Posted on 04/25/2005 8:49:41 AM PDT by BigSkyFreeper
WASHINGTON - Growing at a rate of about 900 inmates each week between mid-2003 and mid-2004, the nation's prisons and jails held 2.1 million people, or one in every 138 U.S. residents, the government reported Sunday.
By last June 30, there were 48,000 more inmates, or 2.3 percent, more than the year before, according to the latest figures from the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
The total inmate population has hovered around 2 million for the past few years, reaching 2.1 million on June 30, 2002, and just below that mark a year later.
While the crime rate has fallen over the past decade, the number of people in prison and jail is outpacing the number of inmates released, said the report's co-author, Paige Harrison. For example, the number of admissions to federal prisons in 2004 exceeded releases by more than 8,000, the study found.
Harrison said the increase can be attributed largely to get-tough policies enacted in the 1980s and 1990s. Among them are mandatory drug sentences, "three-strikes-and-you're-out" laws for repeat offenders, and "truth-in-sentencing" laws that restrict early releases.
Added Malcolm Young, executive director of the Sentencing Project, which promotes alternatives to prison: "We're working under the burden of laws and practices that have developed over 30 years that have focused on punishment and prison as our primary response to crime."
He said many of those incarcerated are not serious or violent offenders, but are low-level drug offenders..
According to the Justice Policy Institute, which advocates a more lenient system of punishment, the United States has a higher rate of incarceration than any other country, followed by Britain, China, France, Japan and Nigeria.
There were 726 inmates for every 100,000 U.S. residents by June 30, 2004, compared with 716 a year earlier, according to the report by the Justice Department agency. In 2004, one in every 138 U.S. residents was in prison or jail; the previous year it was one in every 140.
In 2004, 61 percent of prison and jail inmates were of racial or ethnic minorities, the government said. An estimated 12.6 percent of all black men in their late 20s were in jails or prisons, as were 3.6 percent of Hispanic men and 1.7 percent of white men in that age group, the report said.
Other findings include:
• State prisons held about 2,500 youths under 18 in 2004. That compares with a peak, in 1995, of about 5,300. Local jails held about 7,000 youths, down from 7,800 in 1995.
• In the year ending last June 30, 13 states reported an increase of at least 5 percent in the federal system, led by Minnesota, at about 13 percent; Montana at 10.5 percent; Arkansas at 9 percent.
Among the 12 states that reported a decline in the inmate population were Alabama, 7 percent; Connecticut, 2.5 percent; and Ohio, 2 percent.
All you FReepers who work in the criminal justice system: NICE WORK! Thanks!
You haven't seen anything yet!
Wait until they start arresting and jailing us for hate speech and thought crimes. We are slowly inching in that direction and, I, for one, intend to be among the first arrested (homophobia, racism, whatever).
Well it would be great to incarcerate nothing but murderers, rapists, and pedophiles, but there is one problem. They cost alot of money to investigate, arrest, prosecute, convict, and imprison the vilest of criminals, whereas a low level druggie is easy and cost effective. This way the authorities can justify more money, employees, budgeting so on and so forth to perpetuate their careers. This is what happens when you have the far right (three strikes) making deals with the far left (government beuearacrats).
Why? So they can go out and steal and rob for drug money?
The sad fact is that it is the low-level drug users that need to turn to crime to support their habits.
I will say this about perpetuating crime and that is, if you charge a man with a felony and imprison him, regardless of what he was before, when he gets out of prison he will be a hardened criminal. Even if he was just a user who hurt no one. For this treatment society get's it's just desserts.
Yes, because they cause automobile accidents at rates close to alcohol, but are not statistically recorded. They are also the users who drift towards petty theft and robbery to support their habit.
I would venture to guess that well over 90% of all alcoholics have driven drunk at some time. Should we lock up all alcoholics, whether they are caught behind the wheel or not? Or just the ones actually caught committing the crime?
Then put them in jail for their low level crime, not the drug use.
The language is not very clear, but I believe his point is that the number of people sent to prison now is increasing, even though the crime rate is down.
You would expect if there was less crime, there would be fewer new prison sentences being handed out, while there was a big lump of prisoners serving sentences from when the crime rate was high.
That the national crime rate has fallen recently is a testament to the effectiveness of the Bush Justice Department (as thief Martha used to put it "It's a good thing").
However, I'm a little concerned with the bit about the rising prison population. How are we breaking this thing down here? Does the figure include non-violent drug abusers who have no business being in jail in the first place (political prisoners to the waste of taxpayer money and violation of civil liberties we call a "drug war"), or is it restricted to the violent criminals (murderers, rapists, batterers) and thieves that we should all embrace at the punishment of.
WHICH criminals are being imprisoned at a higher rate?
The convicted among us are not all equals, and all "crimnals" are not necessarily criminal.
RE: "I will say this about perpetuating crime and that is, if you charge a man with a felony and imprison him, regardless of what he was before, when he gets out of prison he will be a hardened criminal. Even if he was just a user who hurt no one. For this treatment society get's it's just desserts."
These are some of the wisest words I've ever read here on FR, waterleak, and they bear repeating. Before you throw a man behind bars for a non-violent crime, you better damn well be sure that he's a threat to others. If not, you just might make him a threat to yourself.
Nice thought but, in my view, that's a fantasy.
My thinking is that, since more criminals are in prison, they're not running loose committing additional crimes. There may also be a deterrent effect as potential criminals see a few of their buddies get sent off to prison.
Since all these convicts knew that the crime for which they were sent to prison for was, in fact, a crime, doesn't that mean that they are pretty much in prison voluntarily?
"My thinking is that, since more criminals are in prison, they're not running loose committing additional crimes. There may also be a deterrent effect as potential criminals see a few of their buddies get sent off to prison.
OK, then fewer crimes are being committed. So who is being sent to jail, and why are there more of them than before? You would expect that there would be fewer NEW prisoners if there is less crime.
The only exception I could see to this would be if they hurt innocent people and were found to be under the influence. I suppose then other charges would get them incarcerated.
More aggressive prosecutions? Higher conviction rates? Tougher sentencing? More plea bargains?
There are a number of possibilities that aren't addressed in the article.
I do not believe in the "no harm-no foul" rule of law. If one wants to use drugs, etc., so be it. But be prepared to do your time if you are caught. Should they be put in a "hard core" prison, perhaps not, but 60 or 90 days living in a tent in some god-forsaking spot is o.k. by me. I don't want to turn drug users into rapists, murderers, or anything like that, but I do want them to learn a hard lesson in life, that being, you pay up when you screw up!!!
We already charge those caught committing a crime.
Certainly, you're right about that, but as a practical matter, I can imagine that a drug possession charge is easier for a prosecutor to "make" than tying a particular addict to the kind of violent crime that goes on every day in places where seriously addictive drugs are commonly consumed. When you have people with no other visible means of support feeding habits that cost a lot of money each week, you have violence against individuals' persons and property to pay for it all. I don't associate that with casual pot smoking, and therefore draw a distinction.
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