Too many laws, too many prisoners

Too many laws, too many prisoners
Jul 22nd 2010 | SPRING, TEXAS

Never in the civilised world have so many been locked up for so little



THREE pickup trucks pulled up outside George Norris’s home in Spring, Texas. Six armed police in flak jackets jumped out. Thinking they must have come to the wrong place, Mr Norris opened his front door, and was startled to be shoved against a wall and frisked for weapons. He was forced into a chair for four hours while officers ransacked his house. They pulled out drawers, rifled through papers, dumped things on the floor and eventually loaded 37 boxes of Mr Norris’s possessions onto their pickups. They refused to tell him what he had done wrong. “It wasn’t fun, I can tell you that,” he recalls.

Mr Norris was 65 years old at the time, and a collector of orchids. He eventually discovered that he was suspected of smuggling the flowers into America, an offence under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. This came as a shock. He did indeed import flowers and sell them to other orchid-lovers. And it was true that his suppliers in Latin America were sometimes sloppy about their paperwork. In a shipment of many similar-looking plants, it was rare for each permit to match each orchid precisely.

In March 2004, five months after the raid, Mr Norris was indicted, handcuffed and thrown into a cell with a suspected murderer and two suspected drug-dealers. When told why he was there, “they thought it hilarious.” One asked: “What do you do with these things? Smoke ’em?”


Prosecutors described Mr Norris as the “kingpin” of an international smuggling ring. He was dumbfounded: his annual profits were never more than about $20,000. When prosecutors suggested that he should inform on other smugglers in return for a lighter sentence, he refused, insisting he knew nothing beyond hearsay.

He pleaded innocent. But an undercover federal agent had ordered some orchids from him, a few of which arrived without the correct papers. For this, he was charged with making a false statement to a government official, a federal crime punishable by up to five years in prison. Since he had communicated with his suppliers, he was charged with conspiracy, which also carries a potential five-year term.

As his legal bills exploded, Mr Norris reluctantly changed his plea to guilty, though he still protests his innocence. He was sentenced to 17 months in prison. After some time, he was released while his appeal was heard, but then put back inside. His health suffered: he has Parkinson’s disease, which was not helped by the strain of imprisonment. For bringing some prescription sleeping pills into prison, he was put in solitary confinement for 71 days. The prison was so crowded, however, that even in solitary he had two room-mates.

A long love affair with lock and key


Justice is harsher in America than in any other rich country. Between 2.3m and 2.4m Americans are behind bars, roughly one in every 100 adults. If those on parole or probation are included, one adult in 31 is under “correctional” supervision. As a proportion of its total population, America incarcerates five times more people than Britain, nine times more than Germany and 12 times more than Japan. Overcrowding is the norm. Federal prisons house 60% more inmates than they were designed for. State lock-ups are only slightly less stuffed.

The system has three big flaws, say criminologists. First, it puts too many people away for too long. Second, it criminalises acts that need not be criminalised. Third, it is unpredictable. Many laws, especially federal ones, are so vaguely written that people cannot easily tell whether they have broken them.

In 1970 the proportion of Americans behind bars was below one in 400, compared with today’s one in 100. Since then, the voters, alarmed at a surge in violent crime, have demanded fiercer sentences. Politicians have obliged. New laws have removed from judges much of their discretion to set a sentence that takes full account of the circumstances of the offence. Since no politician wants to be tarred as soft on crime, such laws, mandating minimum sentences, are seldom softened. On the contrary, they tend to get harder.


Some criminals belong behind bars. When a habitual rapist is locked up, the streets are safer. But the same is not necessarily true of petty drug-dealers, whose incarceration creates a vacancy for someone else to fill, argues Alfred Blumstein of Carnegie Mellon University. The number of drug offenders in federal and state lock-ups has increased 13-fold since 1980. Some are scary thugs; many are not.

Michelle Collette of Hanover, Massachusetts, sold Percocet, a prescription painkiller. “I was planning to do it just once,” she says, “but the money was so easy. And I thought: it’s not heroin.” Then she became addicted to her own wares. She was unhappy with her boyfriend, she explains, but did not want to split up with him, because she did not want their child to grow up fatherless, as she had. So she popped pills to numb the misery. Before long, she was taking 20-30 a day.

When Ms Collette and her boyfriend, who also sold drugs, were arrested in a dawn raid, the police found 607 pills and $901 in cash. The boyfriend fought the charges and got 15 years in prison. In a plea bargain Ms Collette was sentenced to seven years, of which she served six.

“I don’t think this is fair,” said the judge. “I don’t think this is what our laws are meant to do. It’s going to cost upwards of $50,000 a year to have you in state prison. Had I the authority, I would send you to jail for no more than one year…and a [treatment] programme after that.” But mandatory sentencing laws gave him no choice.

Massachusetts is a liberal state, but its drug laws are anything but. It treats opium-derived painkillers such as Percocet like hard drugs, if illicitly sold. Possession of a tiny amount (14-28 grams, or ½-1 ounce) yields a minimum sentence of three years. For 200 grams, it is 15 years, more than the minimum for armed rape. And the weight of the other substances with which a dealer mixes his drugs is included in the total, so 10 grams of opiates mixed with 190 grams of flour gets you 15 years.

Ms Collette underwent drug treatment before being locked up, and is now clean. But in prison she found she was pregnant. After going through labour shackled to a hospital bed, she was allowed only 48 hours to bond with her newborn son. She was released in March, found a job in a shop, and is hoping that her son will get used to having her around.

Rigid sentencing laws shift power from judges to prosecutors, complains Barbara Dougan of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, a pressure-group. Even the smallest dealer often has enough to trigger a colossal sentence. Prosecutors may charge him with selling a smaller amount if he agrees to “reel some other poor slob in”, as Ms Dougan puts it. He is told to persuade another dealer to sell him just enough drugs to trigger a 15-year sentence, and perhaps to do the deal near a school, which adds another two years.

Severe drug laws have unintended consequences. Less than half of American cancer patients receive adequate painkillers, according to the American Pain Foundation, another pressure-group. One reason is that doctors are terrified of being accused of drug-trafficking if they over-prescribe. In 2004 William Hurwitz, a doctor specialising in the control of pain, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for prescribing pills that a few patients then resold on the black market. Virginia’s board of medicine ruled that he had acted in good faith, but he still served nearly four years.

Half the states have laws that lock up habitual offenders for life. In some states this applies only to violent criminals, but in others it applies even to petty ones. Some 3,700 people who committed neither violent nor serious crimes are serving life sentences under California’s “three strikes and you’re out” law. In Alabama a petty thief called Jerald Sanders was given a life term for pinching a bicycle. Alabama’s judges are elected, as are those in 32 other states. This makes them mindful of public opinion: some appear in campaign advertisements waving guns and bragging about how tough they are.
Watching hairs go white, and lifetimes ebb away

Many Americans assume that white-collar criminals get off lightly, but many do not. Granted, they may be hard to catch and can often afford good lawyers. But federal prosecutors can file many charges for what is essentially one offence. For example, they can count each e-mail sent by a white-collar criminal in the course of his criminal activity as a separate case of wire fraud, each of which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years. The decades soon add up. Sentences depend partly on the size of the loss and the number of people affected, so if you work for a big, publicly traded company, you break a rule and the share-price drops, watch out.

Eternal punishment

Jim Felman, a defence lawyer in Tampa, Florida, says America is conducting “an experiment in imprisoning first-time non-violent offenders for periods of time previously reserved only for those who had killed someone”. One of Mr Felman’s clients, a fraudster called Sholam Weiss, was sentenced to 845 years. “I got it reduced to 835,” sighs Mr Felman. Faced with such penalties, he says, the incentive to co-operate, which means to say things that are helpful to the prosecution, is overwhelming. And this, he believes, “warps the truth-seeking function” of justice.

Innocent defendants may plead guilty in return for a shorter sentence to avoid the risk of a much longer one. A prosecutor can credibly threaten a middle-aged man that he will die in a cell unless he gives evidence against his boss. This is unfair, complains Harvey Silverglate, the author of “Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent”. If a defence lawyer offers a witness money to testify that his client is innocent, that is bribery. But a prosecutor can legally offer something of far greater value—his freedom—to a witness who says the opposite. The potential for wrongful convictions is obvious.

Badly drafted laws create traps for the unwary. In 2006 Georgia Thompson, a civil servant in Wisconsin, was sentenced to 18 months in prison for depriving the public of “the intangible right of honest services”. Her crime was to award a contract (for travel services) to the best bidder. A firm called Adelman Travel scored the most points (on an official scale) for price and quality, so Ms Thompson picked it. She ignored a rule that required her to penalise Adelman for a slapdash presentation when bidding. For this act of common sense, she served four months. (An appeals court freed her.)

The “honest services” statute, if taken seriously, “would seemingly cover a salaried employee’s phoning in sick to go to a ball game,” fumes Antonin Scalia, a Supreme Court justice. The Supreme Court ruled recently that the statute was so vague as to be unconstitutional. It did not strike it down completely, but said it should be applied only in cases involving bribery or kickbacks. The challenge was brought by Enron’s former boss, Jeff Skilling, who will not go free despite his victory, and Conrad Black, a media magnate released this week on bail pending an appeal, who may.

There are over 4,000 federal crimes, and many times that number of regulations that carry criminal penalties. When analysts at the Congressional Research Service tried to count the number of separate offences on the books, they were forced to give up, exhausted. Rules concerning corporate governance or the environment are often impossible to understand, yet breaking them can land you in prison. In many criminal cases, the common-law requirement that a defendant must have a mens rea (ie, he must or should know that he is doing wrong) has been weakened or erased.

“The founders viewed the criminal sanction as a last resort, reserved for serious offences, clearly defined, so ordinary citizens would know whether they were violating the law. Yet over the last 40 years, an unholy alliance of big-business-hating liberals and tough-on-crime conservatives has made criminalisation the first line of attack—a way to demonstrate seriousness about the social problem of the month, whether it’s corporate scandals or e-mail spam,” writes Gene Healy, a libertarian scholar. “You can serve federal time for interstate transport of water hyacinths, trafficking in unlicensed dentures, or misappropriating the likeness of Woodsy Owl.”

“You’re (probably) a federal criminal,” declares Alex Kozinski, an appeals-court judge, in a provocative essay of that title. Making a false statement to a federal official is an offence. So is lying to someone who then repeats your lie to a federal official. Failing to prevent your employees from breaking regulations you have never heard of can be a crime. A boss got six months in prison because one of his workers accidentally broke a pipe, causing oil to spill into a river. “It didn’t matter that he had no reason to learn about the [Clean Water Act’s] labyrinth of regulations, since he was merely a railroad-construction supervisor,” laments Judge Kozinski.
Society wants retribution

Such cases account for only a tiny share of the Americans behind bars, but they still matter. When so many people are technically breaking the law, it is up to prosecutors to decide whom to pursue. No doubt most prosecutors choose wisely. But members of unpopular groups may not find that reassuring. Ms Thompson, for example, was prosecuted just before an election, at a time when allegations of public corruption in Wisconsin were in the news. Some prosecutors, such as Eliot Spitzer, the disgraced ex-governor of New York, have built political careers by nailing people whom voters don’t like, such as financiers.

Prison deters? Not much, not the worst

Some people argue that the system works: that crime has fallen in the past two decades because the bad guys are either in prison or scared of being sent there. Caged thugs cannot break into your home. Bernie Madoff’s 150-year sentence for running a Ponzi scam should deter imitators. And indeed the crime rate continues to drop, despite the recession, as Michael Rushford of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, an advocacy group, points out. This, he says, is because habitual criminals face serious consequences. Some research supports him: after raking through decades of historical data, John Donohue of Yale Law School estimates that a 10% increase in imprisonment brings a 2% reduction in crime.

Others disagree. Using more recent data, Bert Useem of Purdue University and Anne Piehl of Rutgers University estimate that a 10% increase in the number of people behind bars would reduce crime by only 0.5%. In the states that currently lock up the most people, imprisoning more would actually increase crime, they believe. Some inmates emerge from prison as more accomplished criminals. And raising the incarceration rate means locking up people who are, on average, less dangerous than the ones already behind bars. A recent study found that, over the past 13 years, the proportion of new prisoners in Florida who had committed violent crimes fell by 28%, whereas those inside for “other” crimes shot up by 189%. These “other” crimes were non-violent ones involving neither drugs nor theft, such as driving with a suspended licence.

And now the reckoning, in dollars

Crime is a young man’s game. Muggers over 30 are rare. Ex-cons who go straight for a few years generally stay that way: a study of 88,000 criminals by Mr Blumstein found that if someone was arrested for aggravated assault at the age of 18 but then managed to stay out of trouble until the age of 22, the risk of his offending was no greater than that for the general population. Yet America’s prisons are crammed with old folk. Nearly 200,000 prisoners are over 50. Most would pose little threat if released. And since people age faster in prison than outside, their medical costs are vast. Human Rights Watch, a lobby-group, talks of “nursing homes with razor wire”.

Jail is expensive. Spending per prisoner ranges from $18,000 a year in Mississippi to about $50,000 in California, where the cost per pupil is but a seventh of that. “[W]e are well past the point of diminishing returns,” says a report by the Pew Center on the States. In Washington state, for example, each dollar invested in new prison places in 1980 averted more than nine dollars of criminal harm (using a somewhat arbitrary scale to assign a value to not being beaten up). By 2001, as the emphasis shifted from violent criminals to drug-dealers and thieves, the cost-benefit ratio reversed. Each new dollar spent on prisons averted only 37 cents’ worth of harm.

Since the recession threw their budgets into turmoil, many states have decided to imprison fewer people, largely to save money. Mississippi has reduced the proportion of their sentences that non-violent offenders are required to serve from 85% to 25%. Texas is making greater use of non-custodial penalties. New York has repealed most mandatory minimum terms for drug offences. In all, the number of prisoners in state lock-ups fell by 0.3% in 2009, the first fall since 1972. But the total number of Americans behind bars still rose slightly, because the number of federal prisoners climbed by 3.4%.

A less punitive system could work better, argues Mark Kleiman of the University of California, Los Angeles. Swift and certain penalties deter more than harsh ones. Money spent on prisons cannot be spent on more cost-effective methods of crime-prevention, such as better policing, drug treatment or probation. The pain that punishment inflicts on criminals themselves, on their families and on their communities should also be taken into account.

“Just by making effective use of things we already know how to do, we could reasonably expect to have half as much crime and half as many people behind bars ten years from now,” says Mr Kleiman. “There are a thousand excuses for failing to make that effort, but not one good reason.”

Source: http://www.economist.com/node/16636027

* * * * *

1 in 100 U.S. Adults Behind Bars, New Study Says
By ADAM LIPTAK
February 28, 2008

For the first time in the nation’s history, more than one in 100 American adults is behind bars, according to a new report.

Nationwide, the prison population grew by 25,000 last year, bringing it to almost 1.6 million. Another 723,000 people are in local jails. The number of American adults is about 230 million, meaning that one in every 99.1 adults is behind bars.

Incarceration rates are even higher for some groups. One in 36 Hispanic adults is behind bars, based on Justice Department figures for 2006. One in 15 black adults is, too, as is one in nine black men between the ages of 20 and 34.

The report, from the Pew Center on the States, also found that only one in 355 white women between the ages of 35 and 39 are behind bars but that one in 100 black women are.

The report’s methodology differed from that used by the Justice Department, which calculates the incarceration rate by using the total population rather than the adult population as the denominator. Using the department’s methodology, about one in 130 Americans is behind bars.

Either way, said Susan Urahn, the center’s managing director, “we aren’t really getting the return in public safety from this level of incarceration.”

But Paul Cassell, a law professor at the University of Utah and a former federal judge, said the Pew report considered only half of the cost-benefit equation and overlooked the “very tangible benefits — lower crime rates.”

In the past 20 years, according the Federal Bureau of Investigation, violent crime rates fell by 25 percent, to 464 for every 100,000 people in 2007 from 612.5 in 1987.

“While we certainly want to be smart about who we put into prisons,” Professor Cassell said, “it would be a mistake to think that we can release any significant number of prisoners without increasing crime rates. One out of every 100 adults is behind bars because one out of every 100 adults has committed a serious criminal offense.”

Ms. Urahn said the nation cannot afford the incarceration rate documented in the report. “We tend to be a country in which incarceration is an easy response to crime,” she said. “Being tough on crime is an easy position to take, particularly if you have the money. And we did have the money in the ‘80s and ‘90s.”

Now, with fewer resources available, the report said, “prison costs are blowing a hole in state budgets.” On average, states spend almost 7 percent on their budgets on corrections, trailing only healthcare, education and transportation.

In 2007, according to the National Association of State Budgeting Officers, states spent $44 billion in tax dollars on corrections. That is up from $10.6 billion in 1987, a 127 increase once adjusted for inflation. With money from bonds and the federal government included, total state spending on corrections last year was $49 billion. By 2011, the report said, states are on track to spend an additional $25 billion.

It cost an average of $23,876 dollars to imprison someone in 2005, the most recent year for which data were available. But state spending varies widely, from $45,000 a year in Rhode Island to $13,000 in Louisiana.

The cost of medical care is growing by 10 percent annually, the report said, and will accelerate as the prison population ages.

About one in nine state government employees works in corrections, and some states are finding it hard to fill those jobs. California spent more than $500 million on overtime alone in 2006.

The number of prisoners in California dropped by 4,000 last year, making Texas’s prison system the nation’s largest, at about 172,000. But the Texas legislature last year approved broad changes to the corrections system there, including expansions of drug treatment programs and drug courts and revisions to parole practices.

“Our violent offenders, we lock them up for a very long time — rapists, murderers, child molestors,” said John Whitmire, a Democratic state senator from Houston and the chairman of the state senate’s criminal justice committee. “The problem was that we weren’t smart about nonviolent offenders. The legislature finally caught up with the public.”

He gave an example.

“We have 5,500 D.W.I offenders in prison,” he said, including people caught driving under the influence who had not been in an accident. “They’re in the general population. As serious as drinking and driving is, we should segregate them and give them treatment.”

The Pew report recommended diverting nonviolent offenders away from prison and using punishments short of reincarceration for minor or technical violations of probation or parole. It also urged states to consider earlier release of some prisoners.

Before the recent changes in Texas, Mr. Whitmire said, “we were recycling nonviolent offenders.”

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/us/28cnd-prison.html

* * * * *

Incarceration Rates Growth Causes

• 
  
• Oregon Corrections Population Forecast [PDF] State of Oregon Office of Economic Analysis. October, 2011. "The number of inmates housed in Oregon's prisons, currently about 14,000, is expected grow to 16,000 inmates by the end of the decade, with much of that growth occurring over the next four years."
• Arrest In The United States, 1980-2009 [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. September, 2011. "The U.S. murder arrest rate in 2009 was about half of what it was in the early 1980s. Over the 30-year period ending in 2009, the adult arrest rate for murder fell 57%, while the juvenile arrest rate fell 44%."
• Smart Reform is Possible States Reducing Incarceration Rates and Costs While Proecting Communities, [PDF] ACLU. August, 2011. "As states across the country are realizing that reducing prison populations and corrections budgets is a necessity, they can look to the examples in this report as ways to reform their criminal justice systems with promising results."
• Misguided Measures The Outcomes and Impacts of Measure 11 on Oregon's Youth, [PDF] Partnership for Safety and Justice. July, 2011. "Over the three-year period from 2006 to 2008, data from the 36 Oregon counties show no discernible pattern between the number of young people charged with a Measure 11 offense and the juvenile crime rate."
• Creating the Roadmap for Reduction Reducing the Number of Women in Prison in Alabama, [PDF] Justice Policy Institute. April, 2011. "In the summer of 2009, Corrections and JPI staff recognized the opportunity to expedite the reclassification of currently-incarcerated women using the new classification module and the need to add capacity to identify women who can be safely released."
• (New) Approaches to reducing both imprisonment and crime [PDF] Criminology & Public Policy. February, 2011. "It may well be that more and stronger policing is the best way to use [...] resources, but that case is far less clear than the desirability of reducing severity."
• (New) On the pitfalls of spurious prudence [PDF] Criminology & Public Policy. February, 2011. "[W]e need to situate how we think about resources for policing in the context of a larger strategy for creating a healthier and safer society that also includes what we might call “deep” prevention."
• (New) The challenges of implementing research-based policies [PDF] Criminology & Public Policy. February, 2011. "[I]t is opportune to consider how finite criminal justice resources could be used more strategically and effectively. Durlauf and Nagin (2011) have laid out an agenda that provides a research- based strategy for reducing both crime and incarceration."
• (New) Imprisonment and crime: Can both be reduced? [PDF] Criminology & Public Policy. February, 2011. "In this article, we argue that it is a realistic possibility that crime, prison costs, and imprisonment numbers can be reduced simultaneously if policy makers shift their [to a] o a focus on a more effective use of police."
• The State of Sentencing 2010 Developments in Policy and Practice, [PDF] Sentencing Project. February, 2011. "During 2010, state legislatures in at least 23 states and the District of Columbia adopted 35 [...] policies that may contribute to reductions in the prison population and eliminate barriers to reentry while promoting effective approaches to public safety"
• Jails in Indian Country, 2009 [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. February, 2011. "Over the 12 months ending June 2009, the average daily jail population in Indian country increased by 12%, and the percentage of occupied bed space increased from 64.2% to 73.5%."
• When More is Less How a Larger Women's Jail in Baltimore will Reduce Public Safety and Diminish Resources for Positive Social Investments, [PDF] Justice Policy Institute. January, 2011. "Given that research indicates that increased incarceration does not equal less crime—it actually is the opposite — the negative public safety, economic and community impacts of the planned expansion are not justifiable."
• Correctional Populations In The United States, 2009 Bureau of Justice Statistics, [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. December, 2010. "The rate of decline in the jail population during 2009 was the highest rate of change observed among all four correctional populations, including the probation, parole, jail, and prison populations."
• Texas' School-to-Prison Pipeline Ticketing, Arrest & Use of Force in Schools, [PDF] Texas Appleseed. December, 2010. "Where a child attends school, and not the nature of the offense, is the great determining factor in whether a student will be arrested at school."
• Prisoners in 2009 [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. December, 2010. "The imprisonment rate—the number of sentenced prison- ers per 100,000 U.S. residents—declined for the second straight year, falling to 502 per 100,000 from 506 per 100,000 in 2007."
• California Sentencing Institute Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice. November, 2010. "comprehensive analysis of sentencing policies and practices in all of California’s 58 counties."(Contains detailed county-level statistics)
• Preventable Error A Report on Prosecutorial Misconduct in California 1997�" 2009, [PDF] Northern California Innocence Project, Santa Clara University School of Law. October, 2010. "[This report] is the most comprehensive, up-to-date, quantitative and actionable study on the extent of prosecutorial misconduct in CA, how the justice system identifies and addresses it, and its cost and consequences, including [wrongful convictions]."
• Incarceration and Social Inequality [PDF] Bruce Western & Becky Pettit. August, 2010. "The social inequality produced my mass incarceration is sizable and enduring for three reasons: it is invisible, it is cumulative, and it is intergenerational."
• Philadelphia's Crowded, Costly Jails: The Search for Safe Solutions, Pew Charitable Trusts. May, 2010.
• Prison Count 2010 State Population Declines for the First Time in 38 Years, [PDF] Pew Center on the States. April, 2010. "[A]s of January 1, 2010, there were 1,404,053 persons under the jurisdiction of state prison authorities, 4,777 (0.3 percent) fewer than there were on December 31, 2008. This marks the first year-to-year drop in the state prison population since 1972."
• Integration Debate Two Tiered Justice, [PDF] Marc Mauer, Sentencing Project. January, 2010. "[I]n the most profound betrayal of the promise of integration and opportunity, the United States has created a world-record prison population, fueled by policies that have exposed substantial portions of African Americans to the.. criminal justice system."
• The State of Sentencing 2009 Developments in Policy and Practice, [PDF] Sentencing Project. January, 2010. "During 2009 state legislatures in at least 19 states enacted policies that hold the potential to reduce prison populations and/or promote more effective approaches to public safety."
• Probation and Parole in the United States, 2008 Bureau of Justice Statistics. December, 2009. "The report examines… changes in the probation and parole populations, such as the number of entries and exits, the rate at which probationers and parolees exit supervision, changes in the populations within jurisdictions, and compositional changes."
• Fact Sheet DOJ Report on Prisoners 2008, [PDF] Justice Policy Institute. December, 2009. (The report shows that although the growth in imprisonment is down, the number of people in prison is still increasing, up more than 12,000 people from last year. This number continues to grow even as crime goes down.)
• Jails in Indian Country, 2008 Bureau of Justice Statistics. December, 2009. "The report includes data on the number of adults and juveniles held, type of offense, number of persons confined on the last weekday of each month, average daily population, peak population, and admissions in June 2008."
• Prisoners in 2008 Bureau of Justice Statistics. December, 2009. "These are the only comprehensive national-level data on prison admissions and releases."
• Michigan Breaks the Political Logjam A New Model for Reducing Prison Populations, [PDF] ACLU. November, 2009. "[Michigan's] new policies are designed to provide offenders with individualized programing in prison, and re-entry services upon release, that are most likely to assure success on parole, based on evidence of what works to reduce crime and save money."
• Michigan Breaks the Political Logjam: A New Model for Reducing Prison Populations, [PDF] Prison Project of the ACLU. November, 2009.
• Racial Disparities in the Criminal Justice System [PDF] Sentencing Project. October, 2009. ([An] overview of the factors that contribute to racial disparity in the justice system, and recommend[ed] changes in policy and practice that could reduce these disparities without compromising public safety.)
• Fact Sheet Response to 2008 FBI Uniform Crime Report, [PDF] Justice Policy Institute. September, 2009. (The 2008 FBI Uniform Crime Report shows that during 2008, at a time in which prison and jail growth rates dropped, the United States experienced a 1.9 percent decline in violent crimes and a 0.8 percent decline in property crimes reported.)
• Denying parole at first eligibility How much public safety does it actually buy?, [PDF] Citizens Alliance on Prisons and Public Spending. August, 2009. "Substantially increasing the rate of parole on the earliest release date would reduce the prisoner population without threatening public safety."
• No Exit: The Expanding Use of Life Sentences in America Sentencing Project. July, 2009. "A record 140,610 individuals are now serving life sentences in state and federal prisons, 6,807 of whom were juveniles at the time of the crime."
• Pruning Prisons How Cutting Corrections Can Save Money and Protect Public Safety, [PDF] Justice Policy Institute. May, 2009. (The United States spends spend billions to incarcerate people in prisons and jails with little impact on public safety, but redirecting funds to community-based alternatives will decrease prison populations, save money, and preserve public safety.)
• Parental Imprisonment, the Prison Boom, and the Concentration of Childhood Disadvantage, [PDF] Christopher Wildeman. May, 2009. "Parental imprisonment has emerged as a novel—and distinctively American—childhood risk that is concentrated among black children and children of low-education parents."
• Fact Sheet on FY2010 Department of Justice Budget [PDF] Justice Policy Institute. May, 2009. (The Factsheet on 2010 Department of Justice Budget finds that the 2010 DOJ budget directs more money to law enforcement than prevention with the likely long-term outcome being increased arrests, incarceration, and money spent on corrections.)
• Bearing Witness Baltimore City's Residents Give Voice to What's Needed to Fix the Criminal Justice System, [PDF] Justice Policy Institute. April, 2009. (Bearing Witness captures the perspectives of the people of Baltimore City impacted by the criminal justice system and their suggestions for alternatives to addressing social problems.)
• Jailing Communities The Impact of Jail Expansion and Effective Public Safety Strategies, [PDF] Justice Policy Institute. April, 2009. "In 2006, prison population growth was half what it was in 1996, but in recent years, jail population growth has exceeded that of prisons."
• The Changing Racial Dynamics of the War on Drugs [PDF] Sentencing Project. April, 2009. "Reports a sharp decline in black incarceration for drug offenses for the first time in 25 years."
• Judging Maryland Baltimore Judges on Effective Solutions to Working with Substance Abusers in the Criminal Justice System, [PDF] Justice Policy Institute. March, 2009. "Judges recommend an increase in or expansion of residential care facilities and a more holistic ap- proach to helping substance abusers caught up in the criminal justice system."
• One in 31: The Long Reach of American Corrections, [PDF] The Pew Center on the States. March, 2009. "For eight geographically diverse states [...] 88% of the increase in corrections spending was directed towards prisons, which now consume nearly nine out of every ten state corrections dollars."
• The Release Valve: Parole in Maryland, [PDF] Justice Policy Institute. March, 2009. "[I]n 2007 [Maryland] spent approximately $1,422 per person on parole or probation, and $33,310 per person incarcerated."
• Prisoners in 2007 [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. December, 2008. "At yearend 2007, federal and state prisons and local jails held just under 2.3 million inmates (2,293,157). The number of inmates incarcerated in prison or jail increased by 1.5% during the year."
• Jails in Indian Country, 2007 [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. November, 2008. "Eighty-three jails in Indian country held an estimated 2,163 inmates at midyear 2007, up from 1,745 inmates held in 68 facilities at midyear 2004."
• Census of State and Federal Correctional Facilities, 2005 [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. October, 2008. "The number of prisoners held in custody in state and federal correctional facilities increased 10% from 1,305,253 in 2000 to 1,430,208 in 2005."
• Federal Justice Statistics, 2005 [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. September, 2008. "In 2005, immigration (27%) was the most prevalent arrest offense followed by drug (24%) and supervision violations (17%)."
• Parents in Prison and Their Minor Children [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. August, 2008. "Parents held in the nation’s prisons—52% of state inmates and 63% of federal inmates—reported having an estimated 1,706,600 minor children, accounting for 2.3% of the U.S. resident population under age 18."
• Prison Inmates at Midyear 2007 [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. June, 2008. "Between January and June 2007, the prison population increased by 1.6% (or 24,919 prisoners), compared to a 2% increase during the first six months of 2006."
• Growth in Michigan's Corrections System: Historical and Comparative Perspectives, [PDF] Citizen's Research Counsel of Michigan. June, 2008. "Michigan’s prison population growth is the product of a combination of several different factors including: increases in felony dispositions, swelling prison commitments, higher recidivism rates, and an increased average prisoner length of stay."
• Jail Inmates at Midyear 2007 [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. June, 2008. "The total rated capacity of local jails at midyear 2007 reached 813,502 beds, up from an estimated 677,787 beds at midyear 2000."
• Do More Prisoners Equal Less Crime? A Response to George WillSentencing Project. June, 2008. "Will's selective use of data and limited vision provide an inaccurate portrayal of current criminal justice policy and its effects. [This piece] is an assessment of some of the key arguments raised in the column."
• One in 100: Behind Bars in America 2008, The Pew Center on the States. February, 2008. "[F]or the first time in history, more than one in every 100 adults in America are in jail or prison-a fact that significantly impacts state budgets without delivering a clear return on public safety."
• The State of Sentencing 2007: Developments in Policy and Practice, The Sentencing Project. January, 2008. "Confronted with the high cost of continued prison growth, policymakers in 18 states took steps during 2007 to review the effectiveness of their criminal justice systems or institute reforms to limit recidivism and sentence lengths..."
• Prisoners in 2006 [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. December, 2007. "During 2006 the number of women in prison increased by 4.5%, reaching 112,498 prisoners."
• Unlocking America: Why and How to Reduce America's Prison Population, [PDF] JFA Institute. November, 2007. "Not only are our lengths of imprisonment significantly longer than they were in earlier periods in our penal history, but they are considerably longer than in most Western nations."
• Housing and Public Safety Justice Policy Institute. November, 2007. "For populations who are the most at-risk for criminal justice system involvement, supportive or affordable housing has been shown to be a cost effective public investment."
• Justice, Where Art Thou? A Framework for the Future, Council on Crime and Justice. October, 2007. (This report analysies past and current incarceration trends in Minnesotra and makes projection through the year 2030.)
• Felony Sentences in State Courts, 2004 [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. July, 2007. "Between 1994 and 2004, the number of felony convictions in State courts increased 24%."
• Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2006 [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. June, 2007. "For the 12 months ending June 30, 2006, State systems reported a larger increase than the Federal system in the number of inmates housed in private prisons."
• Changing Direction? State Sentencing Reforms 2004-2006, [PDF] The Sentencing Project. March, 2007. "The report... identifies that the most popular approach for reducing prison crowding -- implemented by 13 states -- was the diversion of low-level drug offenders from prison to drug treatment programs."
• The Myth of Immigrant Criminality and the Paradox of Assimilation:Incarceration Rates among Native and Foreign-Born Men, American Immigration Law Foundation. February, 2007. "[F]or every ethnic group without exception, incarceration rates among young men are lowest for immigrants, even those who are the least educated."
• Public Safety, Public Spending: Forecasting America's Prison Population 2007-2011, [PDF] Public Safety Performance Project of The Pew Charitable Trusts. February, 2007. "This report provides forecasts for prison populations and incarceration rates for all 50 states."
• World Prison Population List. Eighth ed. Roy Walmsley, International Centre for Prison Studies, King's College London. February, 2007. "Over 9.8 million people are incarcerated, with over 30% held in the Unites States."
• Addressing Key Criminal Justice Issues in the 21st Century [PDF] The Correctional Association of New York. February, 2007. "This special report presents some of our top reform proposals for the state's new administration to consider and the benefits they will provide for people caught up in the criminal justice system and for society as a whole."
• Solving California's Corrections Crisis: Time is Running Out, Milton Marks. January, 2007. "California's correctional system is in a tailspin that threatens public safety and raises the risk of fiscal disaster."(An overview of the current state of the California corrections system, with recommendations.)
• Reconsidering Incarceration: New Directions for Reducing Crime, Vera Institute of Justice. January, 2007. "An increase in the number of police per capita, a reduction in unemployment, and increases in real wage rates and education have all been shown to be associated with lower rates of crime."
• The Criminal Justice System in Washington State: Incarceration Rates, Taxpayer Costs, Crime Rates, and Prison Economics, Washington State Institute for Public Policy. 2007. (In Washington state increasing the rate of incarceration reduces crime rates, however because of diminishing returns, the proportional decrease in crime is much lower now than it was in the 1980's.)
• Race and Incarceration in Delaware: A Preliminary Consideration, [PDF] Thomas P. Eichler, Published by Delaware Center for Justice and Metropolitan Wilmington Urban League. 2007. "Delaware’s criminal justice system treats Blacks differently and far less favorably than similarly situated Whites. The data shows that the racial disparities in the criminal justice system are increasing."
• Prisoners in 2005 [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. November, 2006. "State prisons were operating between 1% below and 14% above capacity; Federal prisons were operating at 34% above capacity."
• Probation and Parole in the United States, 2005 [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. November, 2006. "In 2005 the Nation's parole population grew 1.6%. This was an increase of 12,556 parolees during the year."
• 2006 Crime and Justice Index [PDF] Chicago Metropolis 2020. October, 2006. "This Index presents data on crime trends and justice patterns in the region over time. It also explores specific policy issues and some promising practices intended to address seemingly intractable problems in the criminal justice systems."
• Evidence-Based Public Policy Options to Reduce Future Prison Construction, Criminal Justice Costs, and Crime Rates, Washington State Institute for Public Policy. October, 2006. "We find that some evidence-based programs can reduce crime, but others cannot. Per dollar of spending, several of the successful programs produce favorable returns on investment."
• Estimated Prevalence of Felons Among the Oklahoma Adult Population [PDF] Oklahoma Criminal Justice Resource Center. September, 2006. "Nearly one in seven adult males and one in every 30 adult females in Oklahoma have either been to prison or supervised on probation."
• When "life" did not mean life A Historical Analysis of Life Sentences Imposed in Michigan Since 1900, [PDF] Citizens Alliance on Prisons & Public Spending. September, 2006. "The historical record makes it indisputably clear that a life sentence in Michigan did not always mean "no release.""
• Task Force on California Prison Crowding [PDF] National Council on Crime and Delinquency. August, 2006. "Essential services, procedures, and structures designed to reduce recidivism, break the intergenerational cycle of violence, and save taxpayer dollars for more positive expenditures will reduc[e] crime in our communities and enhanc[e] public safety."
• Recent Trends in New Hampshire's Prison Population [PDF] New Hampshire Center for Public Policy Studies. June, 2006. "Parole revocation is the main factor driving prison admissions, and most revocations are not due to new crimes. In 2002... 66 percent were for technical violations."
• Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2005 [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. May, 2006.
• Strengthening Criminal Justice System Practices in Chemung County, NY[PDF] Center for Governmental Research, Inc.. May, 2006. "[A]bout 125 defendants a year are released from jail after 45 days due to lack of timely prosecution. If the jail time for these individuals could be cut in half, almost 8 fewer persons would need to be housed in jail every night."
• Alabama Sentencing Commission 2006 Report [PDF] Alabama Sentencing Commission. January, 2006. "Of Alabama's inmate population, almost 1 out of 3 inmates are sentenced as an habitual offender."
• Reducing Racial Disparity While Enhancing Public Safety: Key Findings and Recommendations, [PDF] Council on Crime and Justice. 2006. "The racial disparity in Minnesota's justice system is exceptionally high compared to other states. From arrest to imprisonment, the disparity is over twice the national average."
• Probation and Parole in the United States, 2004 [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. November, 2005.
• Prisoners in 2004 [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. October, 2005.
• Hennepin County Disproportionate Minority Contact Study Examining Extended Jurisdiction Juvenile and Adult Certification Cases, [PDF] Council on Crime and Justice. October, 2005. "[R]ace was not significant when considering the disposition of Extended Jurisdiction Juvenile or Adult Certification motioning. Instead, weapons and firearms appear to be the most influential factor in both motioning and dispositions."
• Searching for Justice: American Indian Perspectives on Disparities in Minnesota's Criminal Justice System, [PDF] Council on Crime and Justice. August, 2005. "This report indicates that in one county, while American Indians make up only 11.5% of the population, they account for over 50% of the arrest rates."
• Jails in Indian Country, 2003 [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. April, 2005.
• Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2004 [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. April, 2005.
• Tipping Point: Maryland's Overuse of incarceration and the impact on Public Safety, Justice Policy Institute. March, 2005.
• California Corrections at the Crossroads [PDF] National Council on Crime and Delinquency. March, 2005. "California was once a leader in innovative corrections legislation and programming. However... the last twenty years... have left California with a huge and dysfunctional criminal justice system in woeful need of reform."
• Adult and Juvenile Correctional Population Projections Fiscal Years 2005-2010, [PDF] Legislative Budget Board. January, 2005. (Texas prison population projections: the adult prison population is projected to increase, while probation population decreases, in juvenile populations both groups projected to grow.)
• Felony Sentences in State Courts, 2002 [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. December, 2004.
• Prisoners in 2003 [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. November, 2004.
• Difficult times in Kentucky corrections: Aftershocks of a "tough on crime" philosophy, Robert G. Lawson. November, 2004.
• Racial Divide: California's 3 Strikes Law, Justice Policy Institute. October, 2004.
• No way out Michigan's parole board redefines the meaning of "life", [PDF] Citizens Alliance on Prisons & Public Spending. September, 2004. (When judges imposed a life sentence, they assumed that the prisoner would be parolled in 10-15 years, but in the 1990's the parol board started denying parol, in effect changing the sentence, contributing to overcrowding and increasing costs of prisons.)
• 3 Strikes & You're Out: An examination of 3-Strike Laws 10 years after their Enactment, Justice Policy Institute. September, 2004.
• Swing States: Crime, Prisons and the Future of the Nation, Justice Policy Institute. August, 2004.
• Profile of Jail Inmates, 2002 [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. July, 2004.
• Probation and Parole in the United States, 2003 [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. July, 2004.
• The Meaning of Long Prison Sentences in Context, Sentencing Project. May, 2004.
• Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2003 [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. May, 2004.
• Still Striking Out: Ten Years of California's Three Strikes, [PDF] Justice Policy Institute. March, 2004.
• Virginia Criminal Sentencing Commission Annual Report 2003, [PDF] Virginia Criminal Sentencing Commission. March, 2004. (An increasing number of people on probation or parole who have not committed new crimes are being sent to prison for breaking their release conditions)
• Building Bridges: From Conviction to Employment - One Year Later [PDF] Council of State Governments. February, 2004. (contains detailed maps of high incarceration areas in Hartford and New Haven Connecticut)
• Options for Policymakers Considering a Justice Reinvestment Initiative in Louisiana, [PDF] Council of State Governments. January, 2004.
• The high cost of denying parole: an analysis of prisoners eligible for release, [PDF] Citizens Alliance on Prisons & Public Spending. November, 2003. "Although other important factors exist, the single biggest reason for prison growth has been changed parole practices. Far more people who have served their minimum sentences and are, by law, eligible for release, are being denied parole."
• Jails in Indian Country, 2002 [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. November, 2003.
• Probation and Parole in the United States, 2002 [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. August, 2003.
• Prevalence of Imprisonment in the U.S. Population, 1974-2001, [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. August, 2003.
• Census of State and Federal Correctional Facilities, 2000 [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. August, 2003.
• New Prison Statistics: Nation's Use of Incarceration On the Rise Again, [PDF] Justice Policy Institute. July, 2003.
• Prisoners in 2002 [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. July, 2003.
• U.S. Prison Populations Trends and Implications, [PDF] Sentencing Project. May, 2003.
• Deep Impact: Quantifying the Effect of Prison Expansion in the South, [PDF] Justice Policy Institute. April, 2003.
• Texas Tough: 3 Years Later, [PDF] Justice Policy Institute. April, 2003. "After a three-year-decline in the prison population, Texas? prison population may once again be on the rise"
• Mandatory minimum sentencing is unfair, ineffective, and expensive Common Sense Foundation. April, 2003. (North Carolina)
• Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2002 [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. April, 2003.
• The population of women in prison increases rapidly [PDF] Women's Prison Association. March, 2003.
• Education and Correctional Populations [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. January, 2003. "compares educational attainment of correctional populations to the general population"
• Building Bridges: From Conviction to Employment A Proposal to Reinvest Corrections Savings in an Employment Initiative, [PDF] Council of State Governments. January, 2003.
• Probation and Parole in the United States, 2001 [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. August, 2002. (See Trends in State Parole 1990-2000 for more detail and explanations about this potentially misleading report)
• Prisoners in 2001 [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. July, 2002. "State prison population drops in second half of 2001-Federal inmate growth continues"
• Analysis of recent Justice Department report: Prisoners in 2001, [PDF] Sentencing Project. July, 2002.
• Jails in Indian Country, 2001 [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. May, 2002. "At midyear 2001, jails in Indian country supervised 2,030 persons"
• New Justice Department Study: As Some State Prison Populations Decline, Federal Prison Population Grows, Justice Policy Institute. April, 2002. "While Some State Prison Populations Decline, Federal Lock-up Boom Continues As States Find Alternatives for Nonviolent and Drug Offenders, Federal Imprisonment of Non-Citizens and Drug Offenders Grows"
• The Influences of Truth-in-Sentencing Reforms on Changes in States' Sentencing Practices and Prison Population, Urban Institute. April, 2002.
• Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2001 [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. April, 2002.
• Analysis of new Justice Department report, Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2001, [PDF] Sentencing Project. April, 2002.
• Criminal Justice and Health and Human Services: An Exploration of Overlapping Needs, Resources, and Interests in Brooklyn Neighborhoods, [PDF] Urban Institute. January, 2002. (by Eric Cadora)
• Criminal Offender Statistics [Website] Bureau of Justice Statistics. 2002. (Frequently updated with key statistics from their other publications)
• African American Males in the Criminal Justice System [PDF] Council on Crime and Justice. 2002. "In 2000, 37.2% of the state's prisoners were African American. By comparison only 3.5% of the population of Minnesota was African American."
• Felony Sentences in State Courts, 1998 [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. October, 2001. "In 1998 federal and state courts convicted 978,211 adults of a felony."
• A Tale of Two Jurisdictions: Youth Crime and Detention Rates in Maryland & the District of Columbia, [PDF] Building Blocks for Youth. October, 2001.
• Census of Jails 1999 [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. September, 2001. "At midyear 1999 the Nation's jails held 605,943 inmates, up 32% since the last census in 1993."
• Prisoner Statistics, 2000 England and Wales [PDF] Home office. August, 2001.
• Nations' Incarcerated Population Went Up, Not Down, in 1999-2000 Justice Policy Institute. August, 2001.
• New prison population figures show slowing of growth but uncertain trends[PDF] Sentencing Project. August, 2001.
• Prisoners in 2000 [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. August, 2001.
• Aging Behind Bars: Three Strikes, Seven Years Later, [PDF] Sentencing Project. August, 2001.
• U.S. continues to be world leader in rate of incarceration [PDF] Sentencing Project. August, 2001.
• Probation and Parole in the United States, 2000 [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. August, 2001. "National correctional population reaches new high -- Grows by 117,400 during 2000 to total 6.5 million adults"
• Jails in Indian Country, 2000 [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. July, 2001.
• Off Balance: Youth, Race & Crime in the News Building Blocks for Youth. April, 2001.
• Analysis of BJS June 30, 2000 statistics [PDF] Sentencing Project. March, 2001.
• Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2000 [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. March, 2001.
• Too Little Too Late: President Clinton's Prison Legacy, [PDF] Justice Policy Institute. February, 2001.
• The Expanding Federal Prison Population [PDF] Sentencing Project. 2001.
• Responsibility, Rehabilitation, and Restoration: A Catholic Perspective on Crime and Criminal Justice, [PDF] Catholic Bishops of the United States. November, 2000.
• Correctional Populations in the United States, 1997 [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. November, 2000.
• Texas Tough? An Analysis of Incarceration and Crime Trends in The Lone Star State, Justice Policy Institute. October, 2000.
• Diminishing Returns: Crime and Incarceration in the 1990s, [PDF] Sentencing Project. September, 2000.
• The Punishing Decade: Prison and Jail Estimates at the Millennium, [PDF] Justice Policy Institute. May, 2000.
• State and Federal Prisoners: Profiles of Inmate Characteristics in 1991 and 1997, [PDF] General Accounting Office. May, 2000.
• Veterans in Prison and Jail [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. January, 2000. "Male military veterans are incarcerated at less than half the rate of non-veterans"
• Shattering "Broken Windows": An Analysis of San Francisco's Alternative Crime Policies, [PDF] Justice Policy Institute. October, 1999.
• Felony Sentences in the United States, 1996 [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. July, 1999.
• Time Served in Prison by Federal Offenders, 1986-97 [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. June, 1999. "Describes changes in sentences imposed and time served brought about by the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984"
• Prior Abuse Reported by Inmates and Probationers [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. April, 1999.
• Striking Out: The Failure of California's, [PDF] Justice Policy Institute. March, 1999.
• America's One Million Nonviolent Prisoners Justice Policy Institute. March, 1999.
• Half Truths: The Complicated Story of D.C.'s Halfway House, Justice Policy Institute. March, 1999.
• Truth in Sentencing in State Prisons [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. January, 1999. "State sentencing law changes linked to increasing time served in State prisons"
• Federal Offenders under Community Supervision, 1987-96 [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. August, 1998.
• Profile of Jail Inmates, 1996 [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. April, 1998.
• Three strikes: 5 years later [PDF] Sentencing Project. 1998.
• Characteristics of Adults on Probation, 1995 [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. December, 1997.
• Did Getting Tough on Crime Pay? Urban Institute. August, 1997.
• Census of State and Federal Correctional Facilities, 1995 [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. August, 1997.
• Lifetime Likelihood of Going to State or Federal Prison [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. March, 1997.
• Criminal Justice in Massachusetts: Putting Crime Control First, BOTEC Analysis Corporation of Cambridge. October, 1996. "Opportunities to reduce crime are systematically neglected, as policy making is dominated by the need to appease the public's justifiable fear and anger and by a wide variety of organizational and professional interests and ideological postures."
• Prison and Jail Inmates, 1995 [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. August, 1996.
• Noncitizens in the Federal Criminal Justice System, 1984-94 [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. August, 1996.
• Prisoners at Midyear 1995 [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. December, 1995.
• Probation and Parole Violators in State Prison, 1991 [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. August, 1995.
• Jails and Jail Inmates, 1993-94 [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. April, 1995.
• Prison Sentences and Time Served for Violence [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. April, 1995.
• Continuing Crime of Black Imprisonment Committee to End the Marion Lockdown. 1995.
• Three Strikes and You're Out: Estimated Benefits and Costs of California's New Mandatory-Sentencing Law, RAND Foundation. 1994.
• Survey of State Prison Inmates, 1991 [PDF] Bureau of Justice Statistics. March, 1993.
• 
  

Pages Updated On: 10-Nov-2011 - 12:09:18

SOURCE: http://www.prisonpolicy.org/research/incarceration_rates_growth_causes/