The Crime Report (https://thecrimereport.org/tag/mass-incarceration/)
Congress shouldn’t rest on its laurels following the landmark sentencing overhaul bill signed into law in December, writes one of the original advocates of the legislation. He argues the changes should be part of a major ongoing effort to reform the U.S. justice system.
Restoring access to Pell Grants for post-secondary education in prison would also increase employment rates among formerly incarcerated people across the United States by nearly 10 percent, according to a study by the Vera Institute of Justice and the Georgetown Center on Poverty and Inequality.
Not everyone welcomed the election of reform-minded prosecutors around the country last fall. The case of new Suffolk County. Ma., DA Rachael Rollins is an example of pushback from tough-on-crime advocates, warns a reform advocate.
Fordham’s John Pfaff reprises his 2017 book’s critique of the criminal justice reform movement with a new and pessimistic take on the state of play in dismantling mass incarceration.
Plans to create a system of smaller detention facilities around New York City to replace the controversial Rikers Island jail complex could make the city a model for ending the nation’s “tragic reliance on mass incarceration,” says former New York Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman.
Sharp disparities between the imprisonment rates of urban and rural Americans illustrate the “new dynamics of mass incarceration” in the U.S., the Vera Institute of Justice said Friday.
Terminally ill Vermont inmate Bobby Hutt made it home to die, thanks to the fierce advocacy of his sisters. But although nearly all states allow “compassionate release,” it’s often underused.
Belton “Money Rock” Platt, a young, flamboyant drug dealer in Charlotte, N.C., spent 20 years in prison before emerging to become a minister. In a new book, journalist Pam Kelley places his life story in the context of generations of southern racism, and in a chat with TCR she explains why such stories remain painfully relevant today.
The Urban Institute and the American Civil Liberties Union have developed companion tools aimed at helping states understand the factors that drive their prison populations, and fashion policies that can reduce them without affecting public safety. The ACLU says its tool can help produce “transformational change” in the nation’s prison system.
Six months after taking office, Philadelphia’s controversial DA says incarceration levels have dropped as a result of his reforms, with no increase in most categories of violent crime. But he argues that further reductions require changes in the way the justice system deals with individuals convicted of violent offenses.