28 percent., declined 23 percent, declined 21 percent