Over the past four decades, the rate of incarceration in the United States has skyrocketed to unprecedented heights, both historically and in comparison to that of other developed nations. At far higher rates than the general population, those in or entering U.S. jails and prisons are prone to many health problems. This is a problem not just for them, but also for the communities from which they come and to which, in nearly all cases, they will return. Health and Incarceration is the summary of a workshop jointly sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences(NAS) Committee on Law and Justice and the Institute of Medicine(IOM) Board on Health and Select Populations in December 2012. Academics, practitioners, state officials, and nongovernmental organization representatives from the fields of healthcare, prisoner advocacy, and corrections reviewed what is known about these health issues and what appear to be the best opportunities to improve healthcare for those who are now or will be incarcerated. The workshop was designed as a roundtable with brief presentations from 16 experts and time for group discussion. Health and Incarceration reviews what is known about the health of incarcerated individuals, the healthcare they receive, and effects of incarceration on public health. This report identifies opportunities to improve healthcare for these populations and provides a platform for visions of how the world of incarceration health can be a better place.
Inside the Broken California Prison System by veteran jailhouse journalist Boston Woodard provides an insider 's view of California's dysfunctional prison industrial complex in crisis. On May 23, 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that due to massive overcrowding, California is in violation of the Eighth Amendment, which constitutionally prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. Because its 33 prisons are at nearly 200 percent capacity, the state has been ordered to release or find new accommodations for more than 30,000 prisoners within two years. With the harshest sentencing laws, toughest parole policy, and highest recidivism rate in the nation, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is a failure on all counts except for those who profit from the $10 billion spent annually to maintain it. Woodard describes how it came to this, as well as the day-to-day reality of the impact on prisoners in a corrupt system effectively accountable to no one.Inside the Broken California Prison System is a collection of more than 40 articles originally published over a period of six years in the Community Alliance, a small monthly newspaper in Fresno, California. They detail subjects such as restricted media access to prisoners, the brutal impact of overcrowding, medical and mental health treatment failures, rogue prison staff, religious and racial discrimination, an omnipotent prison guard union, and shipping prisoners out of state to private prisons. At the same time he offers real solutions to the overcrowding problem that would not endanger public safety.Woodard is a writer, musician, literacy tutor, event organizer, and prisoners rights advocate who has been writing about what goes on inside the California prison system for almost two decades in both free world and prison publications. His articles have embarrassed and angered prison officials used to operating without public oversight, and he 's paid a price for exercising his First Amendment right to define his surroundings. He 's been put in the Hole, had his mail tampered with, lost his typewriter, subjected to verbal threats, had his personal property stolen or destroyed, and been illegally and adversely transferred from prison to prison. Still he refuses to be intimidated. My writing is not about prison rights, he says. It 's about the public 's right to know about the good and bad within these prison walls and how their money is being spent. It 's also about the positive efforts of men and women given up for lost by society. I just want the guards and prison officials to do what is demanded of me and every other prisoner in the system, and that is to obey the law and follow the regulations.
"Tackling Prison Overcrowding is a response to controversial proposals and sentencing set out in by Lord Patrick Carter's review of prisons, published in 2007." "This book comprises nine chapters by leading academic experts, who expose the proposals of the Carter Review to critical scrutiny. They take the Carter Report to task for construing the problems too narrowly, in terms of efficiency and economy, and for failing to understand the wider issues of justice that need addressing. They argue that the crisis of prison overcrowding is first and foremost a political problem - arising from penal populism - for which political solutions need to be found."--BOOK JACKET.
This volume is a summary of a 1S-year effort to determine the effects of prison crowding and their relationship to the broader realm of crowding phenomena and theories. Although the writing of this volume was for the most part a solitary effort, the data and ideas it is based on were mostly the result of a collaborative effort with Verne Cox and Garvin McCain. Their schedules limited their ability to contribute to this volume, but they provided much constructive feedback and assistance. Cox also wrote a preliminary draft of Chapter 3, and both McCain and Cox made major contributions to Chapter S and assisted with several other chapters. I am greatly indebted to these two fine scholars for their efforts and support over the course of our joint research endeavors. In recognition of this fact, the pronoun "we" is used throughout this volume. This research would not have been possible without the cooperation and support of thousands of inmates and hundreds of prison officials. The un conditional support throughout the project from Director Norman Carlson and former regional research director Jerome Mabli, both of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, is also greatly appreciated. Thanks are due to the National Institute of Justice for financial support during various phases of this project. The support of John Spevacek of the Institute was indispens able. Funds were also provided by the Hogg Foundation, U. S. Department of Justice-Civil Rights Division, and the University of Texas at Arlington.
After decades of stability from the 1920s to the early 1970s, the rate of imprisonment in the United States has increased fivefold during the last four decades. The U.S. penal population of 2.2 million adults is by far the largest in the world. Just under one-quarter of the world's prisoners are held in American prisons. The U.S. rate of incarceration, with nearly 1 out of every 100 adults in prison or jail, is 5 to 10 times higher than the rates in Western Europe and other democracies. The U.S. prison population is largely drawn from the most disadvantaged part of the nation's population: mostly men under age 40, disproportionately minority, and poorly educated. Prisoners often carry additional deficits of drug and alcohol addictions, mental and physical illnesses, and lack of work preparation or experience. The growth of incarceration in the United States during four decades has prompted numerous critiques and a growing body of scientific knowledge about what prompted the rise and what its consequences have been for the people imprisoned, their families and communities, and for U.S. society. The Growth of Incarceration in the United States examines research and analysis of the dramatic rise of incarceration rates and its affects. This study makes the case that the United States has gone far past the point where the numbers of people in prison can be justified by social benefits and has reached a level where these high rates of incarceration themselves constitute a source of injustice and social harm. The Growth of Incarceration in the United States examines policy changes that created an increasingly punitive political climate and offers specific policy advice in sentencing policy, prison policy, and social policy. The report also identifies important research questions that must be answered to provide a firmer basis for policy. This report is a call for change in the way society views criminals, punishment, and prison. This landmark study assesses the evidence and its implications for public policy to inform an extensive and thoughtful public debate about and reconsideration of policies.
Between 1975 and 2007, the American incarceration rate increased nearly fivefold, a historic increase that puts the United States in a league of its own among advanced economies. We incarcerate more people today than we ever have, and we stand out as the nation that most frequently uses incarceration to punish those who break the law. What factors explain the dramatic rise in incarceration rates in such a short period of time? In Why Are So Many Americans in Prison? Steven Raphael and Michael A. Stoll analyze the shocking expansion of America’s prison system and illustrate the pressing need to rethink mass incarceration in this country. Raphael and Stoll carefully evaluate changes in crime patterns, enforcement practices and sentencing laws to reach a sobering conclusion: So many Americans are in prison today because we have chosen, through our public policies, to put them there. They dispel the notion that a rise in crime rates fueled the incarceration surge; in fact, crime rates have steadily declined to all-time lows. There is also little evidence for other factors commonly offered to explain the prison boom, such as the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill since the 1950s, changing demographics, or the crack-cocaine epidemic. By contrast, Raphael and Stoll demonstrate that legislative changes to a relatively small set of sentencing policies explain nearly all prison growth since the 1980s. So-called tough on crime laws, including mandatory minimum penalties and repeat offender statutes, have increased the propensity to punish more offenders with lengthier prison sentences. Raphael and Stoll argue that the high-incarceration regime has inflicted broad social costs, particularly among minority communities, who form a disproportionate share of the incarcerated population. Why Are So Many Americans in Prison? ends with a powerful plea to consider alternative crime control strategies, such as expanded policing, drug court programs, and sentencing law reform, which together can end our addiction to incarceration and still preserve public safety. As states confront the budgetary and social costs of the incarceration boom, Why Are So Many Americans in Prison? provides a revealing and accessible guide to the policies that created the era of mass incarceration and what we can do now to end it.
Since 1980, the number of people in U.S. prisons has increased more than 450%. Despite a crime rate that has been falling steadily for decades, California has led the way in this explosion, with what a state analyst called "the biggest prison building project in the history of the world." Golden Gulag provides the first detailed explanation for that buildup by looking at how political and economic forces, ranging from global to local, conjoined to produce the prison boom. In an informed and impassioned account, Ruth Wilson Gilmore examines this issue through statewide, rural, and urban perspectives to explain how the expansion developed from surpluses of finance capital, labor, land, and state capacity. Detailing crises that hit California’s economy with particular ferocity, she argues that defeats of radical struggles, weakening of labor, and shifting patterns of capital investment have been key conditions for prison growth. The results—a vast and expensive prison system, a huge number of incarcerated young people of color, and the increase in punitive justice such as the "three strikes" law—pose profound and troubling questions for the future of California, the United States, and the world. Golden Gulag provides a rich context for this complex dilemma, and at the same time challenges many cherished assumptions about who benefits and who suffers from the state’s commitment to prison expansion.
The incarceration rate in the United States is the highest of any developed nation, with a prison population of approximately 2.3 million in 2016. Over 700,000 prisoners are released each year, and most face significant educational, economic, and social disadvantages. In After Prison, sociologist David Harding and criminologist Heather Harris provide a comprehensive account of young men’s experiences of reentry and reintegration in the era of mass incarceration. They focus on the unique challenges faced by 1,300 black and white youth aged 18 to 25 who were released from Michigan prisons in 2003, investigating the lives of those who achieved some measure of success after leaving prison as well as those who struggled with the challenges of creating new lives for themselves. The transition to young adulthood typically includes school completion, full-time employment, leaving the childhood home, marriage, and childbearing, events that are disrupted by incarceration. While one quarter of the young men who participated in the study successfully transitioned into adulthood—achieving employment and residential independence and avoiding arrest and incarceration—the same number of young men remained deeply involved with the criminal justice system, spending on average four out of the seven years after their initial release re-incarcerated. Not surprisingly, whites are more likely to experience success after prison. The authors attribute this racial disparity to the increased stigma of criminal records for blacks, racial discrimination, and differing levels of social network support that connect whites to higher quality jobs. Black men earn less than white men, are more concentrated in industries characterized by low wages and job insecurity, and are less likely to remain employed once they have a job. The authors demonstrate that families, social networks, neighborhoods, and labor market, educational, and criminal justice institutions can have a profound impact on young people’s lives. Their research indicates that residential stability is key to the transition to adulthood. Harding and Harris make the case for helping families, municipalities, and non-profit organizations provide formerly incarcerated young people access to long-term supportive housing and public housing. A remarkably large number of men in this study eventually enrolled in college, reflecting the growing recognition of college as a gateway to living wage work. But the young men in the study spent only brief spells in college, and the majority failed to earn degrees. They were most likely to enroll in community colleges, trade schools, and for-profit institutions, suggesting that interventions focused on these kinds of schools are more likely to be effective. The authors suggest that, in addition to helping students find employment, educational institutions can aid reentry efforts for the formerly incarcerated by providing supports like childcare and paid apprenticeships. After Prison offers a set of targeted policy interventions to improve these young people’s chances: lifting restrictions on federal financial aid for education, encouraging criminal record sealing and expungement, and reducing the use of incarceration in response to technical parole violations. This book will be an important contribution to the fields of scholarly work on the criminal justice system and disconnected youth.
