Jail and Prison Population at an All-Time High

Jail and Prison Population at an All-Time High -- Three Decades of Unbroken Increases 6/4/04

For the thirty-first straight year, the number of people America throws behind bars has increased, leaving the nation with an all-time high of nearly 2.1 million people incarcerated at the end of June 2003, according to an annual report released last week by the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics. Despite sentencing reforms and other measures to trim prison budgets in the states in recent years, the number of people behind bars increased by 57,600, a 2.9% rate of increase, the largest in four years. Growth was fastest in the federal prison system, which swelled by 5.4% to more than 170,000 prisoners, well over half of them drug offenders, compared to a much lesser 2.6% rate of increase in state prison populations. The drug war drives the increase in the federal system, with drug offenders accounting for nearly half (48%) of the increase.


Southern Correctional Institution, Troy, NC
The report did not look at the number of drug offenders imprisoned, but another Bureau of Justice Statistics report found more than 246,000 people doing time in state prisons at the end of 2002, as well as more than 78,000 doing federal time for drug crime. That report did not specify the number of drug offenders in city or county jails, but in past years that figure has been in the tens of thousands. According to that report, drug offenders accounted for 15% of the overall growth in prison populations.

Not only is the absolute number of prisoners continuing to rise, the bureau found, but incarceration rates continue to increase as well. At midyear 2003, 718 out of every 100,000 Americans were behind bars, up from 701 the previous year. With recent amnesties for prisoners in Russia, America's reign as the imprisonment champion of the world is once again un-endangered. (Russia's rate is 584 per 100,000, and by way of comparison with other industrialized Western nations, England’s is 143, Canada's is 116, Germany's is 96 and Japan's is 54.)

"Early warnings in late 1980's, though muted within the drug hysteria, were predictors of the national statistics we see today," said Nora Callahan, cofounder and executive director of the November Coalition (http://www.november.org), a group working end the drug war and free drug war prisoners. She paid close attention early on, because she had a brother facing a federal drug indictment in 1989. "The federal government built an entire prison industrial complex in two decades. Today, state and federal prisoners serve the global war effort making uniforms, tank cables, helmets, furniture, tents, et cetera," she told DRCNet. "This report damns the notion that leaders in power are progressive thinkers, now doesn't it? But we the people all have to pay for the excess of the drug war and a criminal justice policy gone awry. That's the saddest part."

In an extensive analysis of the Bureau of Justice Statistics report's implications, The Sentencing Project attempted to address the obvious question: Why, given the declining crime rate and the moves toward a less punitive, less expensive approach to crime in recent years, do the numbers continue to increase? The Sentencing Project pointed squarely at two factors: more new prisoners (up 7.4% over the previous year) and prisoners serving longer sentences. Prisoners sentenced in 2000 are serving sentences 11% longer than those sentenced just two years earlier, the group noted. Drug offenders were doing 21% more time.

The Sentencing Project duly noted the enactment of sentencing reforms in various states, but pointed out that "the continuing rise in imprisonment suggests that they have not been sufficient in themselves to stem that increase." In California, for example, the projected declines in prison population after the enactment of Proposition 36, the "treatment not jail" initiative passed by voters in 2000, was more than offset by an 8% increase in new admissions in 2002-2003. Similarly, while Texas adopted sentencing and parole revocation reforms in recent years, it still accounted for a whopping 16% of all new prisoners for the period ending midyear 2003. And sentencing reforms that did take place were counterbalanced by the long-term effects of "tough on crime" sentencing policies adopted by the states and the federal government in the 1980s and 1990s, the group said, pointing to "three strikes" and "truth in sentencing" laws in effect in 30 states and the federal system.

Veteran observer Eric Sterling, head of the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation (http://www.cjpf.org) suggested another force at work as well. "As local governments stagger under the burden of the Bush recession with losses of state and local revenue, the police seek to inoculate themselves from the virus of budget-cutting by stepping up the number of arrests," said Sterling. "Individual officers who may fear being laid off see it in their interests to step up the number of collars. Chiefs of police can go to city councils and say 'see how important our work is, we have increasing arrests.' Prosecutors demonstrate their competence by getting longer sentences," he continued. "And it goes all the way to the top. Attorney General Ashcroft last summer issued directives to the US attorneys telling them to charge the most serious charges they can, get the longest sentences they can, and to refuse plea bargains," Sterling continued. "He also ordered US attorneys to report to him federal judges who imposed sentences lower than what the Justice Department wanted. State and local prosecutors pay close attention to what the attorney general does."

State legislators and the criminal justice establishment inhabit different worlds, Sterling said. "You have a disconnect between state legislators and governors who need to balance state budgets that are struggling to accommodate enormous expenditure of imprisonment and locally elected prosecutors and judges and chiefs of police who answer to local mayors and city councils who drive the statewide prisons population numbers," he said. "They don't have to pay the bill, so you see legislators advancing sentencing reform concepts that are undermined by locally driven political ambitions."

Visit http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/cp02.htm to read the Bureau of Justice Statistics report, "Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2003."

Visit http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/p02.htm to read the Bureau of Justice Statistics report, "Prisoners in 2002," released in August 2003.

Visit http://www.sentencingproject.org/pdfs/1044.pdf to read the Sentencing Project's analysis.

http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/340/alltimehigh.shtml

 

How many people are we prepared to incarcerate before we change our tactics in the failed experiment called the War on Drugs?

 

Part of the plan I have is for drug policy to be primarily a healthcare and education based policy. Before anyone should be allowed to purchase any drug (and I include alcohol and tobacco), they should be required to go through extensive education as to the effects of the drug in question.

When I was taking my classes to become a drug counselor, there was one class (the instructor called it drugs 101) that convinced me that I would NEVER touch heroin and that I would never again touch cocaine. I have seen the same thing over and over again. Adults who are fully educated as to the actual effects of those drugs will, for the most part, choose not to ingest them.

The only way we are going to reduce overall drug use is by taking control of the drug supply through regulation and educating the users as to the effects. Only then will we be able to have a positive impact on rates of use.

 

*GASP*

COMMON SENSE PLAY A ROLE IN DRUG POLICY?!? NOT ON MY WATCH!!!
-John Walters

 

Again, I would ask you to answer my question.

How many people are we prepared to incarcerate before we change our tactics in the failed experiment called the War on Drugs?

2.1 million people in jail has not made a whit of difference. People use drugs at the same rates or higher than was the case when Nixon coined the term "War on Drugs." Deportations won't work because the VAST majority of people who use drugs in this country are responsible, taxpaying citizens whose only "crime" is choosing an intoxicant that people like you just can't seem to deal with.

Come up with a logical argument based in fact next time.

 

Just a point of clarification.

The drug policy I am a proponent of is not more "lax" drug laws. The policy I have in mind is for hardcore regulation of an industry that we have ceded control of to criminal organizations that have no problem selling to kids.

I would rather make the government and legitimate business people responsible for drug distribution than give that responsibility to criminal organizations and terrorists.

 

Very good observation. One of the big reasons that kids have so much cognitive dissonance regarding drugs is the mixed messages they get. From peers and dealers, they see that the damage can be minimal and from parents, educators, and television, they hear that drugs are absolutely evil and that any amount can ruin their lives forever. They don't know who to believe and, as is usually the case with kids, choose to believe their peers.

The anti-smoking efforts (not just the ads, but the "We Card" programs and the like) have had a pretty dramatic effect and teenage usage rates have dropped by 25%. The same programs have seen teen drinking drop by 50%, both statistics from the period of 1990-2000.

We can have an impact on rates of use in a regulated market. With prohibition, such an impact is impossible.

Educating kids is only one small part. The BIG part will be saying with one unified voice (from ALL adults, not just educators, parents, and the government) that drug use is ABSOLUTELY FORBIDDEN until adulthood. With a regulated market, the black markets will dry up, especially once we skew the risk/reward ratio to the point that there are VERY few people willing to risk selling to kids.

The true impact of education will be on the adults. One of the problems with educating kids about drugs is that they don't effectively process that information. They don't have the capacity to make decisions regarding drugs, which is the main reason that we must do WHATEVER IT TAKES to reduce teenage drug use, even if it means regulating sales to adults. Once people have moved into adulthood, education regarding the effects and consequences of drugs DOES impact their decision making process and therefore the education will be much more effective.

Fully educated adults will avoid the most dangerous drugs in droves.

 

You are correct in that, but ending the "War on Drugs" would go a LONG way towards both reducing our incarceration rate AND reducing crime rates. Once police can stop focusing on drug "crimes," they will be free to pursue real criminals. In addition, with the dramatic increase in available jail beds, real criminals can serve their sentences in full.

 

Then I will ask the question yet again. How many people are you prepared to see behind bars because of their choice of intoxicants?

Over 70 MILLION Americans have used currently illegal drugs. Do you favor incarcerating a quarter of the people in this country because they enjoy a different type of buzz than you do?

Agreed. The taxes should go to pay for the resulting social costs including tracking usage to identify probable cases of abuse, treatment facilities for people who do become addicted, and the education campaign for adults and kids.

They would, in a system I would create, have to go through education and get licensed to purchase drugs, but the only taxes levied (aside from enrollment in the classes) would be markups on the drugs themselves. That way, drug users pay for ALL of the costs, social and financial, themselves.

Just to clarify the point, please respond as to which of these problems are "phantom" and which are actual problems.

Children can acquire drugs in some cases in grammar school.

Half of our children use illegal drugs before they are out of high school.

We spend a hundred billion per year on the drug war and have not positively impacted usage rates.

The "education" campaigns (the ONDCP and PDFA ad campaigns, mostly), particularly with regard to mar1juana, have been shown to INCREASE the chances that teens will use drugs.

Our kids report that it is easier to acquire illegal drugs than alcohol.

The police are regarded as the enemy in neighborhoods across the country as a direct result of the drug war.

That is a short list, start with those and we will add some more later, if you choose to respond at all.

Yes, the recreational drug program would almost certainly pay its cost and then contribute to the general fund. In addition to the removal of a hundred billion dollar per year albatross, we would MORE than pay for the entire thing through taxes on the drugs themselves.

We CAN have an intelligently planned drug policy that pays for itself and is socially just. Put THAT in your pipe and smoke it, burnout.

 

I truly try not to flame people that put forth reasonable, intelligent arguments. I am of the opinion that if we talk about the legitimate points, there is very litte way that anyone can support prohibition as a long term solution. The key is, let's address those points.

That is not even one of MY main arguments against the drug war. It is a major side effect, but IMO, the biggest reason for scrapping the drug war is it's absolute lack of positive impact on the problem, despite near exponential increases in funding.

Yes. The one thing that has been shown to reduce the incidence of drug use is education. College educated people use fewer drugs than high school educated people. People with Masters and Doctorates are even less likely.

The statistics skew even further when you talk about people who have had true education about drugs. Most of the stats come from treatment facilities, but the reason that treatment works is that ADULTS who have been educated as to the effects and consequences of using drugs are FAR less likely to use drugs than your average person.

Depends on the rates you are talking about. Rates among white, middle class youngsters have been declining for years, seeming to correlate with the increases in sex ed. classes that you mention.

People do continue to smoke, but the recent campaigns like the "Truth" ads and the "We Card" programs HAVE significantly impacted rates of teen use (25%), and getting our teens to stop using tobacco, or any drug, is the important part in the equation.

Those rates have dropped as well, as have the rates of teen drinking. Again, with the increase in advertising as well as the "We Card" programs we have seen lower rates of teen drinking over the last decade.

We will educate children about drugs, but the education for adults who want to be licensed to purchase the substances will be VASTLY different.

It is certainly adults who use more of these drugs, but the vast majority of those users BEGAN using those drugs when they were young. One of the other metrics that is directly related to reduced incidence of lifetime use is age of first use. The system I would create would have as it's top priority reducing availability to young people. If we can increase the average age that people first use, we can significantly impact the overall rates of use.

There are many metrics that can be used to evaluate and classify these drugs including:

Potential for misuse and abuse.
Potential for physical addiction.
Potential for psychological addiction.
Potential for physiological damage.

If we rated all the known drugs on a scale corresponding to these metrics, I would suspect that the top three worst would be heroin, cocaine, and alcohol.

Lessening the penalties will only relieve one small symptom of the actual problem. The problem is that prohibition causes far more harm than drugs ever could.

No, the education I would conduct would make it perfectly clear exactly how NOT OK these drugs can be if misused. If someone uses irresponsibly, we will have mechanisms in the system to detect problem use so that we can target treatment.

The irresponsible thing to do is to cede control of the most dangerous chemicals in the world to criminal organizations and kids.

Where you are, that may be very true. However, there are a half million people in jail right now who have never been violent and whose only crime is their choice of intoxicants.

Something that would be much easier to do when someone is in the very beginning of an addictive cycle. The only way to "nip it in the bud" is to have a regulated system so that you can track sales. In addition, treatment is FAR easier and much more likely to succeed when the environment is a treatment facility as opposed to a jail cell.

And we have laws against that. If the police did not have to waste their time on drug crimes, they would have the ability to reduce crime to a fraction of what it is now. In addition, sentences would have teeth as we would have hundreds of thousands of empty jail cells. True criminals could do their time and responsible drug users could choose their own intoxicants.

The true possibility here is the possibility of a drup policy that actually reduces the availability to our young people. If the cost of that reduced availability to children is regulated sales to adults, then I am all for it.