The United States of America: the land of the free –– or is it?  Imprisoning people at a shocking rate of around 698 per 100,000 residents, the United States tops the charts of incarcerations worldwide (compared with Canada who are at a rate of about 139 per 100,000 people).  This leaves around 7 million people within the control of the justice system –– whether on probation (3.6 million), parole (84,000) or incarcerated (2.3 million). With 2.3 million individuals within our nation’s prisons and jails, it’s important to explain the distribution of offenders to understand how so many people find themselves locked up in the land of the free.   

So, let’s break it down.  US prisons are used to house those convicted of crimes who are sentenced to over a year of imprisonment –– this is where you can find more serious offenders.  Our state prisons house about 1.3 million people convicted of property, public order, drug, and violent criminal offenses, while our federal prisons hold about 226,000 individuals convicted of federal offenses.  Jails are used for those serving a sentence of less than a year or awaiting trial.  About 630,000 individuals are incarcerated in our local jails.  Staggeringly, around 470,000 of the people in our local jails are not yet convicted –– meaning they are still awaiting trial or cannot post bail.  Youth detention centers hold about 44,000 children, territorial prisons (Prisons in US controlled territories) hold 11,000 people, immigration detention centers hold 23,000 individuals, and 22,000 people are involuntarily admitted into criminal psychiatric wards.  Out of the 2.3 million, only around 900,000 are incarcerated for violent crimes, while around 450,000 people are in on drug charges.  Those convicted of property crimes, public order crimes, immigration violations, and “other” make up the rest.  Turns out, for millions of people, the US is the land of the free-ish.   

The hypocrisy continues when looking to the disproportionate rate at which mass incarceration effects different communities.  Looking to residents born in 2001, 1 in 9 men will be incarcerated.  However, this statistic changes drastically when looking at race, changing to 1 in 17 white men, 1 in 3 African American men, and 1 in 6 Latino men.  When looking to all women, 1 in 56 will be incarcerated.  Mirroring the male statistics, countering in race changes rates to 1 in 111 white women, 1 in 18 African American women, and 1 in 45 Latina women.  Evidently, we aren’t the land of the equal either.   

How did we get to this problem of mass incarceration in the first place?  The answer is easy: we started imprisoning more people and imposing longer sentences.  When the War on Drugs began in the 1980s, prison rates increased dramatically.  Looking in 1980, around 40,000 were incarcerated on drug charges.  Now for a shock: in 2017 there were around half a million people incarcerated on drug offenses –– this huge increase is not shared in the rate of drug crimes.  There are currently more people imprisoned on drug charges than those convicted of any crime in 1980.  The War on Drugs also promoted a more “tough on crime” mentality.  Because of this, more people were incarcerated for property and violent crimes from 1980 till now as well, despite variations (typically lowering) in crime rates (meaning that even though less crime was occurring, more incarcerations were happening).  This tough on crime mentality also promoted harsher sentencing laws.  An example of this is the Three Strikes Law of 1994.  Under this, if a person was convicted of 3 offenses (with only one offense having to be deemed serious) they were sentenced to life in prison.  This means that is an offender, who had been convicted twice before on at least one serious crime, were to be caught spray painting an alley (vandalization, a property crime), they would be sentenced to life in prison.  Laws such as these led to more people getting incarcerated, and for much longer periods of time.   

There must be a point to mass incarceration though, as the US does it for some reason.   Since 1980 and the implementing of many policies leading to mass incarceration, there has been a strong decrease in crime.  Funnily enough though, many studies show that mass incarceration has next-to-nothing to do with the lowering crime rate.  Between 75%-100% of this drop is attributed to other factors such as increases in wages, employment, graduation rate, and law enforcement.   

Despite the large increase over the past 30 years, the population of incarcerated individuals has been evening out over the past couple years, meaning that mass incarceration is losing its hold.  This is due to many implemented reforms to certain “tough on crime” policies, especially regarding drug related crimes.  Most of these reforms focused on duration of sentences and decriminalizing certain substances (such as marijuana).  This has been a great step in the right direction, but there is still a mountain to get over to truly make America the just land of the free and to help decrease our prison populations.   

Suggestions to fix this issue are widely varied.  People propose new laws for sentencing — such as putting more funding towards rehabilitation.  There is also strong support for focussing at a more community based level –– stressing more intervention in young delinquents and removing barriers to ex-inmates when returning to normal life.  Policy type suggestions lend towards analyzing and abolishing current laws that promote racial injustice, releasing all nonviolent drug offenders, and continued decriminalization of select substances.   Many many more suggestions have been posed, and there are hopefully many more to come.

Sources:

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2020.html 

https://www.sentencingproject.org/criminal-justice-facts/ 

https://eji.org/news/study-finds-increased-incarceration-does-not-reduce-crime/