As the semester is ending, so comes the end of this blog. To finish it off, I would like to talk about another relevant and ongoing issue: mass incarceration in the United States. As of 2020, 2.3 million people are being held in prison. The U.S. not only has the most prisoners worldwide compared to any other country, but despite being only about 4% of the global population, America’s prisoners make up 1/5th of incarcerated individuals globally. This is an incredibly alarming fact, and should be used as motivation in order to push the U.S. to improve our system, starting by fighting against mass incarceration. The image to the left demonstrates where exactly prisoners are being held, and which form of incarceration contains the most people in order to display just how many citizens are locked away.

As discussed in previous posts, it wasn’t until President Nixon’s war on drugs in the 1970s that the incarceration rate drastically increased. Since then, it’s been growing drastically, going from 200,000 prisoners in 1970 to the outrageous 2.3 million we see today. Another reason for this increase is that in the past, the government has purposely funded this mass incarceration. For example, a Crime Bill released in 1994 said that grants would be given if prisons used more “punitive criminal justice policies.” It’s legislation like this that give prisons an incentive to lock people up, when they should be motivated to do the exact opposite. Prisoners in America have grown over 700% since the start of the war on drugs campaign because of these combined efforts and encouragement.

Fortunately, there has been a steady decline in recent years amongst the prison population. According to data, the amount of people incarcerated in the U.S. prison reached its highest back in 2009, and has been slowly decreasing since. This can be attributed to the realization that many people are having: mass incarceration is wrong and needs to be stopped. Since reaching peak 12 years ago, the majority of states in America have made an effort to decrease their state prison populations through legislation and sentencing changes. This is an effective first step, but it’s happening too slow.

We still live in a country where six of our states have yet to address and change in order to fight mass incarceration, as they all had their own, individual peak prison populations back in 2018. It just goes to show that although progress is being made, there are still ways we, as a country, are holding back from facing the issue head on. If we continue at our current pace, it will take until 2085 for the U.S. to eliminate just 1 million of the prison population. Ultimately, all of this data and statistics, and this entire blog as a whole, shows that if change is going to be made to enact prison reform and combat mass incarceration, we must make our voices heard and fight for change.

Prison reform seems to be a (relatively) universally accepted idea among United States citizens. However, the topic of whether capital punishment should remain or be abolished is quite controversial. Arguments about it range to everything from moral, ethical dilemmas to statistical facts and figures. If the U.S. wants to reform prisons, though, the death penalty is one of the many aspects of the system that must be addressed. I want to try and not be biased in this, so I will give you the main arguments for both sides before landing on a conclusion that I believe would best benefit our country.

First, the side for capital punishment. One of the main arguments for this side is retribution. This is best explained as those guilty of heinous crimes are subject to punishment equivalent to the crimes they committed. So, for example, if someone were to murder a person, it would only make sense (for this argument) that they receive the death penalty which is just as awful as the acts they committed. Another similar reason is that once these more serious crimes are done, the criminals have broken the rights of humanity and therefore “forfeited their own right to life.” Safety is another big factor for many people. Some dislike the idea of keeping murderers and rapists around because it could endanger society (even if they are kept in prison for life). All of these previous arguments are based on moral beliefs and opinions. The final, most popular argument for the death penalty is that it acts as a deterrent for other offenders. However, there is no solid evidence for this, and more information points to the opposite. The above chart shows a study conducted in 2019 that actually displayed a decrease in murder in countries where capital punishment was removed. Overall, there are a lot of sensible arguments for the death penalty.

Next, the side against capital punishment. Some of the bigger arguments for this center around ethical beliefs, such as valuing human life and believing in an “inalienable right to life,” (contrasting the previous forfeiting of this right from the other side). Another important argument is the possibility of wrongfully convicting, and thus wrongfully executing, a person who is innocent. According to data ranging from the 70s to our modern day, for every 8.3 people that receive the death penalty, 1 of them on death row is proven innocent and released. This is a pretty crazy number to imagine. The previous argument also ties back into the initial ethical dilemma of the value that should be placed on human life. Finally, the last reason against capital punishment is the expensiveness. There is an abundance of evidence to back this claim up, as multiple studies have shown that it costs billions more to keep an inmate on death row rather than life in prison. In 2008, a report showed that the total costs of death row inmates per year was $137 million versus only $11.5 million per year for life in prison. This cost difference alone should be taken into account when determining whether the death penalty should be abolished or not. Ultimately, this side is another logical argument for capital punishment.

After examining the pros and cons of each argument, it’s clear both sides rely heavily on morals and ethics with some additional facts. This makes it difficult to come to a set conclusion, as not everyone has the same morals. I would personally say it would be best to abolish the death penalty completely, as the whole concept doesn’t sit right with me and seems outdated. However, in order to reform our prison systems to the best possible outcome it may be more beneficial to do a combination of both. By altering the severity of crimes that warrant capital punishment and by continuing to release innocent death row inmates, the number of those receiving the death penalty could decrease over time. This would allow for a much cheaper prison system, while also taking the morals of both sides into account. Despite the possibility of compromise, there isn’t always a clear cut answer for these kinds of issues (this is just my perspective, let me know you opinions, too). However, the amount of those receiving the death penalty has steadily declined in the U.S. recently, especially with the help of COVID-19. If this trend continues, I can see our country having a future with no capital punishment.

Despite all the negative aspects that remain within the United State’s prison system, there has been recent legislation that has looked towards substantial prison reform. In 2018, President Donald Trump passed the First Step Act, a piece of legislation that was meant to decrease mass incarceration along with preventing it from increasing in the future. Now that it’s been about 3 years since it was put into place, America is able to look back on the legislation and the effects it has had on our criminal justice and prison systems to see if change has been enacted.

In regard to problems in the criminal justice system, the First Step Act reduced the mandatory minimum sentencing for many drug-related crimes. The change I’m most happy to see, though, was the reduction in sentencing for crack offenders. In my previous blog post, I discussed the great disparity between people who are charged for crack vs cocaine offenses. To refresh your memory, this sentencing difference was a ploy solely based on racial discrimination, as crack was a cheaper alternative to cocaine more commonly found within impoverished Black communities. In 2010, the Fair Sentencing Act (FSA) was passed to eliminate the sentencing disparity between crack vs cocaine offenses from that year on. However, the First Step Act has allowed for the FSA to be applied retroactively, which would allow for the release of 2,600 federal prisoners who were convicted for crack prior to 2010.

Although that was the most prominent change brought by the First Step Act (in my opinion), the legislation had many other positive changes while reinforcing previous laws. Mandatory minimum sentences for repeated drug offenders with one previous conviction was decreased from 20 to 15 years, and repeated drug offenders with two or more convictions had a reduction in their minimum sentencing from life-in-prison to 25 years. This change simultaneously works to reduce mass incarceration while also attempting to lower future recidivism rates. Additionally, the First Step Act also looked to support previous laws that weren’t always being followed correctly. Some examples of this are putting prisoners within 500 miles of their residence and increased the amount of days removed from sentencing for good behavior to 54 days per year. If you would like to read more about the changes enacted by the First Step Act, you can read a brief summary from the Federal Bureau of Prisons here.

Now that you know what the First Step Act has tried to change, how effective has it been really? Ames Grawert analyzes this in his article What is the First Step Act – And What’s Happening With It?, published nearly two years later. He claims that there have been some immediate effects, such as the changes to mandatory minimum sentencing and the increased release of crack offenders. But the aspects of the law that focus on prison reform, such as the idea of rehabilitation, need to be actively worked towards as they haven’t been implemented enough since its enactment. Now that Trump’s term is over and President Joe Biden is now in office, I hope that he will continually fight for prison reform and use the First Step Act to enact more change within our system in order to make a lasting impact.

To continue on my blog of injustices in America’s criminal justice system, I’d now like to turn the topic towards one of its biggest offenses: racism. It would be ignorant to say that this racial discrimination doesn’t play a role in the system our country currently uses. This prejudice has been around for hundreds of years, but was amplified in our modern prison system thanks to President Richard Nixon’s 1971 campaign called the “war on drugs.” John Ehrlichman, one of Nixon’s right-hand men, admitted that this was a blatant attack against Black people. He said, “We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be … Black, but by getting the public to associate … [Black people] with heroin. And then criminalizing [them] heavily, we could disrupt [the] communities.” It was clearly a diabolical plot in order to increase anti-Black sentiment in the U.S. by labelling them as “dangerous druggies.” Many have tried to emphasize the importance of this issue, including famous rapper Jay-Z who narrated a YouTube video that explained the effects of this policy firsthand.

Ronald Reagan’s following presidency only continued to worsen the already racist system. It was during the 1980s that Reagan emphasized to the people the disparity between powder cocaine and “crack,” the latter being a more inexpensive version of the traditional drug that’s typically sold and used in poorer communities. This was once again another obvious attack on the Black community, as the criminal justice system decided to give out worse sentences to those arrested for crack rather than powder cocaine. This lead to a huge spike in non-violent drug offenses since its implementation, approximately 400,000 by 1997 compared to just 50,000 in 1980 according to the Drug Policy Alliance.

This evident racism is not just something of the past when it comes to America’s criminal justice system, we are still in need of improvement. However, the U.S. is beginning to move towards more reasonable drug offense sentences in the future, starting with the legalization of marijuana in 15 states (along with Washington D.C.). This is only the first step, though. It is not only necessary to decriminalize non-violent drug offenses, and in turn remove the racial disparities within the United States’ criminal justice system, but also to help these drug offenders receive treatment to combat their difficult addictions. Like I said in my previous blog post, we must look towards rehabilitation as the answer to fix our system, and along the way fight the coinciding racial discrimination and drug criminalization that currently plagues our country. To end on a hopeful note, in 2020 Oregon passed the first ever “all-drug decriminalization measure” called Measure 110. This is a huge win, as it allows for drug offenders to have more accessibility to treatment instead of being criminalized. We must all look toward a better future ahead of us.

As many United States citizen’s, I’ve always heard of the talk of prison reform in our criminal justice system. From President Richard Nixon’s infamous War on Drugs, to the problem of minors being kept in solitary confinement, talk of the issues within America’s prison system is not something most citizens are strangers too. However, many are unaware of how necessary and in need of change America is. I didn’t become genuinely interested in this topic until my Junior year of high school when I did a presentation covering the injustices within the system. And that’s when I found it, Brandon W. Mathews TED Talk titled The Surprising Reason Our Correctional System Doesn’t Work. In this Mathews questions the effectiveness of our current criminal justice system, and claims it focuses too much on punishment when it instead should look towards rehabilitation. He proposes a “divorce” between the two in order to create a more successful prison system in America. This was my introduction into a whole new world, one that I believe is in need of change.

In order to identify a clear solution, it is first necessary to find the core of this problem: the reliance on punishment. To me it seems that our current correctional facilities do not take into consideration enough that the majority of their inmates will someday be released back out into society. Because of the lack of rehabilitation in our system, most of these released prisoners will end up back in jail. This is a phenomena known as recidivism, which is defined by the National Institute of Justice as “a person’s relapse into criminal behavior, often after the person receives sanctions or undergoes intervention for a previous crime.”

The Bureau of Justice Statistics conducted a study in 2005 where they tracked 400,000+ inmates from state prisons 5 years after their release to examine their recidivism rates. Their final data concluded that 76.6% of these former inmates were arrested again within the 5 years after their initial release. If this doesn’t scream problematic to you, don’t worry, it gets worse. Additionally, a followup was conducted in 2018, and the results showed that 83% of the ex-inmates were arrested within 9 years, and 82% of those arrested during the 9 years were also arrested in the first 3 years.

This data clearly shows that the current way the correctional system in the U.S. is functioning does not allow for the success of inmates post-imprisonment. People arrested for non-violent crimes such as drug or property offenses are likely to face recidivism, causing them to be unable to get their life back on track. And it all starts at the root: America prioritizing punishment over rehabilitation. It concerns me that many Americans are ignorant to the importance of this matter, how necessary it is to aid these inmates in order for them to become a successful part of society again. That is why I hope to bring light to this issue, so more people realize the wrong doings of this system and to demonstrate why we need reform.