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Incarceration in the United States is a primary form of
punishment Punishment, commonly, is the imposition of an undesirable or unpleasant outcome upon a group or individual, meted out by an authority—in contexts ranging from child discipline to criminal law—as a response and deterrent to a particular ac ...
and
rehabilitation Rehabilitation or Rehab may refer to: Health * Rehabilitation (neuropsychology), therapy to regain or improve neurocognitive function that has been lost or diminished * Rehabilitation (wildlife), treatment of injured wildlife so they can be retur ...
for the commission of
felony A felony is traditionally considered a crime of high seriousness, whereas a misdemeanor is regarded as less serious. The term "felony" originated from English common law (from the French medieval word "félonie") to describe an offense that res ...
and other offenses. The United States has the largest prison population in the world, and the highest per-capita incarceration rate. One out of every 5 people imprisoned across the world is incarcerated in the United States. In 2018 in the US, there were 698 people incarcerated per 100,000; this includes the incarceration rate for adults or people tried as adults.United States of America
World Prison Brief.
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 prisoners, percentage of female prisoners, percentage of foreign prisoners, 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 th
WPB main data page
and click on the map links and/or the sidebar links to get to the region and country desired.
Prison, parole, and probation operations generate an $81 billion annual cost to U.S. taxpayers, with an additional $63 billion for policing (criminal law only). Court costs, bail bond fees, and prison phone fees generate another $38 billion in individual costs. Additionally, 4,751,400 adults in 2013 (1 in 51) were on
probation Probation in criminal law is a period of supervision over an offender, ordered by the court often in lieu of incarceration. In some jurisdictions, the term ''probation'' applies only to community sentences (alternatives to incarceration), such ...
or on
parole Parole (also known as provisional release or supervised release) is a form of early release of a prison inmate where the prisoner agrees to abide by certain behavioral conditions, including checking-in with their designated parole officers, or ...
. In total, 6,899,000 adults were under correctional supervision (probation, parole, jail, or prison) in 2013 – about 2.8% of adults (1 in 35) in the U.S. resident population.Correctional Populations in the United States, 2013
(NCJ 248479). Published December 2014 by
U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) of the U.S. Department of Justice is the principal federal agency responsible for measuring crime, criminal victimization, criminal offenders, victims of crime, correlates of crime, and the operation of cri ...
(BJS). By Lauren E. Glaze and Danielle Kaeble, BJS Statisticians. Se
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".
In 2014, the total number of persons in the adult correctional systems had fallen to 6,851,000, approximately 52,200 fewer offenders than at the year-end of 2013 as reported by the BJS. About 1 in 36 adults (or 2.8% of adults in the US) were under some form of correctional supervision – the lowest rate since 1996. On average, the correctional population has declined by 1.0% since 2007; while this continued to stay true in 2014 the number of incarcerated adults slightly increased in 2014. In 2016, the total number of persons in U.S. adult correctional systems was an estimated 6,613,500. From 2007 to 2016, the correctional population decreased by an average of 1.2% annually. By the end of 2016, approximately 1 in 38 persons in the United States were under correctional supervision. In addition, there were 54,148 juveniles in
juvenile detention In criminal justice systems, a youth detention center, known as a juvenile detention center (JDC),Stahl, Dean, Karen Kerchelich, and Ralph De Sola. ''Abbreviations Dictionary''. CRC Press, 20011202. Retrieved 23 August 2010. , . juvenile de ...
in 2013.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 Here is an adverb that means "in, on, or at this place". It may also refer to: Software * Here Technologies, a mapping company * Here WeGo (formerly Here Maps), a mobile app and map website by Here Television * Here TV (formerly "here!"), a ...
.
Although debtor's prisons no longer exist in the United States, residents of some U.S. states can still be incarcerated for debt . The
Vera Institute of Justice The Vera Institute of Justice, founded in 1961, is an independent nonprofit national research and policy organization in the United States. Based primarily in New York City, Vera also has offices in Washington, DC, and describes its goal as "to t ...
reported in 2015 that the majority of those incarcerated in local and county jails are there for minor violations, and have been jailed for longer periods of time over the past 30 years because they are unable to pay court-imposed costs. According to a 2014
Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human ...
report, " tough-on-crime" laws adopted since the 1980s have filled U.S. prisons with mostly nonviolent offenders. However, the Bureau of Justice Statistics reported that, as of the end of 2015, 54% of state prisoners sentenced to more than 1 year were serving time for a violent offense. 15 percent of state prisoners at year-end 2015 had been convicted of a drug offense as their most serious infraction. In comparison, 47% of federal prisoners serving time in September 2016 (the most recent date for which data are available) were convicted of a drug offense.Bureau of Justice Statistics (2018)
"Prisoners in 2016"


History

In the 1700s, English philanthropists began to focus on the reform of convicted criminals in prisons, which they believed needed a chance to become morally pure in order to stop or slow crime. Since at least 1740, some of these philosophers began thinking 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. 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. Some of the first structures built in English-settled America were jails, and by the 18th century, every English 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 of those accused-of but not tried for crimes. 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 not accepted. One of the first prisons in America was founded in 1790 by the Pennsylvanian
Quakers Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belief in each human's abili ...
. The Quakers wanted something that was less cruel than dungeon prisons. They created a space where prisoners could read scriptures and repent as a means of self-improvement. In 1841, Dorothea Dix discovered that prison conditions in the US were, in her opinion,
inhumane Cruelty is the pleasure in inflicting suffering or inaction towards another's suffering when a clear remedy is readily available. Sadism can also be related to this form of action or concept. Cruel ways of inflicting suffering may involve vi ...
. Prisoners were chained naked, whipped with rods. Others, criminally insane, were caged, or placed in cellars, or closets. She insisted on changes throughout the rest of her life. While focusing on the insane, her comments also resulted in changes for other inmates. After the
Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government polici ...
and really gaining momentum during the Progressive Era of America, new concepts of the prison system, such as
parole Parole (also known as provisional release or supervised release) is a form of early release of a prison inmate where the prisoner agrees to abide by certain behavioral conditions, including checking-in with their designated parole officers, or ...
,
indeterminate sentencing Indefinite imprisonment or indeterminate imprisonment is the imposition of a sentence by imprisonment with no definite period of time set during sentencing. It was imposed by certain nations in the past, before the drafting of the United Nat ...
, and
probation Probation in criminal law is a period of supervision over an offender, ordered by the court often in lieu of incarceration. In some jurisdictions, the term ''probation'' applies only to community sentences (alternatives to incarceration), such ...
, were introduced. These soon became mainstream practices in America. At this time there was an increase in crime causing officials to handle crime in a more retributive way. Many
Sicilian Americans Sicilian Americans ( Sicilian: ''Sìculu-miricani; Italian: Siculoamericani'') are Americans of Italian Sicilian birth or ancestry. They are a large ethnic group in the United States. The first Sicilians who came to the territory that is now t ...
were harshly affected by this. But, as the crime rate declined, they started to focus more on rehabilitation.
On June 18, 1971, president
Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...
declared drug abuse "public enemy number one" in a message to congress. His message also called for federal resources to be used for the "prevention of new addicts, and the rehabilitation of those who are addicted". Following this, the media began using the term "
War on Drugs The war on drugs is a global campaign, led by the United States federal government, of drug prohibition, military aid, and military intervention, with the aim of reducing the illegal drug trade in the United States.Cockburn and St. Clair, 1 ...
". According to author Emily Dufton, Nixon "transformed the public image of the drug user into one of a dangerous and anarchic threat to American civilization." The presidency of
Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...
saw the expansion of federal efforts of preventing drug abuse and prosecuting offenders. Reagan signed the
Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984 Comprehensive may refer to: * Comprehensive layout, the page layout of a proposed design as initially presented by the designer to a client. *Comprehensive school A comprehensive school typically describes a secondary school for pupils aged appr ...
established mandatory minimum sentences and expanded penalties for marijuana possession. He also signed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986. Support for Reagan's crime legislation was bipartisan. The 1980s saw a dramatic rise of the prison population, especially with people convicted of drug offenses. 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."


Role of the media

A substantial body of research claims that incarceration rates are primarily a function of media editorial policies, largely unrelated to the actual crime rate. Researchers say that the jump in incarceration rate from 0.1% to 0.5% of the United States population from 1975 to 2000 (documented in the figure above) was driven by changes in the editorial policies of the mainstream commercial media and is unrelated to any actual changes in crime. Media consolidation reduced competition on content. That allowed media company executives to maintain substantially the same audience while slashing budgets for investigative journalism and filling the space from the police blotter. It is safer, easier and cheaper to write about crimes committed by poor people than the wealthy. People with money can sue for defamation, an alternative that is largely unavailable to poor people. Moreover, every major media organization has a
conflict of interest A conflict of interest (COI) is a situation in which a person or organization is involved in multiple interests, financial or otherwise, and serving one interest could involve working against another. Typically, this relates to situations i ...
on reporting on anyone who controls a substantive portion of their revenue, like any major advertiser in the US. News media thrive on feeding frenzies, because they tend to reduce production costs while simultaneously building an audience interested in the latest development in a particular story. It takes a long time for a reporter to learn enough to write intelligently about a specific issue. Once a reporter has achieved that level of knowledge, it is easier to write subsequent stories. However, major advertisers have been known to spend their advertising budgets through different channels when they dislike the editorial policies. Therefore, a media feeding frenzy focusing on an issue of concern to an advertiser may reduce revenue and profits. Sacco described how "competing news organizations responded to each other's coverage
hile Hile ( ne, हिले) is a hill town located in the Eastern Part of Nepal, 13 km north of the regional center of Dhankuta Bazar. At an elevation of 1948 meters, it is the main route to other hilly districts like Bhojpur and Sankhuwasa ...
the police, in their role as gatekeepers of crime news, reacted to the increased media interest by making available more stories that reflected and reinforced" a particular theme. " e dynamics of competitive journalism created a media feeding frenzy that found news workers 'snatching at shocking numbers' and 'smothering reports of stable or decreasing use under more ominous headlines.'" The reasons cited above for increased incarcerations (US racial demographics, Increased sentencing laws, and Drug sentencing laws) have been described as consequences of the shift in editorial policies of the mainstream media. Additionally, media coverage has been proven to have a profound impact on criminal sentencing.


Prison systems

In the United States, criminal law is a concurrent power. Individuals who violate state laws and/or territorial laws generally are placed in
state State may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State * ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States * ''Our S ...
or territorial prisons, while those who violate
United States federal law The law of the United States comprises many levels of codified and uncodified forms of law, of which the most important is the nation's Constitution, which prescribes the foundation of the federal government of the United States, as well as ...
are generally placed in federal prisons operated by the
Federal Bureau of Prisons The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is a United States federal law enforcement agency under the Department of Justice that is responsible for the care, custody, and control of incarcerated individuals who have committed federal crimes; that i ...
(BOP), an agency of the
United States Department of Justice The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the United States government tasked with the enforcement of federal law and administration of justice in the United Stat ...
(USDOJ). The BOP also houses adult felons convicted of violating District of Columbia laws due to the
National Capital Revitalization and Self-Government Improvement Act of 1997 The National Capital Revitalization and Self-Government Improvement Act of 1997, also known as the Revitalization Act, was enacted on August 5, 1997, with provisions to reform the criminal justice system in Washington, D.C. The act was spearheaded ...
. As of 2004, state prisons proportionately house more violent felons, so state prisons in general gained a more negative reputation compared to federal prisons. In 2016, almost 90% of prisoners were in state prisons; 10% were in federal prisons. At sentencing in federal court, judges use a point system to determine which inmate goes into which housing branch. This helps federal law employees to determine who goes to which facility and to which punishing housing unit to send them. Another method to determine housing is the admission committees. In prisons, multiple people come together to determine to which housing unit an inmate belongs. Case managers, psychologists, and social workers provide input into what is appropriate for the inmate.


Prison populations

As of 2016, 2.3 million people were incarcerated in the United States, at a rate of 698 people per 100,000. Total US incarceration peaked in 2008. Total correctional population (
prison A prison, also known as a jail, gaol (dated, standard English, Australian, and historically in Canada), penitentiary (American English and Canadian English), detention center (or detention centre outside the US), correction center, corre ...
,
jail A prison, also known as a jail, gaol (dated, English language in England, standard English, Australian English, Australian, and Huron Historic Gaol, historically in Canada), penitentiary (American English and Canadian English), detention cen ...
,
probation Probation in criminal law is a period of supervision over an offender, ordered by the court often in lieu of incarceration. In some jurisdictions, the term ''probation'' applies only to community sentences (alternatives to incarceration), such ...
,
parole Parole (also known as provisional release or supervised release) is a form of early release of a prison inmate where the prisoner agrees to abide by certain behavioral conditions, including checking-in with their designated parole officers, or ...
) peaked in 2007. In 2008 the US had around 24.7% of the world's 9.8 million prisoners.Walmsley, Roy (Jan 30, 2009)
World Prison Population List (8th Edition)
Fro
World Prison Population Lists
By
International Centre for Prison Studies The World Prison Brief at PrisonStudies.org is an online database providing free access to information on prison systems around the world. It is now hosted by the Institute For Crime & Justice Policy Research (ICPR), Birkbeck College, University of ...
. "The information is the latest available in early December 2008. … Most figures relate to dates between the beginning of 2006 and the end of November 2008." According to the summary on page one there were 2.29 million U.S. inmates and 9.8 million inmates worldwide. The U.S. held 23.4% of the world's inmates. The U.S. total in this report is for December 31, 2007 (see page 3), and does not include inmates in juvenile detention facilities.
In 2016, almost 7 million people were under some type of control by the correction industry (incarcerated, on probation or parole, etc.). 3.6 million of those people were on probation and 840,000 were on parole. In recent decades the U.S. has experienced a surge in its prison population, quadrupling since 1980, partially as a result of
mandatory sentencing Mandatory sentencing requires that offenders serve a predefined term for certain crimes, commonly serious and violent offenses. Judges are bound by law; these sentences are produced through the legislature, not the judicial system. They are inst ...
that came about during the "
War on Drugs The war on drugs is a global campaign, led by the United States federal government, of drug prohibition, military aid, and military intervention, with the aim of reducing the illegal drug trade in the United States.Cockburn and St. Clair, 1 ...
". Nearly 53,000 youth were incarcerated in 2015. 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. The Prison Policy Initiative broke down those numbers, finding that "black and American Indian youth are overrepresented in juvenile facilities while white youth are underrepresented." 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." As of 2009, the three states with the lowest ratios of imprisoned people per 100,000 population are
Maine Maine () is a state in the New England and Northeastern regions of the United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec to the northeast and nor ...
(150 per 100,000),
Minnesota Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over t ...
(189 per 100,000), and
New Hampshire New Hampshire is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...
(206 per 100,000). The three states with the highest ratio are
Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is bord ...
(881 per 100,000),
Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...
(702 per 100,000) and
Oklahoma Oklahoma (; Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a state in the South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the north, Missouri on the northeast, Arkansas on the east, New ...
(657 per 100,000). A 2018 study by the Prison Policy Initiative placed Oklahoma's incarceration rate as 1,079, supplanting Louisiana (with a rate of 1,052) as "the world's prison capital." A 2005 report estimated that 27% of federal prison inmates are noncitizens, convicted of crimes while in the country legally or illegally. However, federal prison inmates account for six percent of the total incarcerated population; noncitizen populations in state and local prisons are more difficult to establish.


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.
Determinate sentencing In logic and philosophy (especially metaphysics), a property is a characteristic of an object; a red object is said to have the property of redness. The property may be considered a form of object in its own right, able to possess other propertie ...
, use of
mandatory minimums The first season of the American political drama television series ''The West Wing'' aired in the United States on NBC from September 22, 1999 to May 17, 2000 and consisted of 22 episodes. Cast Main cast * Rob Lowe as Sam Seaborn, Deputy Wh ...
, and guidelines-based sentencing continue to remove the human element from sentencing, such as the prerogative of the judge to consider the mitigating or extenuating circumstances of a crime to determine the appropriate length of the incarceration. As the consequence of " three strikes laws", the increase in the duration of incarceration in the last decade was most pronounced in the case of life prison sentences, which increased by 83% between 1992 and 2003 while violent crimes fell in the same period.


Violent and nonviolent crime

In 2016, there were an estimated 1.2 million violent crimes committed in the United States. Over the course of that year, U.S. law enforcement agencies made approximately 10.7 million arrests, excluding arrests for traffic violations. In that year, approximately 2.3 million people were incarcerated in jail or prison. As of September 30, 2009 in federal prisons, 7.9% of sentenced prisoners were incarcerated for violent crimes, while at year end 2008 of sentenced prisoners in state prisons, 52.4% had been jailed for violent crimes. 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.Profile of Jail Inmates, 2002
. By Doris J. James. July 18, 2004. NCJ 201932.
U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) of the U.S. Department of Justice is the principal federal agency responsible for measuring crime, criminal victimization, criminal offenders, victims of crime, correlates of crime, and the operation of cri ...
. See Table 3 of th
PDF file
for the percent of inmates in for violent offenses.
From 2000 to 2008, the state prison population increased by 159,200 prisoners, and violent offenders accounted for 60% of this increase. The number of drug offenders in state prisons declined by 12,400 over this period. Furthermore, while the number of sentenced violent offenders in state prison increased from 2000 through 2008, the expected length of stays for these offenders declined slightly during this period. Mandatory sentencing for nonviolent crime can lead to life sentences. 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." 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. Violent crime was not responsible for the quadrupling of 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. 49% of sentenced state inmates were held for violent offenses. Perhaps the single greatest force behind the growth of the prison population has been the national "
War on Drugs The war on drugs is a global campaign, led by the United States federal government, of drug prohibition, military aid, and military intervention, with the aim of reducing the illegal drug trade in the United States.Cockburn and St. Clair, 1 ...
". The War on Drugs initiative expanded during the presidency of Ronald Reagan. During Reagan's term, a bi-partisan Congress established the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, galvanized by the death of Len Bias. According to the
Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human ...
, legislation like this led to the extreme increase in drug offense imprisonment and "increasing racial disproportions among the arrestees". The number of incarcerated drug offenders has increased twelvefold since 1980. In 2000, 22 percent of those in federal and state prisons were convicted on drug charges."Incarcerated America"
''Human Rights Watch'' (April 2003)

Source: FBI, Uniform Crime Reports.
In 2011, 55.6% of the 1,131,210 sentenced prisoners in state prisons were being held for violent crimes (this number excludes the 200,966 prisoners being held due to parole violations, of which 39.6% were re-incarcerated for a subsequent violent crime).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 prisoners on December 31, by most serious offense and type of admission, 1991, 2001, 2006, and 2011 , December 2013
Also in 2011, 3.7% of the state prison population consisted of prisoners whose highest conviction was for drug possession (again excluding those incarcerated for parole violations of which 6.0% were re-incarcerated for a subsequent act of drug possession).


Inmates held pre-trial

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." In 2017, 482,100 inmates in federal and state prisons were held pre-trial. Advocates for decarceration contend the large pre-trial detention population serves as a compelling reason for bail reform anchored in a presumption of innocence. "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. 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. 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.


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. However, the study found no evidence that spending more time in prison raises the
recidivism Recidivism (; from ''recidive'' and ''ism'', from Latin ''recidīvus'' "recurring", from ''re-'' "back" and ''cadō'' "I fall") is the act of a person repeating an undesirable behavior after they have experienced negative consequences of th ...
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 The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) of the U.S. Department of Justice is the principal federal agency responsible for measuring crime, criminal victimization, criminal offenders, victims of crime, correlates of crime, and the operation of cri ...
, 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.


Shift in state budget priorities

In the aftermath of decades-long tough on crime legislation that increased the US inmate population from 200,000 in 1973 to over two million in 2009, financially strapped states and cities turned to electronic monitoring in the United States—wrist and ankle monitors—to reduce inmate populations as courts mandated inmate reductions in overcrowded prisons, and states realigned their budgets to address other priorities in education, housing and infrastructure.


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. 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).Gefangenenraten im internationalen und nationalen Vergleich (Prison rates international comparison)
University Greifswald, FRIEDER DÜNKEL • BERND GENG • STEFAN HARRENDORF, Bewährungshilfe – Soziales • Strafrecht • Kriminalpolitik, Jg. 63, 2016, Heft 2, S. 178–200, 2016.
According to the World Prison Population List (11th edition) there were around 10.35 million people in penal institutions worldwide in 2015.Walmsley, Roy (Feb 2, 2016)
World Prison Population List (11th edition)
(PDF). From th
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."
The US had 2,173,800 prisoners in adult facilities in 2015.Correctional Populations in the United States, 2015
By Danielle Kaeble and Lauren Glaze, ''BJS Statisticians.'' Dec. 2016.
Bureau of Justice Statistics The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) of the U.S. Department of Justice is the principal federal agency responsible for measuring crime, criminal victimization, criminal offenders, victims of crime, correlates of crime, and the operation of cri ...
. Se
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".
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,Population Clock
U.S. Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau (USCB), officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy. The Census Bureau is part of the ...
. 321,032,786 people in the US on June 30, 2015.
Comparing other English-speaking developed countries, whereas the incarceration rate of the US is 655 per 100,000 population of all ages, the incarceration rate of
Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...
is 114 per 100,000 (as of 2015),Canada
World Prison Brief.
England and Wales England and Wales () is one of the three legal jurisdictions of the United Kingdom. It covers the constituent countries England and Wales and was formed by the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. The substantive law of the jurisdiction is En ...
is 146 per 100,000 (as of 2016),United Kingdom: England & Wales
World Prison Brief.
and
Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...
is 160 per 100,000 (as of 2016).Australia
World Prison Brief.
Comparing other developed countries, the rate of
Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = '' Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , ...
is 133 per 100,000 (as of 2016),Spain
World Prison Brief.
Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders wi ...
is 89 per 100,000 (as of 2016),Greece
World Prison Brief.
Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of ...
is 73 per 100,000 (as of 2016),Norway
World Prison Brief.
Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
is 69 per 100,000 (as of 2014),Netherlands
World Prison Brief.
and Japan is 48 per 100,000 (as of 2014).Japan
World Prison Brief.
A 2008 ''
New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' article,American Exception. Inmate Count in US Dwarfs Other Nations'
''
New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
.'' April 22, 2008. Page 1, Section A, Front Page.
said that "it is the length of sentences that truly distinguishes American prison policy. Indeed, the mere number of sentences imposed here would not place the United States at the top of the incarceration lists. If lists were compiled based on annual admissions to prison per capita, several European countries would outpace the United States. But American prison stays are much longer, so the total incarceration rate is higher." The U.S. incarceration rate peaked in 2008 when about 1 in 100 US adults was behind bars. Liptak, Adam (Feb 28, 2008)
1 in 100 U.S. Adults Behind Bars, New Study Says
''
New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
''.
This incarceration rate exceeded the average incarceration levels in the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
during the existence of the
Gulag The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the State Political Directorate, GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= ...
system, when the Soviet Union's population reached 168 million, and 1.2 to 1.5 million people were in the
Gulag The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the State Political Directorate, GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= ...
prison camps and colonies (i.e. about 0.8 imprisoned per 100 USSR residents, according to numbers from Anne Applebaum and Steven Rosefielde). In ''
The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'' article ''The Caging of America'' (2012), Adam Gopnik writes: "Over all, there are now more people under 'correctional supervision' in America—more than six million—than were in the
Gulag The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the State Political Directorate, GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= ...
Archipelago under Stalin at its height."Gopnik, Adam (January 30, 2012)
The Caging of America
''
The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
.''


Demographics


Race and ethnicity

According to the
U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) of the U.S. Department of Justice is the principal federal agency responsible for measuring crime, criminal victimization, criminal offenders, victims of crime, correlates of crime, and the operation of cri ...
(BJS) in 2018 black males accounted for 34% of the total male prison population, white males 29%, and Hispanic males 24%. White females comprised 47% of the prison population in comparison to black females who accounted for 18% of the female population. The imprisonment rate for black females (88 per 100,000 black female residents) was 1.8 times as high as for white females (49 per 100,000 white female residents), while the imprisonment rate for black males (2,272 per 100,000 black male residents) was 5.8 times as high as for white males (392 per 100,000 white male residents). Out of all ethnic groups,
African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
s,
Puerto Rican Americans Stateside Puerto Ricans ( es, link=no, Puertorriqueños de Estados Unidos), also ambiguously known as Puerto Rican Americans ( es, link=no, puertorriqueño-americanos,), or Puerto Ricans in the United States, are Puerto Ricans who are in the U ...
, and Native Americans have some of the highest rates of incarceration. Though, of these groups, the black population is the largest, and therefore make up a large portion of those incarcerated in US prisons and jails. Hispanics (of all races) were 20.6% of the total jail and prison population in 2009.Prison Inmates at Midyear 2009 – Statistical Tables
(NCJ 230113). Published June 2010, by
U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) of the U.S. Department of Justice is the principal federal agency responsible for measuring crime, criminal victimization, criminal offenders, victims of crime, correlates of crime, and the operation of cri ...
(BJS). By Heather C. West, Ph.D., BJS Statistician. Se
PDF
See tables 18 and 19. The rates are for adults. Rates per 100,000 can be converted to percentages.
Hispanics comprised 16.3% of the US population according to the 2010 US census.Overview of Race and Hispanic Origin: 2010 Census Briefs
.
US Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau (USCB), officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy. The Census Bureau is part of th ...
. See Tables 1 and 2.
The Northeast has the highest incarceration rates of Hispanics in the nation. Connecticut has the highest Hispanic-to-White incarceration ratio with 6.6 Hispanic males for every white male. The National Average Hispanic-to-White incarceration ratio is 1.8. Other states with high Hispanic-to-White incarcerations include Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and New York. In 2010, adult black non-Hispanic males were incarcerated at the rate of 4,347 inmates per 100,000 U.S. residents. Adult white males were incarcerated at the rate of 678 inmates per 100,000 U.S. residents. Adult Hispanic males were incarcerated at the rate of 1,755 inmates per 100,000 U.S. residents. (For female rates see the table below.) Asian Americans have lower incarceration rates than any other racial group, including white Americans. There is general agreement in the literature that black people are more likely to be arrested for violent crimes than white people in the United States. Whether this is the case for less serious crimes is less clear. Black-majority cities have similar crime statistics for black people as do cities where majority of population is white. For example, white-plurality San Diego has a slightly lower crime rate for black people than does Atlanta, a city which has black-majority in population and city government. In 2013, by age 18, 30% of black males, 26% of Hispanic males, and 22% of white males have been arrested. By age 23, 49% of Black males, 44% of Hispanic males, and 38% of white males have been arrested. According to Attorney Antonio Moore in his Huffington Post article, "there are more African American men incarcerated in the U.S. than the total prison populations in India, Argentina, Canada, Lebanon, Japan, Germany, Finland, Israel and England combined." There are only 19 million African American males in the United States, but collectively these countries represent over 1.6 billion people. Moore has also shown using data from the World Prison Brief and United States Department of Justice that there are more black males incarcerated in the United States than all women imprisoned globally. To give perspective there are just about 4 billion woman in total globally, there are only 19 million black males of all ages in the United States. According to a 2020 review study, mass incarceration in the United States "cannot be explained without reference to the centrality of racial politics."


Gender

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. Within the US, the rate of female incarceration increased fivefold in a two decade span ending in 2001; the increase occurred because of increased prosecutions and convictions of offenses related to
recreational drug Recreational drug use indicates the use of one or more psychoactive drugs to induce an altered state of consciousness either for pleasure or for some other casual purpose or pastime by modifying the perceptions and emotions of the user. When a ...
s, increases in the severities of offenses, and a lack of community sanctions and treatment for women who violate laws. In the United States, authorities began housing women in correctional facilities separate from men in the 1870s. According to the ACLU, “More than half of the women in prisons and jails (56%) are incarcerated for drug or property offenses, and Black women are two times as likely to be incarcerated as white women.” Black women tend to receive longer sentences and harsher punishments than white women for committing the same crimes. According to Angela Davis, in many situations, white women are put in mental institutions, whereas black women are sent to prison for the same crime. 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. 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." A later study by Sonja B. Starr found sentences for men to be up to 60% higher when controlling for more variables. 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.


Youth

Through the
juvenile court A juvenile court, also known as young offender's court or children's court, is a tribunal having special authority to pass judgements for crimes that are committed by children who have not attained the age of majority. In most modern lega ...
s and the adult
criminal justice Criminal justice is the delivery of justice to those who have been accused of committing crimes. The criminal justice system is a series of government agencies and institutions. Goals include the rehabilitation of offenders, preventing other ...
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 The United Nations Human Rights Committee is a treaty body composed of 18 experts, established by a 1966 human rights treaty, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The Committee meets for three four-week sessions per ...
criticized the United States for about ten judicial abuses, including the mistreatment of juvenile inmates. A UN report published in 2015 criticized the US for being the only nation in the world to sentence juveniles to
life imprisonment Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which convicted people are to remain in prison for the rest of their natural lives or indefinitely until pardoned, paroled, or otherwise commuted to a fixed term. Crimes fo ...
without parole. According to federal data from 2011, around 40% of the nation's juvenile inmates are housed in private facilities. 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".


Aged

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 elderly prisoners relative to the overall prison population to continue to rise. Ronald Aday, a professor of aging studies at Middle Tennessee State University and author of ''Aging Prisoners: Crisis in American Corrections'', concurs. One out of six prisoners in California is serving a
life sentence Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which convicted people are to remain in prison for the rest of their natural lives or indefinitely until pardoned, paroled, or otherwise commuted to a fixed term. Crimes ...
. Aday predicts that by 2020 16% percent of those serving life sentences will be elderly. State governments pay all of their inmates' housing costs which significantly increase as prisoners age. Inmates are unable to apply for Medicare and
Medicaid Medicaid in the United States is a federal and state program that helps with healthcare costs for some people with limited income and resources. Medicaid also offers benefits not normally covered by Medicare, including nursing home care and per ...
. Most Departments of Correction report spending more than 10 percent of the annual budget on elderly care. The
American Civil Liberties Union The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". T ...
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.


LGBT people

LGBT ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term ...
(lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender) youth are disproportionately more likely than the general population to come into contact with the
criminal justice Criminal justice is the delivery of justice to those who have been accused of committing crimes. The criminal justice system is a series of government agencies and institutions. Goals include the rehabilitation of offenders, preventing other ...
system. According to the
National Center for Transgender Equality The National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) is a nonprofit social equality organization founded in 2003 by transgender activist Mara Keisling in Washington, D.C. The organization works primarily in the areas of policy advocacy and med ...
, 16 percent of transgender adults have been in prison and/or jail, compared to 2.7 percent of all adults. 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. The reasons behind these disproportionate numbers are multi-faceted and complex.
Poverty Poverty is the state of having few material possessions or little income. Poverty can have diverse
,
homelessness Homelessness or houselessness – also known as a state of being unhoused or unsheltered – is the condition of lacking stable, safe, and adequate housing. People can be categorized as homeless if they are: * living on the streets, also kn ...
, profiling by law enforcement, and imprisonment are disproportionately experienced by transgender and
gender non-conforming Gender variance or gender nonconformity is behavior or gender expression by an individual that does not match masculine or feminine gender norms. A gender-nonconforming person may be variant in their gender identity, being transgender or non-bina ...
people. LGBT youth not only experience these same challenges, but many also live in homes unwelcoming to their identities. This often results in LGBT youth running away and/or engaging in criminal activities, such as the drug trade, sex work, and/or theft, which places them at higher risk for arrest. Because of discriminatory practices and limited access to resources, transgender adults are also more likely to engage in criminal activities to be able to pay for housing, health care, and other basic needs. LGBT people in jail and prison are particularly vulnerable to mistreatment by other inmates and staff. This mistreatment includes
solitary confinement Solitary confinement is a form of imprisonment in which the inmate lives in a single cell with little or no meaningful contact with other people. A prison may enforce stricter measures to control contraband on a solitary prisoner and use additi ...
(which may be described as "protective custody"), physical and sexual violence, verbal abuse, and denial of medical care and other services. According to the National Inmate Survey, in 2011–12, 40 percent of transgender inmates reported sexual victimization compared to 4 percent of all inmates.


Mental illness

In the United States, the percentage of inmates with
mental illness A mental disorder, also referred to as a mental illness or psychiatric disorder, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. Such features may be persistent, relapsing and remitt ...
has been steadily increasing, with rates more than quadrupling from 1998 to 2006. Many have attributed this trend to the deinstitutionalization of mentally ill persons beginning in the 1960s, when mental hospitals across the country began closing their doors. However, other researchers indicate that "there is no evidence for the basic criminalization premise that decreased psychiatric services explain the disproportionate risk of incarceration for individuals with mental illness". According to the
Bureau of Justice Statistics The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) of the U.S. Department of Justice is the principal federal agency responsible for measuring crime, criminal victimization, criminal offenders, victims of crime, correlates of crime, and the operation of cri ...
, 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. 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. According to
Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human ...
, one of the contributing factors to the disproportionate rates of mental illness in prisons and jails is the increased use of
solitary confinement Solitary confinement is a form of imprisonment in which the inmate lives in a single cell with little or no meaningful contact with other people. A prison may enforce stricter measures to control contraband on a solitary prisoner and use additi ...
, for which "socially and psychologically meaningful contact is reduced to the absolute minimum, to a point that is insufficient for most detainees to remain mentally well functioning". See p. 10. Another factor to be considered is that most inmates do not get the mental health services that they need while incarcerated. Due to limited funding, prisons are not able to provide a full range of mental health services and thus are typically limited to inconsistent administration of
psychotropic medication A psychoactive drug, psychopharmaceutical, psychoactive agent or psychotropic drug is a chemical substance, that changes functions of the nervous system, and results in alterations in perception, mood, consciousness, cognition or behavior. T ...
, or no psychiatric services at all. Human Rights Watch also reports that corrections officers routinely use excessive violence against mentally ill inmates for nonthreatening behaviors related to
schizophrenia Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by continuous or relapsing episodes of psychosis. Major symptoms include hallucinations (typically hearing voices), delusions, and disorganized thinking. Other symptoms include social w ...
or
bipolar disorder Bipolar disorder, previously known as manic depression, is a mental disorder characterized by periods of Depression (mood), depression and periods of abnormally elevated Mood (psychology), mood that last from days to weeks each. If the elevat ...
. Inmates are often shocked, shackled and pepper sprayed. Mental illness rarely stands alone when analyzing the risk factors associated with incarceration and
recidivism Recidivism (; from ''recidive'' and ''ism'', from Latin ''recidīvus'' "recurring", from ''re-'' "back" and ''cadō'' "I fall") is the act of a person repeating an undesirable behavior after they have experienced negative consequences of th ...
rates. 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. 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 diversion programs,
mental health courts Mental health courts link offenders who would ordinarily be prison-bound to long-term community-based treatment. They rely on mental health assessments, individualized treatment plans, and ongoing judicial monitoring to address both the mental hea ...
, specialty mental health
probation Probation in criminal law is a period of supervision over an offender, ordered by the court often in lieu of incarceration. In some jurisdictions, the term ''probation'' applies only to community sentences (alternatives to incarceration), such ...
or
parole Parole (also known as provisional release or supervised release) is a form of early release of a prison inmate where the prisoner agrees to abide by certain behavioral conditions, including checking-in with their designated parole officers, or ...
, and jail aftercare/prison re-entry. Programs modeled after mental health interventions include forensic
assertive community treatment Assertive community treatment (ACT) is an intensive and highly integrated approach for community mental health service delivery. ACT teams serve individuals that have been diagnosed with serious and persistent forms of mental illness, predominantly ...
and forensic intensive case management. It has been argued that the wide diversity of these program interventions points to a lack of clarity on which specific program components are most effective in reducing recidivism rates among
individuals An individual is that which exists as a distinct entity. Individuality (or self-hood) is the state or quality of being an individual; particularly (in the case of humans) of being a person unique from other people and possessing one's own nee ...
with mental illness. Inmates who have a mental illness tend to stay for longer days in jail compared to inmates who don't have a mental illness. Inmates with mental illness may struggle to understand and follow prison rules. Inmates with mental illness will usually get in trouble with more facility violation rules. Suicide is the leading cause of death in many prisons. People who have a serious mental illness tend to die by suicide more often in prison. In California in 2002 jail suicides reached a record high.


Students

The term "school-to-prison pipeline", also known as the "schoolhouse-to-jailhouse track", is a concept that was named in the 1980s. The school-to-prison pipeline is the idea that a school's harsh punishments—which typically push students out of the classroom—lead to the criminalization of students' misbehaviors and result in increasing a student's probability of entering the prison system. Although the school-to-prison pipeline is aggravated by a combination of ingredients, zero-tolerance policies are viewed as main contributors. Additionally, "The School to Prison Pipeline disproportionately impacts the poor, students with disabilities, and youth of color, especially African Americans, who are suspended and expelled at the highest rates, despite comparable rates of infraction. 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 lead 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. 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. Explicitly, schools sometimes do not funnel their pupils to the prison systems inadvertently; rather, they send them directly. 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. The national suspension rate doubled from 3.7% to 7.4% from 1973 to 2010. 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. 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. In addition, further data shows that although black students only accounted for 15% of the student population, they represented a 31% of the arrests. Hispanic children share this in common with their black counterparts, as they too are more susceptible to harsher discipline like suspension and expulsion. This trend can be seen throughout numerous studies of this type of material and particularly in the south. 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. 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%. Documentation of this phenomenon can be seen as early as 1975 with the book ''School Suspensions: Are they helping children?'' 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. Moreover, about 70% of those in state prison have not finished high school. 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.


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 The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is a federal law enforcement agency under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. ICE's stated mission is to protect the United States from the cross-border crime and illegal immigration tha ...
(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. 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. Non-US citizens incarcerated in federal and state prisons are eligible to be transferred to their home countries if they qualify.


Operational


Security levels

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 corrections officers. The federal government's
Bureau of Prisons The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is a United States federal law enforcement agency under the Department of Justice that is responsible for the care, custody, and control of incarcerated individuals who have committed federal crimes; that i ...
uses a numbered scale from one to five to represent the security level. Level five is the most secure, while level one is the least. State prison systems operate similar systems. California, for example, classifies its facilities from Reception Center through Levels I to V (minimum to maximum security) to specialized high security units (all considered Level V) including
Security Housing Unit Solitary confinement is a form of imprisonment in which the inmate lives in a single cell with little or no meaningful contact with other people. A prison may enforce stricter measures to control contraband on a solitary prisoner and use additi ...
(SHU)—California's version of supermax—and related units. As a general rule, county jails, detention centers, and reception centers, where new commitments are first held while either awaiting trial or before being transferred to "mainline" institutions to serve out their sentences, operate at a relatively high level of security, usually close security or higher. Supermax prison facilities provide the highest level of prison security. These units hold those considered the most dangerous inmates, as well as inmates that have been deemed too high-profile or too great a national security risk for a normal prison. These include inmates who have committed assaults, murders, or other serious violations in less secure facilities, and inmates known to be or accused of being
prison gang A prison gang is an inmate organization that operates within a prison system. It has a corporate entity and exists into perpetuity. Its membership is restrictive, mutually exclusive, and often requires a lifetime commitment. Prison officials and ot ...
members. Most states have either a supermax section of a prison facility or an entire prison facility designated as a supermax. The United States Federal Bureau of Prisons operates a federal supermax, A.D.X. Florence, located in Florence, Colorado, also known as the "
Alcatraz Alcatraz Island () is a small island in San Francisco Bay, offshore from San Francisco, California, United States. The island was developed in the mid-19th century with facilities for a lighthouse, a military fortification, and a military pris ...
of the Rockies" and is widely considered to be perhaps the most secure prison in the United States. A.D.X. Florence has a standard supermax section where assaultive, violent, and gang-related inmates are kept under normal supermax conditions of 23-hour confinement and abridged amenities. A.D.X. Florence is considered to be of a security level above that of all other prisons in the United States, at least in the "ideological" ultramax part of it, which features permanent, 24-hour
solitary confinement Solitary confinement is a form of imprisonment in which the inmate lives in a single cell with little or no meaningful contact with other people. A prison may enforce stricter measures to control contraband on a solitary prisoner and use additi ...
with rare human contacts or opportunity to earn better conditions through good behavior. In a maximum security prison or area (called high security in the federal system), all prisoners have individual cells 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 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 " white collar criminals". Minimum security prisoners live in less-secure dormitories, which are regularly patrolled by correctional officers. As in medium security facilities, they have communal showers, toilets, and sinks. A minimum-security facility generally has a single fence that is watched, but not patrolled, by armed guards. At facilities in very remote and rural areas, there may be no fence at all. Prisoners may often work on community projects, such as roadside litter cleanup with the state department of transportation or wilderness conservation. Many minimum security facilities are small camps located in or near military bases, larger prisons (outside the security perimeter) or other government institutions to provide a convenient supply of convict labor to the institution. Many states allow persons in minimum-security facilities access to the Internet.


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. Inmates benefit from corresponding with friends and family members, especially when in-person visits are infrequent. 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 imprisonment time reduced for good behavior. Most Department of Corrections websites provide detailed information regarding mail policies. These rules can even vary within a single prison depending on which part of the prison an inmate is housed. For example,
death row Death row, also known as condemned row, is a place in a prison that houses inmates awaiting execution after being convicted of a capital crime and sentenced to death. The term is also used figuratively to describe the state of awaiting execution ...
and maximum security inmates are usually under stricter mail guidelines for security reasons. There have been several notable challenges to prison corresponding services. The Missouri Department of Corrections (DOC) stated that effective June 1, 2007, inmates would be prohibited from using pen pal websites, citing concerns that inmates were using them to solicit money and defraud the public. Service providers such as WriteAPrisoner.com, together with the
ACLU The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". ...
, planned to challenge the ban in Federal Court. Similar bans on an inmate's rights or a website's right to post such information has been ruled unconstitutional in other courts, citing First Amendment freedoms. Some faith-based initiatives promote the positive effects of correspondence on inmates, and some have made efforts to help ex-offenders reintegrate into society through job placement assistance. Inmates' ability to mail letters to other inmates has been limited by the courts.


Conditions

The non-governmental organization
Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human ...
claims that prisoners and detainees face "abusive, degrading and dangerous" conditions within local, state and federal facilities, including those operated by for-profit contractors. The organization also raised concerns with prisoner rape and medical care for inmates. In a survey of 1,788 male inmates in
Midwestern The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of the United States. ...
prisons by ''Prison Journal'', about 21% responded they had been coerced or pressured into sexual activity during their incarceration, and 7% that they had been raped in their current facility. 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 Hepatitis C is an infectious disease caused by the hepatitis C virus (HCV) that primarily affects the liver; it is a type of viral hepatitis. During the initial infection people often have mild or no symptoms. Occasionally a fever, dark urine, ...
". Prisons may
outsource Outsourcing is an agreement in which one company hires another company to be responsible for a planned or existing activity which otherwise is or could be carried out internally, i.e. in-house, and sometimes involves transferring employees and ...
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 in order to maximize profits.Liliana Segura (October 1, 2013
With 2.3 Million People Incarcerated in the US, Prisons Are Big Business
''
The Nation ''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper t ...
.'' Retrieved October 9, 2013.
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. 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 private, for-profit corporations such as Aramark, A'Viands Food & Services Management, and ABL Management. A prison riot in Kentucky has been blamed on the low quality of food Aramark provided to inmates. A 2017 study from the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the national public health agency of the United States. It is a United States federal agency, under the Department of Health and Human Services, and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georg ...
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. 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". 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. 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. The three-judge court considering requests by the ''
Plata v. Schwarzenegger ''Plata v. Newsom'', Docket No. 4:01-cv-01351-JST ( N.D. Cal.), is a federal class action civil rights lawsuit alleging that the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation's (CDCR) medical services are inadequate and violate the Eig ...
'' and '' Coleman v. Schwarzenegger'' courts found California's prisons have become criminogenic as a result of
prison overcrowding Prison overcrowding is a social phenomenon occurring when the demand for space in prisons in a jurisdiction exceeds the capacity for prisoners. The issues associated with prison overcrowding are not new, and have been brewing for many years. Du ...
.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''
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 A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...
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. 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. 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. In 1999, the Supreme Court of Norway refused to extradite American
hashish Hashish ( ar, حشيش, ()), also known as hash, "dry herb, hay" is a drug made by compressing and processing parts of the cannabis plant, typically focusing on flowering buds (female flowers) containing the most trichomes. European Monitoring ...
-smuggler Henry Hendricksen, as they declared that US prisons do not meet their minimum humanitarian standards. 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. According to federal statistics, roughly 4,400 inmates die in US prisons and jails annually, excluding executions. 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) and in county jails in San Francisco. In September 2016, a group of corrections officers at
Holman Correctional Facility William C. Holman Correctional Facility is an Alabama Department of Corrections prison located in Atmore, Alabama. The facility is along Alabama State Highway 21, north of Atmore in southern Alabama. The facility was originally built to hous ...
have gone on strike over safety concerns and overcrowding. Prisoners refer to the facility as a "slaughterhouse" as stabbings are a routine occurrence. During the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in the US, the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the national public health agency of the United States. It is a United States federal agency, under the Department of Health and Human Services, and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georg ...
(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.


Conditions for Women

The conditions for women, especially Black women, are often poor. Many prisons are known to do less in order 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. 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. 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.


Privatization

Prior to the 1980s, private prisons did not exist in the U.S. During the 1980s, as a result of the
War on Drugs The war on drugs is a global campaign, led by the United States federal government, of drug prohibition, military aid, and military intervention, with the aim of reducing the illegal drug trade in the United States.Cockburn and St. Clair, 1 ...
by the Reagan Administration, the number of people incarcerated rose. This created a demand for more prison space. The result was the development of
privatization Privatization (also privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation when ...
and the for-profit prison industry. Harcourt, Bernard (2012).
The Illusion of Free Markets: Punishment and the Myth of Natural Order
''
Harvard University Press Harvard University Press (HUP) is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. After the retir ...
. pp
235

236
/ref> The prison-industrial complex (PIC) refers to the use of prison in addressing economic, political, and social issues; the PIC benefits heavily those who maintain ethos and power through racial and other privileges. The prison-industrial complex is a term that identifies a network of institutions that extend outward toward the political economy and loops back to the mandatory minimum sentences for possession of small quantities of illegal substances implemented by jails and prisons. Private prisons profit from contractual agreements with a government agency that pays them a monthly rate either for each prisoner or for each space available. The mass incarceration of African-Americans during the era of the "War on Drugs" plays less to the detriments of drug abuse and plays more to the accumulation of income in the pockets of the rich by merely incriminating black people in large quantities for possession of drugs found mostly in impoverished neighborhoods. By implementing mandatory minimum sentences for these offenses, private interest is maintained while the black community is left devastated.While the pockets of the rich broaden, the lives of prison inmates—and African-American families nationwide—are left to suffer as a result of private interest. This cycle has affected many in the African-American community. A 1998 study was performed using three comparable
Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is bord ...
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. According to
Marie Gottschalk Marie Gottschalk (born December 17, 1958) is an American political scientist and professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania, known for her work on mass incarceration in the United States. Gottschalk is the author of ''The Pris ...
, a professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania, studies that claim private prisons are cheaper to run than public prisons fail to "take into account the fundamental differences between private and public facilities," and that the prison industry "engages in a lot of cherry-picking and cost-shifting to maintain the illusion that the private sector does it better for less." The
American Civil Liberties Union The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". T ...
reported in 2013 that numerous studies indicate private jails are actually filthier, more violent, less accountable, and possibly more costly than their public counterparts. The ACLU stated that the for-profit prison industry is "a major contributor to bloated state budgets and mass incarceration – not a part of any viable solution to these urgent problems." The primary reason Louisiana is the prison capital of the world is because of the for-profit prison industry. According to ''
The Times-Picayune ''The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate'' is an American newspaper published in New Orleans, Louisiana, since January 25, 1837. The current publication is the result of the 2019 acquisition of ''The Times-Picayune'' (itself a result of ...
'', "a majority of Louisiana inmates are housed in for-profit facilities, which must be supplied with a constant influx of human beings or a $182 million industry will go bankrupt." In
Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...
, a 2013 '' Bloomberg report'' stated that assault rates in private facilities were three times higher on average than in their public counterparts. In 2012, the for-profit Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility was the most violent prison in the state with 27 assaults per 100 offenders.Margaret Newkirk & William Selway (July 12, 2013)
"Gangs Ruled Prison as For-Profit Model Put Blood on Floor."
Bloomberg. Retrieved July 16, 2013.
A federal lawsuit filed by the ACLU and the
Southern Poverty Law Center The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit legal advocacy organization specializing in civil rights and public interest litigation. Based in Montgomery, Alabama, it is known for its legal cases against white ...
on behalf of prisoners at the privately run
East Mississippi Correctional Facility East Mississippi Correctional Facility is a men's prison located in unincorporated Lauderdale County, Mississippi, near Meridian. It is about 90 miles east of the capital, Jackson. Opened in 1999, the special needs prison is intended to provide ...
in 2013 claims the conditions there are "hyper-violent", "barbaric" and "chaotic", with gangs routinely beating and exploiting mentally ill inmates who are denied medical care by prison staff. A May 2012 riot in the Corrections Corporation of America-run Adams County Correctional Facility, also in Mississippi, left one corrections officer dead and dozens injured. Similar riots have occurred in privatized facilities in Idaho, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Florida, California and Texas. Sociologist John L. Campbell of
Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native ...
claims that private prisons in the U.S. have become "a lucrative business". 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 CoreCivic, formerly the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), is a company that owns and manages private prisons and detention centers and operates others on a concession basis. Co-founded in 1983 in Nashville, Tennessee by Thomas W. Beasl ...
in 2016 amid increased scrutiny of the private prison industry, climbed from $8 a share to $30. According to journalist
Matt Taibbi Matthew Colin Taibbi (; born March 2, 1970) is an American author, journalist, and podcaster. He has reported on finance, media, politics, and sports. A former contributing editor for ''Rolling Stone'', he is an author of several books, co-host o ...
, major investors in the prison industry include
Wells Fargo Wells Fargo & Company is an American multinational financial services company with corporate headquarters in San Francisco, California; operational headquarters in Manhattan; and managerial offices throughout the United States and intern ...
,
Bank of America The Bank of America Corporation (often abbreviated BofA or BoA) is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered at the Bank of America Corporate Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. The bank ...
,
Fidelity Investments Fidelity Investments, commonly referred to as Fidelity, earlier as Fidelity Management & Research or FMR, is an American multinational financial services corporation based in Boston, Massachusetts. The company was established in 1946 and is o ...
,
General Electric General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable ene ...
and
The Vanguard Group The Vanguard Group, Inc. is an American registered investment advisor based in Malvern, Pennsylvania, with about $7 trillion in global assets under management, as of January 13, 2021. It is the largest provider of mutual funds and the second-l ...
. 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. Controversy has surrounded the privatization of prisons with the exposure of the genesis of the landmark
Arizona SB 1070 The Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act (introduced as Arizona Senate Bill 1070 and commonly referred to as Arizona SB 1070) is a 2010 legislative Act in the U.S. state of Arizona that was the broadest and strictest a ...
law. This law was written by Arizona State Congressman
Russell Pearce Russell Keith Pearce (June 23, 1947 – January 5, 2023) was an American far-right politician who was a Republican (GOP) member of the Arizona State Senate. He rose to national prominence as the primary sponsor of Arizona SB1070, a controver ...
and the CCA at a meeting of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in the Grand Hyatt in Washington, D.C. 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. In fact, in the early 1990s, when CCA was co-chair of ALEC, it co-sponsored (with the
National Rifle Association The National Rifle Association of America (NRA) is a gun rights advocacy group based in the United States. Founded in 1871 to advance rifle marksmanship, the modern NRA has become a prominent gun rights lobbying organization while cont ...
) the so-called "truth-in-sentencing" and "three-strikes-you're-out" laws. 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. In addition to CCA and GEO Group, companies operating in the private prison business include Management and Training Corporation, and
Community Education Centers Community Education Centers, Inc. (abbreviated CEC) was a private corrections company based in West Caldwell, New Jersey that operated residential reentry facilities, jails, and in-prison drug treatment programs in seventeen American states and Berm ...
. The GEO Group was formerly known as the Wackenhut Corrections division. It includes the former
Correctional Services Corporation Correctional Services Corporation (CSC), originally Esmor Correctional Corporation, was a correctional firm founded by James F. Slattery in 1987. It was located in Sarasota, Florida, USA, and traded on the NASDAQ (NASDAQ NMS:CSCQ). It had been a co ...
and Cornell Companies, which were purchased by GEO in 2005 and 2010. Such companies often sign contracts with states obliging them to fill prison beds or reimburse them for those that go unused. Private companies which provide services to prisons combine in the American Correctional Association, a 501(c)3 which advocates legislation favorable to the industry. Such private companies comprise what has been termed the prison–industrial complex. An example of this phenomenon would be the Kids for cash scandal, in which two judges in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, Mark Ciavarella and
Michael Conahan Michael T. Conahan (born April 21, 1952) is an American convicted felon and former judge. He received a J.D. degree from Temple University and went on to serve from 1994 to 2007 as Judge on the Court of Common Pleas in Luzerne County, Pennsylvan ...
, were receiving judicial kickbacks for sending youths, convicted of minor crimes, to a privatized, for-profit juvenile facility run by the Mid Atlantic Youth Service Corporation. The industry is aware of what reduced crime rates could mean to their bottom line. This from the CCA's SEC report in 2010: 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. 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. The private prison industry has been accused of being at least partly responsible for America's high rates of incarceration. 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. In September 2015, Senator
Bernie Sanders Bernard Sanders (born September8, 1941) is an American politician who has served as the junior United States senator from Vermont since 2007. He was the U.S. representative for the state's at-large congressional district from 1991 to 20 ...
introduced the "Justice Is Not for Sale" Act, 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. 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. Shortly after this report was published, the DoJ announced it will stop using private prisons. 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." The private prison industry has been booming under the Trump Administration. 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.


Labor

About 18% of eligible prisoners held in federal prisons are employed by
UNICOR Federal Prison Industries, Inc. (FPI), doing business as UNICOR (stylized as unicor) since 1977, is a wholly owned United States government corporation created in 1934 as a prison labor program for inmates within the Federal Bureau of Prisons, a ...
and are paid less than $1.25 an hour. Prisons have gradually become a source of low-wage labor for corporations seeking to outsource work to inmates. Corporations that utilize prison labor include
Walmart Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores from the United States, headquarter ...
, Eddie Bauer,
Victoria's Secret Victoria's Secret is an American lingerie, clothing, and beauty retailer known for high visibility marketing and branding, starting with a popular catalog and followed by an annual fashion show with supermodels dubbed Angels. As the largest ...
,
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washi ...
,
Starbucks Starbucks Corporation is an American multinational chain of coffeehouses and roastery reserves headquartered in Seattle, Washington. It is the world's largest coffeehouse chain. As of November 2021, the company had 33,833 stores in 80 cou ...
,
McDonald's McDonald's Corporation is an American multinational fast food chain, founded in 1940 as a restaurant operated by Richard and Maurice McDonald, in San Bernardino, California, United States. They rechristened their business as a hambur ...
,
Nintendo is a Japanese multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It develops video games and video game consoles. Nintendo was founded in 1889 as by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produced handmade playing cards ...
,
Chevron Corporation Chevron Corporation is an American multinational energy corporation. The second-largest direct descendant of Standard Oil, and originally known as the Standard Oil Company of California (shortened to Socal or CalSo), it is headquartered in S ...
,
Bank of America The Bank of America Corporation (often abbreviated BofA or BoA) is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered at the Bank of America Corporate Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. The bank ...
, Koch Industries,
Boeing The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and ...
and Costco Wholesale. It is estimated that one in nine state government employees works in corrections. 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 Mecklenburg Correctional Center was a maximum security prison operated by the Virginia Department of Corrections in unincorporated Mecklenburg County, Virginia, United States, near Boydton. It was closed in 2012 due to a decrease in the number of ...
. In 2010, Prisoners in Georgia engaged in the
2010 Georgia prison strike The 2010 Georgia prison strike was a prison strike involving prisoners at 7 prisons in the U.S. state of Georgia. The strike, organized by the prisoners using contraband cell phones, began on December 9 and ended on December 15. It was reported ...
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 Contemporary slavery, also sometimes known as modern slavery or neo-slavery, refers to institutional slavery that continues to occur in present-day society. Estimates of the number of enslaved people today range from around 38 million to 46 mil ...
. Organizers, which include the
Industrial Workers of the World The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), members of which are commonly termed "Wobblies", is an international labor union that was founded in Chicago in 1905. The origin of the nickname "Wobblies" is uncertain. IWW ideology combines general ...
labor union, assert it is the largest prison strike in U.S. history.Inmates strike in prisons nationwide over 'slave labor' working conditions
''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers '' The Observer'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the ...
'' September 9, 2016.
Starting August 21, 2018, another prison strike, sponsored by Jailhouse Lawyers Speak and the
Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee The Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee (IWOC) is a prison-led section of the Industrial Workers of the World. Its purpose is 'a union for the incarcerated,' with the goal of abolishing prison slavery, as well as fighting to end the exploita ...
, 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. According to a 2022 report by the
ACLU The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". ...
, prison labor produces $11 billion worth of goods and services annually, with inmates often being forced to work dangerous jobs with no labor protections and little training, and are compensated with pennies per hour or sometimes nothing at all.


Cost

Judicial, police, and corrections costs totaled $212 billion in 2011 according to the U.S. Census Bureau.As Arrest Records Rise, Americans Find Consequences Can Last a Lifetime
August 18, 2014. ''
Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
.''
In 2007, around $74 billion was spent on corrections according to the
U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) of the U.S. Department of Justice is the principal federal agency responsible for measuring crime, criminal victimization, criminal offenders, victims of crime, correlates of crime, and the operation of cri ...
.Direct expenditures by justice function, 1982–2007 (billions of dollars)
Inflation adjusted to 2007 dollars.
U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) of the U.S. Department of Justice is the principal federal agency responsible for measuring crime, criminal victimization, criminal offenders, victims of crime, correlates of crime, and the operation of cri ...
(BJS). Retrieved January 1, 2012 by the
Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
. Se
BJS timeline graph based on the data
Justice Expenditures and Employment, FY 1982–2007 – Statistical Tables
(NCJ 236218). Published December 2011.
U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) of the U.S. Department of Justice is the principal federal agency responsible for measuring crime, criminal victimization, criminal offenders, victims of crime, correlates of crime, and the operation of cri ...
(BJS). By Tracey Kyckelhahn, Ph.D., BJS statistician. See table 2 of th
PDF
"Total justice expenditures, by justice function, FY 1982–2007 (real dollars)". A total of around $74 billion for corrections in 2007.
Despite federal statistics including statements made by former Attorney General Eric Holder, according to research on corrections expenditure published in the ▲Church white paper "On Security", Federal Prisons and Detention FY15 Requested Budget was just $8.5 billion.White Paper on Security Fact Sheet
December 1, 2014. Retrieved October 16, 2020. '' ▲Church Publishing.''
Federal Bureau of Prisons' spending was $6.9 billion counting 20,911 correctional officers of 43,297 positions.Federal Prison System Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) FY 2015 Budget Request At A Glance
December 21, 2013. Retrieved September 2014. '' The United States Department of Justice.''
Total U.S. States' and Federal Prisons and Detention including county jail subsidies was only $56.9 billion. Adding local jails' spending, $64.9 billion was spent on corrections in nominal 2014 dollars.white paper On Security: 50 States' Departments of Corrections insert
February 2, 2015. Retrieved October 16, 2014. '' ▲Church Publishing.''
In 2014, among facilities operated by the
Federal Bureau of Prisons The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is a United States federal law enforcement agency under the Department of Justice that is responsible for the care, custody, and control of incarcerated individuals who have committed federal crimes; that i ...
, 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.Annual Determination of Average Cost of Incarceration
A notice by the Prisons Bureau on March 9, 2015 in the ''
Federal Register The ''Federal Register'' (FR or sometimes Fed. Reg.) is the official journal of the federal government of the United States that contains government agency rules, proposed rules, and public notices. It is published every weekday, except on fede ...
.''
State prisons averaged $31,286 per inmate in 2010 according to a
Vera Institute of Justice The Vera Institute of Justice, founded in 1961, is an independent nonprofit national research and policy organization in the United States. Based primarily in New York City, Vera also has offices in Washington, DC, and describes its goal as "to t ...
study. It ranged from $14,603 in Kentucky to $60,076 in New York.The Price of Prisons: What Incarceration Costs Taxpayers
. February 29, 2012, the
Vera Institute of Justice The Vera Institute of Justice, founded in 1961, is an independent nonprofit national research and policy organization in the United States. Based primarily in New York City, Vera also has offices in Washington, DC, and describes its goal as "to t ...
. 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)."
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. Housing the approximately 500,000 people in jail in the US awaiting trial who cannot afford bail costs $9 billion a year.Inmates Who Can't Make Bail Face Stark Options
By Laura Sullivan. January 22, 2010.
National Public Radio National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other n ...
.
Most jail inmates are petty, nonviolent offenders. Twenty years ago most nonviolent defendants were released on their own
recognizance In some common law nations, a recognizance is a conditional pledge of money undertaken by a person before a court which, if the person defaults, the person or their sureties will forfeit that sum. It is an obligation of record, entered into before ...
(trusted to show up at trial). Now most are given bail, and most pay a
bail bondsman Bail is a set of pre-trial restrictions that are imposed on a suspect to ensure that they will not hamper the judicial process. Bail is the conditional release of a defendant with the promise to appear in court when required. In some countries, ...
to afford it.Bail Burden Keeps U.S. Jails Stuffed With Inmates
By Laura Sullivan. January 21, 2010.
National Public Radio National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other n ...
.
62% of local jail inmates are awaiting trial.Jail Inmates at Midyear 2009 – Statistical Tables
. By Minton D. Todd. June 3, 2010. NCJ 230122.
U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) of the U.S. Department of Justice is the principal federal agency responsible for measuring crime, criminal victimization, criminal offenders, victims of crime, correlates of crime, and the operation of cri ...
. See Table 7 of th
PDF file
for percent unconvicted.
This rate varies from state to state. As of 2019, Illinois has the highest rate with 89% of inmates in local jails unconvicted. 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.Jails Stuffed To Capacity In Many U.S. Counties
January 20, 2010.
National Public Radio National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other n ...
. Chart using 2008 jail statistics showing "50 U.S. counties with the largest numbers of inmates."
In
Broward County, Florida Broward County ( , ) is a county in the southeastern part of Florida, located in the Miami metropolitan area. It is Florida's second-most populous county after Miami-Dade County and the 17th-most populous in the United States, with over 1.94 m ...
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.Bondsman Lobby Targets Pretrial Release Programs
By Laura Sullivan. January 22, 2010.
National Public Radio National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other n ...
.
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." , the cost of medical care for inmates was growing by 10 percent annually.One in 100: Behind Bars in America 2008
February 28, 2008. The Pew Center on the States.
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. 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.


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. 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. A 2010 study of panel data from 1978 to 2003 indicated that the crime-reducing effects of increasing incarceration are totally offset by the crime-increasing effects of prisoner re-entry. According to a 2015 study by the
Brennan Center for Justice The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law (NYU Law) is a nonprofit law and public policy institute. The organization is named after Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr. Generally considered liberal, the Brennan C ...
, falling crime rates cannot be ascribed to mass incarceration.


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. 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". 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. Taxpayers spend $60 billion a year for prisons. In 2005, it cost an average of $23,876 a year to house a prisoner. It takes about $30,000 per year per person to provide
drug rehabilitation Drug rehabilitation is the process of medical or psychotherapeutic treatment for dependency on psychoactive substances such as alcohol, prescription drugs, and street drugs such as cannabis, cocaine, heroin or amphetamines. The general intent i ...
treatment to inmates. By contrast, the cost of drug rehabilitation treatment outside of a prison costs about $8,000 per year per person. The effects of such high incarceration rates are also shown in other ways. Many people convicted of felonies lose their right to vote either temporarily or, in some cases, permanently. Currently, over 6 million Americans are disenfranchised for this reason. In addition, people who have been recently released from prison are ineligible for welfare in most states. They are not eligible for
subsidized housing Subsidized housing is government sponsored economic assistance aimed towards alleviating housing costs and expenses for impoverished people with low to moderate incomes. In the United States, subsidized housing is often called "affordable hous ...
, and for Section 8 they have to wait two years before they can apply. In addition to finding housing, they also have to find employment, but this can be difficult as employers often check for a potential employees
criminal record A criminal record, police record, or colloquially RAP sheet (Record of Arrests and Prosecutions) is a record of a person's criminal history. The information included in a criminal record and the existence of a criminal record varies between coun ...
. Essentially, a person who has been recently released from prison comes into a society that is not prepared structurally or emotionally to welcome them back. In ''
The New Jim Crow ''The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness'' is a book by Michelle Alexander, a civil rights litigator and legal scholar. The book discusses race-related issues specific to African-American males and mass incarceration in ...
'' in 2011, legal scholar and advocate
Michelle Alexander Michelle Alexander (born October 7, 1967) is an American writer and civil rights activist. She is best known for her 2010 book '' The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness''. Since 2018, she has been an opinion columnist ...
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". 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. Black people without advanced education have more.


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.  Moreover, more than 2.7 million children in the United States have an incarcerated parent. That translates to one out of every 27 children in the United States having an incarcerated parent. Approximately 80 percent of women who go to jail each year are mothers. 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. Local and state governments in the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...
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
cholesterol Cholesterol is any of a class of certain organic molecules called lipids. It is a sterol (or modified steroid), a type of lipid. Cholesterol is biosynthesized by all animal cells and is an essential structural component of animal cell memb ...
,
migraines Migraine (, ) is a common neurological disorder characterized by recurrent headaches. Typically, the associated headache affects one side of the head, is pulsating in nature, may be moderate to severe in intensity, and could last from a few h ...
, and
HIV/AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual ...
diagnosis to children with a parental incarceration.  Even while adjusting for various socioeconomic and racial factors, children with an incarcerated parent have a significantly higher chance of developing a wide variety of physical problems such as
obesity Obesity is a medical condition, sometimes considered a disease, in which excess body fat has accumulated to such an extent that it may negatively affect health. People are classified as obese when their body mass index (BMI)—a person's ...
,
asthma Asthma is a long-term inflammatory disease of the airways of the lungs. It is characterized by variable and recurring symptoms, reversible airflow obstruction, and easily triggered bronchospasms. Symptoms include episodes of wheezing, co ...
, and developmental delays.  The current literature acknowledges that there are a variety of poor health outcomes as a direct result of being separated from a parent by
law enforcement Law enforcement is the activity of some members of government who act in an organized manner to enforce the law by discovering, deterring, rehabilitating, or punishing people who violate the rules and norms governing that society. The term ...
.  It is hypothesized that the chronic stress that results directly from the uncertainty of the parent's legal status is the primary influence for the extensive list of acute and chronic conditions that could develop later in life.  In addition to the chronic stress, the immediate instability in a child's life deprives them of certain essentials e.g. money for food and parental love that are compulsory for leading a healthy life. Though most of the adverse effects that result from parental incarceration are regardless of whether the mother or father was arrested, some differences have been discovered. For example, males whose father have been incarcerated display more behavioral issues than any other combination of parent/child. 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 anxiety disorders,
depression (mood) Depression is a mental state of low mood and aversion to activity, which affects more than 280 million people of all ages (about 3.5% of the global population). Classified medically as a mental and behavioral disorder, the experience ...
, and
post-traumatic stress disorder Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental and behavioral disorder that can develop because of exposure to a traumatic event, such as sexual assault, warfare, traffic collisions, child abuse, domestic violence, or other threats o ...
(PTSD). These problems worsen in a typical
positive feedback Positive feedback (exacerbating feedback, self-reinforcing feedback) is a process that occurs in a feedback loop which exacerbates the effects of a small disturbance. That is, the effects of a perturbation on a system include an increase in th ...
loop without the presence of a parental figure. Given the chronic nature of these diseases, they can be detected and observed at distinct points in a child's development, allowing for ample research. Murray et al. have been able to isolate the cause of the expression of Anti-social behaviours specific to the parental incarceration.  In a specific case study in Boston by Sack, within two months of the father being arrested, the adolescent boy in the family developed severe aggressive and antisocial behaviors.  This observation is not unique; Sack and other researchers have noticed an immediate and strong reaction to sudden departures from family structure norms. These behavioral externalizations are most evident at school when the child interacts with peers and adults. This behavior leads to punishment and less focus on education, which has obvious consequences for future educational and career prospects. In addition to externalizing undesirable behaviors, children of incarcerated parents are more likely to be incarcerated compared to those without incarcerated parents. 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.


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. 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. The prison environment exacerbates chronic health conditions since they cannot be properly addressed and due to the stress of social isolation. 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. 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. According to the Health Resources & Services Administration,
health literacy Health literacy is the ability to obtain, read, understand, and use healthcare information in order to make appropriate health decisions and follow instructions for treatment. There are multiple definitions of health literacy, in part, because heal ...
is the ability to obtain, process, and understand health information in order to make appropriate health decisions. 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.


Policy solutions

There are four main phases that can be distinguished in the process of arresting a parent:
arrest An arrest is the act of apprehending and taking a person into custody (legal protection or control), usually because the person has been suspected of or observed committing a crime. After being taken into custody, the person can be questi ...
, sentencing, incarceration, and re-entry. Re-entry is not relevant if a parent is not arrested for other crimes. During each of these phases, solutions can be implemented that mitigate the harm placed on the children during the process. While their parents are away, children rely on other caretakers (family or friends) to satisfy their basic need. Solutions for the children of incarcerated parents have identified caretakers as a focal point for successful intervention.


Arrest phase

One in five children witness their parent arrested by authorities, and a study interviewing 30 children reported that the children experienced
flashbulb memories A flashbulb memory is a vivid, long-lasting memory about a surprising or shocking event that has happened in the past. The term "flashbulb memory" suggests the surprise, indiscriminate illumination, detail, and brevity of a photograph; however fl ...
and
nightmare A nightmare, also known as a bad dream, Retrieved 11 July 2016. is an unpleasant dream that can cause a strong emotional response from the mind, typically fear but also despair, anxiety or great sadness. The dream may contain situations of ...
s associated with the day their parent was arrested. These single, adverse moments have long-reaching effects and policymakers around the country have attempted to ameliorate the situation. For example, the city of
San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...
in 2005 implemented training policies for its police officers with the goal of making them more cognizant of the familial situation before entering the home. The guidelines go a step further and stipulate that if no information is available before the arrest, that officers ask the suspect about the possibility of any children in the house. San Francisco is not alone:
New Mexico ) , population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano) , seat = Santa Fe, New Mexico, Santa Fe , LargestCity = Albuquerque, New Mexico, Albuquerque , LargestMetro = Albuquerque metropolitan area, Tiguex , Offi ...
passed a law in 2009 advocating for child safety during parental arrest and
California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
provides funding to agencies to train personnel how to appropriately conduct an arrest in the presence of family members. Extending past the state level, the Department of Justice has provided guidelines for police officers around the country to better accommodate for children in difficult family situations.


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 Oklahoma (; Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a state in the South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the north, Missouri on the northeast, Arkansas on the east, New ...
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. 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."


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 State New York, officially the State of New York, is a state in the Northeastern United States. It is often called New York State to distinguish it from its largest city, New York City. With a total area of , New York is the 27th-largest U.S. sta ...
allows newborns to be with their mothers for up to one year. Studies have shown that parental, specifically maternal, presence during a newborn's early development are crucial to both physical and cognitive development.
Ohio Ohio () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Of the List of states and territories of the United States, fifty U.S. states, it is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 34th-l ...
law requires nursery support for pregnant inmates in its facilities. 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. 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. 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.


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. 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.  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.


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. In addition to taking care of their
nuclear family A nuclear family, elementary family, cereal-packet family or conjugal family is a family group consisting of parents and their children (one or more), typically living in one home residence. It is in contrast to a single-parent family, the larg ...
, 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) Washington (), officially the State of Washington, is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. Named for George Washington—the first U.S. president—the state was formed from the western part of the Washingt ...
employs "kinship navigators" to address caretakers' needs with initiatives such as parental classes and connections to legal services.


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. They are often more interested in incarceration as a measure of employability and trustworthiness instead of its relation to any specific job. People who have felony records have a harder time finding a job. 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. Men who are unemployed are more likely to participate in crime which leads to there being a 67% chance of ex-felons being charged again. In 2008, the difficulties male ex-felons 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. 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%. 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 done by Scott H. Decker, Cassia Spohn, Natalie R. Ortiz, and Eric Hedberg from 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. Men and women of white, Black, and Hispanic ethnicities account for 92% of the US prison population. The results of Arizona State University study were somewhat different from Pager's study, but the main finding was expected: Incarceration decreased the chances of getting employed. For females submitting applications online and in-person, regardless of criminal history, white women received the most callbacks, roughly 40%. Hispanic women followed up with a 34% callback rate. Black women had the lowest rate at 27%. The effects of incarceration on female applicants in general were that females with a prison record were less likely to receive a callback compared to females without a prison record. The significant exceptions are white women applying in person and Hispanic women with a community college degree applying online. For males submitting applications online and in-person, regardless of criminal history, Hispanic males received the most callbacks, roughly 38%. White males followed up with a 35% callback rate. Black males had the lowest rate at 27%. The effects of incarceration on male applicants applying in-person was that 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 ducationon men's success in advancing through the nlinehiring process". The Arizona State University study also had results that contradicted Pager's study. It found that white males with a prison record did not have a higher callback rate than Black males (and Hispanic males) without a prison record. Hispanic men without a prison record had a 40% higher callback rate than white males with a prison record, and Black men without a prison record had a 6% higher callback rate than white men without a prison record. Given that there is an 11-year gap between these studies, this discrepancy may be due to the social and demographic changes over time, rather than flaws in 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.


Criticism

High rates of incarceration may be due to sentence length, which is further driven by many other factors. Shorter sentences may even diminish the criminal culture by possibly reducing re-arrest rates for first-time convicts. 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." Critics have lambasted the United States for incarcerating a large number of non-violent and victimless offenders; 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). "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." 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.
Criminal justice Criminal justice is the delivery of justice to those who have been accused of committing crimes. The criminal justice system is a series of government agencies and institutions. Goals include the rehabilitation of offenders, preventing other ...
policy in the United States has also been criticized for a number of other reasons. In the 2014 book '' The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap,'' journalist
Matt Taibbi Matthew Colin Taibbi (; born March 2, 1970) is an American author, journalist, and podcaster. He has reported on finance, media, politics, and sports. A former contributing editor for ''Rolling Stone'', he is an author of several books, co-host o ...
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". The scholars Michael Meranze and
Marie Gottschalk Marie Gottschalk (born December 17, 1958) is an American political scientist and professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania, known for her work on mass incarceration in the United States. Gottschalk is the author of ''The Pris ...
contend that the massive "carceral state" extends far beyond prisons, and distorts democracy, degrades society, and obstructs meaningful discourse on criminal punishment. 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. More recently, scholars have argued that a system of mass incarceration necessarily interferes with a free society "characterized by industry, discovery, and creation." Some scholars have linked the ascent of
neoliberal Neoliberalism (also neo-liberalism) is a term used to signify the late 20th century political reappearance of 19th-century ideas associated with free-market capitalism after it fell into decline following the Second World War. A prominent f ...
,
free market In economics, a free market is an economic system in which the prices of goods and services are determined by supply and demand expressed by sellers and buyers. Such markets, as modeled, operate without the intervention of government or any ot ...
ideology in the late 1970s to mass incarceration. Sociologist Loïc Wacquant postulates the expansive prison system has become a political institution designed to deal with an urban crisis created by
welfare state A welfare state is a form of government in which the state (or a well-established network of social institutions) protects and promotes the economic and social well-being of its citizens, based upon the principles of equal opportunity, equita ...
retrenchment and economic deregulation, and that this "overgrown and intrusive penal state" is "deeply injurious to the ideals of democratic citizenship." Academic and activist Angela Davis argues that prisons in the U.S. have "become venues of profit as well as punishment;" as mass incarceration has increased, the prison system has become more about economic factors than criminality. Professor of Law at Columbia University Bernard Harcourt contends that neoliberalism holds the state as incompetent when it comes to economic regulation but proficient at policing and punishing, and that this paradox has resulted in the expansion of penal confinement. According to ''The Routledge Handbook of Poverty in the United States'', "neoliberal social and economic policy has more deeply embedded the carceral state within the lives of the poor, transforming what it means to be poor in America." Historian Gary Gerstle reasons that while it may seem contradictory that the notions of market freedom and the establishment of a robust market economy occurred simultaneously with the reality of mass incarceration during the neoliberal period, neoliberals and even the classical economic liberals who preceded them "had long argued for the need to ringfence free markets, limiting participation to those who could handle its rigors." Only then could they operate "freely". The sociologists John Clegg and Adaner Usmani assert that the massive carceral state established in the US is 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, it is a political problem, the solution of which will require confronting the entrenched power of the wealthy. In this sense, the task before us is to build the capacities of poor and working-class Americans to win redress from their exploiters." Another possibly cause for this increase of incarceration since the 1970s could be the "
war on drugs The war on drugs is a global campaign, led by the United States federal government, of drug prohibition, military aid, and military intervention, with the aim of reducing the illegal drug trade in the United States.Cockburn and St. Clair, 1 ...
", 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. Reporting at the annual meeting of the
American Sociological Association The American Sociological Association (ASA) is a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing the discipline and profession of sociology. Founded in December 1905 as the American Sociological Society at Johns Hopkins University by a group of fif ...
(August 3, 2008), Becky Pettit, associate professor of sociology from the
University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seatt ...
and Bryan Sykes, a UW post-doctoral researcher, revealed that the mammoth 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. Guilty
plea bargain A plea bargain (also plea agreement or plea deal) is an agreement in criminal law proceedings, whereby the prosecutor provides a concession to the defendant in exchange for a plea of guilt or ''nolo contendere.'' This may mean that the defendant ...
s concluded 97% of all federal cases in 2011. , two state prison systems, Alabama and South Carolina, segregated prisoners based on their HIV status. On December 21, U.S. District Court Judge
Myron Thompson Myron D. Thompson (April 23, 1936 – January 5, 2019) was a Conservative Member of Parliament in the House of Commons of Canada. He represented the riding of Wild Rose in Alberta. Early life and education A dual citizen of Canada and the Un ...
ruled in a lawsuit brought by the
American Civil Liberties Union The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". T ...
(ACLU) on behalf of several inmates that Alabama's practice in doing so violated federal disabilities law. He noted the state's "outdated and unsupported assumptions about HIV and the prison system's ability to deal with HIV-positive prisoners." In 2022, the
bi-partisan Bipartisanship, sometimes referred to as nonpartisanship, is a political situation, usually in the context of a two-party system (especially those of the United States and some other western countries), in which opposing political parties find co ...
Federal Prison Oversight Act was introduced which would require the Department of Justice's Inspector General to conduct detailed inspections of each of the Bureau of Prisons' 122 facilities and would create an independent Justice Department position to investigate complaints. This was introduced shortly after corruption and abuse was discovered at a federal prison complex in Atlanta with the hopes that it would prevent such occurrences in the future.


Department of Justice "Smart on Crime" Program

On August 12, 2013, at the
American Bar Association The American Bar Association (ABA) is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students, which is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. Founded in 1878, the ABA's most important stated activities are the setting of aca ...
'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." 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…" Running through Holder's statements, the increasing economic burden of over-incarceration was stressed. , the Smart on Crime program is not a legislative initiative but an effort "limited to the DOJ's policy parameters".


Strip searches and cavity searches

The procedural use of strip searches and cavity searches in the prison system has raised human rights concerns.


References in popular culture

In relation to
popular culture Popular culture (also called mass culture or pop culture) is generally recognized by members of a society as a set of practices, beliefs, artistic output (also known as, popular art or mass art) and objects that are dominant or prevalent in a ...
, mass incarceration has become a popular issue in the Hip-Hop community. Artists like
Tupac Shakur Tupac Amaru Shakur ( ; born Lesane Parish Crooks, June 16, 1971 – September 13, 1996), also known as 2Pac and Makaveli, was an American rapper. He is widely considered one of the most influential rappers of all time. Shakur is among the b ...
, NWA,
LL Cool J James Todd Smith (born January 14, 1968), known professionally as LL Cool J (short for Ladies Love Cool James), is an American rapper, songwriter, record producer, and actor. He is one of the earliest rappers to achieve commercial success, along ...
, and
Kendrick Lamar Kendrick Lamar Duckworth (born June 17, 1987) is an American rapper and songwriter. Known for his progressive musical styles and socially conscious songwriting, he is often considered one of the most influential hip hop artists of his generat ...
have written songs and poems that condemn racial disparities in the criminal justice system, specifically the alleged practice of police officers targeting African Americans. By presenting the negative implications of mass incarceration in a way that is widespread throughout popular culture,
rap music Rapping (also rhyming, spitting, emceeing or MCing) is a musical form of vocal delivery that incorporates "rhyme, rhythmic speech, and street vernacular". It is performed or chanted, usually over a backing beat or musical accompaniment. The ...
is more likely to impact younger generations than a book or scholarly article would. Hip hop accounts of mass incarceration are based on victim-based testimony and are effective in inspiring others to speak out against the corrupt criminal justice system. The soul singer Raphael Saadiq's 2019 album, '' Jimmy Lee'', thematizes racial disparities in mass incarceration as well as other societal and family issues affecting African Americans. 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 delivers the staggering message that mass incarceration could be equated to the post-Civil War Jim Crow Era. 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 Alicia Garza (born January 4, 1981) is an American civil rights activist and writer known for co-founding the international Black Lives Matter movement. She has organized around the issues of health, student services and rights, rights for d ...
after the death of Trayvon Martin, was designed as an online platform to fight against anti-Black sentiments such as mass incarceration,
police brutality Police brutality is the excessive and unwarranted use of force by law enforcement against an individual or a group. It is an extreme form of police misconduct and is a civil rights violation. Police brutality includes, but is not limited to ...
, 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."


Federal prisons

The
Federal Bureau of Prisons The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is a United States federal law enforcement agency under the Department of Justice that is responsible for the care, custody, and control of incarcerated individuals who have committed federal crimes; that i ...
, a division of the
United States Department of Justice The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the United States government tasked with the enforcement of federal law and administration of justice in the United Stat ...
, is responsible for the administration of United States federal prisons.


States and insular areas

Imprisonment by the state judicial systems has steadily diminished since 2006 to 2012, from 689,536 annually to 553,843 annually.


Military prisons

Across the world, the U.S. military operates several detention facilities. At year-end 2019, military correctional authorities held about 1,200 prisoners of any sentencing status


See also

* Decarceration in the United States *
Capital punishment in the United States In the United States, capital punishment is a legal penalty throughout the country at the federal level, in 27 states, and in American Samoa. It is also a legal penalty for some military offenses. Capital punishment has been abolished in 23 ...
* Death in custody * 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 * Prison Legal News ;Controversies * Kids for cash scandal ;Prison advocacy groups * November Coalition * Prison Policy Initiative ;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 * Prisons in California * Incarceration in Florida


Notes


References

* .


Further reading


Books

* Michelle Alexander, Alexander, Michelle (2012). ''The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.'' The New Press. * * Angela Davis, Davis, Angela (2003).
Are Prisons Obsolete?
'' Seven Stories Press. * Enns, Peter K. (2016).
Incarceration Nation: How the United States Became the Most Punitive Democracy in the World
'' Cambridge University Press. * Gottschalk, Marie (2014).
Caught: The Prison State and the Lockdown of American Politics
'' Princeton University Press. Book Hardcover , eBook . * Harcourt, Bernard (2012).
The Illusion of Free Markets: Punishment and the Myth of Natural Order
''
Harvard University Press Harvard University Press (HUP) is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. After the retir ...
. * Hinton, Elizabeth (2016).
From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration in America
'' Harvard University Press. *Murakawa, Naomi (2014)
The First Civil Right: How Liberals Built Prison America
Oxford University Press. * * Selman, Donna and Paul Leighton (2010).
Punishment for Sale: Private Prisons, Big Business, and the Incarceration Binge
'' Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. * Matt Taibbi, Taibbi, Matt (2014). '' The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap.'' Spiegel & Grau. * Loïc Wacquant, Wacquant, Loïc (2009).
Prisons of Poverty
'' University of Minnesota Press. * ——— (2009).
Punishing the Poor: The Neoliberal Government of Social Insecurity
'' Duke University Press. * Jackie Wang , Wang, Jackie. (2018).
Carceral Capitalism
'' Semiotext(e). * Western, Bruce (2007).
Punishment and Inequality in America
'' Russell Sage Foundation.


Articles and interviews


The Prison State of America
(2014-12-28), Chris Hedges, ''Truthdig''
How Prisons Rip Off and Exploit the Incarcerated, Part I
(2015-01-04) an
Part II
(2015-01-07), Marshall "Eddie" Conway and Chris Hedges, ''The Real News''
Do Prisons and Mass Incarceration Keep Us Safe? Part I
(2015-01-11) an
Part II
(2015-01-13), Marshall "Eddie" Conway and Maya Schenwar, author of ''Locked Down and Locked Out.'' ''The Real News.''     See also
Tomgram: Maya Schenwar, Prison by Any Other Name
(2015-01-18), ''Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch''
"Carceral Conglomerate" Makes Millions From Incarcerated, Their Friends and Families
(February 2015), Symbionese Liberation Army, James Kilgore and Brian Dolinar, ''Truthout''
Prison Industries: "Don't Let Society Improve or We Lose Business"
(April 2012), Dina Rasor, ''Truthout''
Immigrants mistreated in 'inhumane' private prisons, finds report
''Al Jazeera America.'' June 10, 2014.
Locked Up for Being Poor: How private debt collectors contribute to a cycle of jail, unemployment, and poverty
''The Atlantic.'' February 25, 2015.
Why does the US imprison so many people?
''Al Jazeera America.'' May 14, 2015.
Cruel and All-Too-Usual
''The Huffington Post.'' July 1, 2015.
Big business built the prison state. Why should we trust them to tear it down?
''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers '' The Observer'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the ...
.'' July 17, 2015. * SpearIt, Economic Interest Convergence in Downsizing Imprisonment (2014). University of Pittsburgh Law Review, Vol. 25, 2014. Available at SSRN
Economic Interest Convergence in Downsizing Imprisonment"My Four Months as a Private Prison Guard": Shane Bauer Goes Undercover to Expose Conditions
''Democracy Now!'' June 27, 2016.
Inside America's biggest prison strike: 'The 13th amendment didn't end slavery'
''The Guardian.'' October 22, 2016.

"CNN"'Drew Kann' July 10, 2018 * {{Portal bar, United States, Law Incarceration rates in the United States Penal system in the United States,