The Hard Facts of Incarceration and Crime

C R I M I N A L J U S T I C E AT TH E C R OSS R OADS Transforming Crime and Puni shme nt

WILLIAM

R.

K E L LY

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by t h e n u m b e rs

Undoubtedly, the defining characteristic of U.S. criminal justice of the past forty years is the growth in incarceration. The prison population has risen by an extraordinary 535 percent over that period. Figure 1.1 is a visual depiction of the growth in U.S. incarceration reflected by the number of state and federal prisoners between 1936 and 2012 (data are from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1988, 2002, and 2012).

The headlines are all too familiar and are from a wide variety of sources—liberal, conservative, and neutral—including the Washington Post, The Economist, Time Magazine, U.S. News and World Report, CNN, Science, Newsweek, The Atlantic, Business Week, the Wall Street Journal, the National Review, The New York Times, and many, many more.

“1 in 100 Incarcerated” “America’s Soaring Prison Population” “Incarceration Nation” “U.S. Incarceration Highest in the World” “U.S. Prisons Largest in the World” “Inmate Count in U.S. Dwarfs Other Nations’” 1,800,000 1,600,000

Number of prisoners

1,400,000 1,200,000 1,000,000 800,000 600,000 400,000

0

1936 1939 1942 1945 1948 1951 1954 1957 1960 1963 1966 1969 1972 1975 1978 1981 1984 1987 1990 1993 1996 1999 2002 2005 2008 2010

200,000

Year

Figure 1.1 State and Federal Prisoners, 1936–2012

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“U.S. Prison Population Sets New Record” “Rough Justice: America Locks Up Too Many People, Some for Acts that Should Not Even Be Illegal” “Prisons: Cruel and Unusual Punishment” “As Crime Rate Drops, the Prison Rate Rises and the Debate Rages” “Too Many Laws, Too Many Prisoners: Never in the Civilized World Have So Many Been Locked Up for So Little”

While incarceration gets most of the attention and press, the bigger picture of America’s crime control policy is the expansion of correctional control in general—prison, jail, probation, and parole. Although they vary in the degree of control or loss of liberty, all of the forms of correctional control exploded over the past four decades, which is testament to the ability of the justice systems of the states and the federal government to respond to the call for crime control. This is where I begin.

In 1980, there were 1,840,000 individuals in the United States under correctional control or supervision. By the end of 2012, the correctional population had exploded to 6,937,600, representing an increase of 280 percent. The individual components of the correctional explosion increased at unprecedented rates. Between 1975 and 2012, the parole population in the United States increased by nearly 475 percent. Between 1978 and 2012, the local jail population in the United States increased by over 370 percent, from 158,400 to 748,700. Probation populations in the United States increased from 816,500 in 1977 to 4 million in 2012, a growth of 390 percent. Finally, in 1975, there were 240,000 prison inmates in the United States. Over the next thirty-five years, the prison population increased to over 1.5 million, an increase of 535 percent. Figure 1.2 shows the growth in the correctional population over the period from 1980 to 2012 (2012 is the most recent year the data are available; data are from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, Correctional Populations in the United States).

Trends in correctional spending at the state level correspond to the expansion of incarceration and corrections more broadly. In 1982, states spent $9.7 billion on prison operations; by 2010, that increased to $37.3 billion (these cost figures are inflation-adjusted to 2010 dollars). This change in institutional spending represents a 285 percent increase. Total state corrections expenditures increased from $15.1 billion to $48.5 billion, a 221 percent increase over nearly thirty years.

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8,000,000

Total U.S. correctional population

7,000,000 6,000,000 5,000,000 4,000,000 3,000,000 2,000,000

0

1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

1,000,000

Year

Figure 1.2 U.S. Correctional Population, 1980–2012

In terms of sheer numbers, the community supervision population (probation and parole) far exceeds the prison and jail population. In 2013, while there were 2,285,000 individuals in custody in local jails and state and federal prisons, there were nearly 5 million individuals on community supervision (state and federal probation and parole). In addition to the officially counted 6.9 million under correctional control today, there is survey evidence indicating that there are nearly 1 million individuals not counted in the correctional population census. These are individuals that are on conditional release and supervised while on pretrial status, individuals participating in diversion courts and alternative sentencing programs, and other types of diversion (Pew 2009a). Additionally, Pew estimates that there are another 100,000 offenders (not typically counted in official statistics) in prisons in U.S. territories, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities, and in juvenile programs. Perhaps a more realistic and inclusive estimate of the current correctional population is closer to 8 million.

The correctional boom involved the participation of the federal correctional system as well as the systems of all fifty states and the District of Columbia. However, as the states exercise sovereignty over their individual

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justice policies and face crime and justice problems at different levels of intensity and concern, as well as different fiscal priorities and constraints, they participated in the correctional boom at differing levels of intensity.

Based on yearend 2009 statistics, variation in correctional rates across states is substantial. At the high end: Georgia (1 in 13 individuals is under correctional control); Idaho (1 in 18); Texas (1 in 22); Massachusetts (1 in 24); Ohio (1 in 25); Indiana, Rhode Island, Minnesota, Delaware, and Louisiana (1 in 26); Michigan (1 in 27); and Pennsylvania (1 in 28). At the low end: New Hampshire (1 in 88); Maine (1 in 81); West Virginia (1 in 68); Utah (1 in 64); North Dakota (1 in 63); Iowa (1 in 54); and New York and Kansas (1 in 53).

While there are substantial differences in how and at what level the states participated in the correctional boom, there is uniformity with regard to the impact on various demographic groups. As the Pew Center on the States (2009a) calculates, one in thirty-one individuals in the United States is currently under correctional control. However, this ratio is different for various demographic groups. One in eighty-nine women, but one in eighteen men is under correctional control. One in forty-five whites is under correctional control, compared to one in twenty-seven Hispanics and one in eleven blacks. Drilling down farther, one in three young black males is currently under correctional control. Micro-analyses by the Pew Center demonstrate that correctional control is unsurprisingly concentrated geographically within urban areas, with the highest correctional rates in a small number of urban zip codes and neighborhoods.

For example, of the 72,168 offenders released from the Texas prison system in 2008, 30 percent of them returned to seven zip codes in Harris County, Houston, Texas. One in sixty-one residents of Michigan is under correctional control—prison, jail, parole, or felony probation. However, in Wayne County, which is the state’s most populous county, it is one in thirty-eight. In Detroit, which is the largest city in Wayne County, the ratio is one in twenty-five. The East Side of Detroit has a further concentration of offenders (one in twenty-two). Finally, in Brewer Park, an area in the East Side of Detroit, the ratio of residents under correctional control is one in sixteen.

The most often cited trend in the history of U.S. criminal justice is the incarceration boom. For the first three-quarters of the last century (1900 to 1975), U.S. incarceration rates were fairly stable, ranging between

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100 and 200 incarcerated individuals per 100,000 Americans. The U.S. incarceration rates were so stable during this seventy-five-year period that most experts predicted continued stability in incarceration for the foreseeable future. However, things changed.

Between 1975 and 2011, the U.S. incarceration rate (jail and prison, state and federal) increased from 165 per 100,000 to 730 per 100,000, amounting to a 345 percent increase. In 1980, U.S. prisons and jails held just over 500,000 inmates. By 2011, the incarcerated population had increased to 2,266,800, a jump of 350 percent. The federal system grew at a greater rate than that of the states. Over the past thirty years, the federal prison system population has increased from 25,000 inmates to nearly 220,000, representing an increase of 790 percent.

Just as is the case with correctional control in general, prison incarceration rates vary considerably by region and by state. In 2012, the aggregate prison incarceration rate among the states was 480. Regional incarceration rates ranged from a high of 551 for the South and a low of 302 in the Northeast. Among states, the range was from a high of 893 (Louisiana) to a low of 145 (Maine). The top five were Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, and Oklahoma. The five lowest were Maine, Minnesota, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts. Differentials like these were evident throughout much of the corrections boom. For example, in 1994, the state aggregate prison incarceration rate was 367. The South had the highest regional rate (462) and the Northeast the lowest (298). The District of Columbia led the nation (1,935), followed by Texas (637). The states with the lowest prison incarceration rates were North Dakota (84), Maine (119), and Utah (158).

Imprisonment rates differ dramatically by demographic groups. The aggregate (state and federal) prison incarceration rate again was 480 in 2012. However, when broken out by gender, age, and race/ethnicity, there are phenomenal differences. The male incarceration rate is 932; the female is 65. The white male rate is 478; the black male rate is 3,023; the Hispanic male rate is 1,238. Adding age to the breakout, even more striking differences are seen. Young black males are an extraordinarily high-risk group for imprisonment. Black males between ages twenty and forty-four have incarceration rates ranging from 4,702 to 7,517 (again, compared to the overall rate of 502). Black men today have a one in three lifetime likelihood of imprisonment.