Corrections

Corrections

Corrections

Prisons are the new ghetto, filled not only with people of

color, but increasingly by immigrants. The mass

incarceration model has reached unimaginable proportions,

levels that not even the “prison works” proponents would

have deemed or dreamed possible just a decade ago. This

civic genocide if you will, is being realized due in large part to

the chronic ambivalence on the part of the general public.

We are, for all intense and purposes, burying people alive.

We have gone beyond just deserts and have adopted a model

of penal harm. It is a national disgrace.

American overuse of incarceration

• The United States has 4.5% of the world’s population, but 25% of the world’s prisoners.
• There are currently 1.7 million people incarcerated in America (in jail or prison).
• The overall adult incarceration rate in America is 660/100,000.

American overuse of incarceration…continued

• The number of inmates has been dropping of late.
• There are a little over 1 million inmates in state prisons, 150,0o0 in federal facilities, another 550,000 in jails, and roughly 45,000 youth in juvenile correctional institutions, yielding a total of roughly 1.7 million behind bars.
• Again, the overall adult incarceration rate in America is 660/100,000, which is the highest in the world.

Problems with the overuse of incarceration

• Expensive ($80 billion/year; $45,000/inmate/year)
• Biased/discriminatory
• Unconstitutional conditions of confinement
• Overcrowding logistics
• Aggravates the crime problem
• Short term (communal cohesion tipping point theory)
• Long term

Punishment in America

• We punish in many forms, not just incarceration.
• We punish many people.
• There are roughly 5.5 million adults under some form of correctional supervision in America. This is 2.1% of the adult population.
• One adult in 47 is under some form of correctional supervision.