The Crime Report (https://thecrimereport.org/tag/mass-incarceration/)
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.
Although the US prison population has begun to decline, researcher Malcolm C. Young says the rate of decrease is so low that the goal of prison reformers to cut prison populations by half would unlikely be reached until 2068.
GOP-appointed judges hand down longer sentences to African Americans than whites for similar offenses, according to a study by two Harvard professors. They argue the current polarized political climate in judicial politics is a “source of persistent racial and gender disparities.”
For lack of alternatives, thousands of mentally ill individuals are trapped in the justice system. In a conversation with TCR, Alisa Roth, author of “Insane: America’s Criminal Treatment of Mental Illness,” says change will only happen when we reexamine our attitudes towards mental illness.
Reducing US prison populations requires a strategy that engages all the players in the justice system, from courts to community residents to the media, a panel at NYU’s Brennan Center for Justice was told.
On an average day in an average year, around 1,700 people are released from federal penitentiaries and state prisons. The odds of successfully reintegrating into civilian life are stacked against most of them, says a California researcher.
The percentage of U.S. residents in jail dropped 3.4 percent from midyear 2012 to midyear 2016, says the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. County and city jails held 740,700 inmates at midyear 2016, far below the peak of 785,500 in 2008.
The sentencing overhaul championed by Gov. Bruce Rauner has already cut inmate numbers by 7,000. But reforms at the county level, influencing who goes to prison in the first place, have been a critical ingredient in the state’s success—and could be a model for jurisdictions elsewhere.