December
20, 2013 (The Huffington Post)
CAN WE WAIT 88 YEARS TO END MASS INCARCERATION?
CAN WE WAIT 88 YEARS TO END MASS INCARCERATION?
Nazgol Ghandnoosh, research analyst, and Marc Mauer, executive
director of The Sentencing Project write that while “there is a growing
momentum for criminal justice reform…any optimism needs to be tempered by the
very modest rate of decline.”
In 2012, the decline was 1.8 percent. If that rate
continues, the two conclude that “it will take until 2101 -- 88 years -- for
the prison population to return to its 1980 level.
“We hear less ‘tough on crime’ rhetoric and budget-conscious
conservatives are embracing sentencing reforms. The Attorney General has
criticized aspects of the criminal justice system and directed federal
prosecutors to seek reduced sanctions against lower-level offenders.
“In light of this, one would think we should celebrate the new
figures from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) showing a decline in the
U.S. prison population for the third consecutive year. This follows rising
prisoner counts for every year between 1973 and 2010. BJS reports that 28
states reduced their prison populations in 2012, contributing to a national
reduction of 29,000. Beset by budget constraints and a growing concern for
effective approaches to public safety, state policymakers have begun downsizing
unsustainable institutional populations.
“The break in the prison population's unremitting growth offers an
overdue reprieve and a cause for hope for sustained reversal of the nearly
four-decade growth pattern.
“But the population in federal prisons has yet to decline. And
even among the states, the trend is not uniformly or unreservedly positive.
Most states that trimmed their prison populations in 2012 did so by small
amounts -- eight registered declines of less than 1 percent. Further, over half
of the 2012 prison count reduction comes from the 10 percent decline in
California's prison population, required by a Supreme Court mandate.
“Given recent policy changes, why has there been such a small
reduction in the number of people held in prisons? First, many sentencing
reforms have understandably focused on low-level offenders.
“But most significantly, policymakers have neglected the bulk of
those who are in state prisons: an aging population convicted of violent crimes
or repeat offenses.
“Certainly the changing climate, new policies, and recent prisoner
counts offer reason for encouragement. But unless we want to wait 88 years to
achieve a sensible prison population, we need to accelerate the scale of
reform.”
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