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Resident
with Child: Rachel
Cobb
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Today, the United States is incarcerating a staggering number of Americans. We enter the new millennium with over 2 million men and women behind bars compared to 330,000 in 1972. One in every 32 adults in the U.S. is under some form of criminal justice system supervision. Our nation is now a world leader in punishing and imprisoning its citizens. Increasingly, America's prisons are being used to warehouse people suffering the effects of racial and economic inequality, mental illness, addiction and sexual and physical abuse. |
| They are poor (53% earned less than $10,000 a year) and disproportionately people of color (66% compared to 13% of the population). An estimated 20-30% of current inmates suffer from serious mental illnesses, while 70% are chemically addicted. The little known truth is that 72% of those entering state prison for the first time are non-violent offenders. |
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The reach of our current policies of incarceration is increasingly affecting women and children. Over the past 10 years the number of women in state and federal prison has grown from 44,065 to 87,199. Today, over 40 states prosecute and incarcerate children as young as 14 as adults, while 1.5 million children have a parent in prison or jail. This demographic picture vividly reveals America's failure as an open society with guarantees of justice for all.
Over the past 30 years, the nation has come to rely on excessive and inappropriate policies of punishment and incarceration to address chronic social and health problems associated with economic disparity and racial discrimination. The effect of these policies (whether intended or not) has been to criminalize a growing number of marginalized people, decimate poor families and communities of color and create a permanent class of Americans whose lives are inextricably linked to the criminal punishment system. Such policies threaten public safety and erode confidence in the legitimacy of the legal system. |
Resident's
Daughter in Backyard: Rachel Cobb
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| CAMPAIGN FOR COMMUNITY REINTEGRATION |
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| To a great extent, the current level of incarceration is sustained by cycling people in and out of prison and by subjecting them to increasingly draconian mandatory sentences. Of the 730,000 people entering prison or jail each year, 33% have been there before. This year, an estimated 600,000 Americans will be leaving prison -- many after serving exceedingly long sentences. This historically unprecedented number reflects the high rate of incarceration. Sixty-two percent of those released from state prisons will be re-arrested within three years. Forty percent will be re-incarcerated, including many for technical violations of parole. |
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| This is not surprising. Though nearly all prisoners (97%) eventually come home, most return to our communities without effective discharge planning, usually with little more than the clothes on their |
backs and a few dollars in their pockets. Meanwhile states have severely curtailed or eliminated parole, work release programs and the in-prison and post-release programs that help former inmates succeed outside prison. The hope for a fresh start can quickly turn to despair. People returning from prison face countless legal and practical barriers to securing housing, education, employment, voting or treatment for substance abuse, mental illness and other serious medical problems. There is little support for rebuilding the positive familial and social ties necessary for successful reintegration or civic participation.
America's $40 billion investment in prisons has backfired, often creating problems larger than those it set out to solve. Incarceration and the lifetime stigma of a criminal record effectively perpetuate the segregation and exclusion from mainstream society that led so many former prisoners to crime, violence and prison in the first place. To build and sustain healthy communities that are safe and just, we must create the public and political will to adopt more inclusive policies that effectively keep people out of prison and promote their successful reintegration into society. (Source: Open Society Institute: Criminal Justice Initiative) |
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