Unfortunately, however, both President Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions are stout reform opponents, threatening the small progress that’s been made. States have seen their prison populations and crime rates decline simultaneously. Some conservative states like Texas have led the way, undoing many of the harsh policies passed in the 1980s and 1990s.
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Lawmakers from both parties have come to realize that locking people up is an expensive, ineffective means to fight crime. This is the product of a bipartisan consensus that mass incarceration is a mistake. Racial disparities in the prison population have also fallen. In the last decade, prison populations have declined by about 10 percent. Recently however, there has been some incremental progress in reducing mass incarceration. In fact, while it received little attention, the rise of mass incarceration was a phenomenon that has affected the entire country for four decades. These changes were spurred in part by laws like the 1994 Crime Bill, which gave states money to perpetuate policies that bred bloated prisons. In Texas, for example, the state incarceration rate quadrupled: In 1978, the state incarcerated 182 people for every 100,000 residents. The number of prisoners grew in every state - blue, red, urban, and rural. Incarceration grew both at the federal and state level, but most of the growth was in the states, which house the vast majority of the nation’s prisoners. This staggering rise in incarceration hit communities of color hardest: They were disproportionately incarcerated then and remain so today. When Reagan took office in 1980, the total prison population was 329,000, and when he left office eight years later, the prison population had essentially doubled, to 627,000. The prison population began to grow in the 1970s, when politicians from both parties used fear and thinly veiled racial rhetoric to push increasingly punitive policies. Nixon started this trend, declaring a “war on drugs” and justifying it with speeches about being “tough on crime.” But the prison population truly exploded during President Ronald Reagan’s administration. would still incarcerate at a far higher rate than comparable countries. In 2016, the Brennan Center examined convictions and sentences for the 1.46 million people behind bars nationally and found that fully 39 percent, or 576,000, were in prison without any public safety reason and could have been punished in a less costly and damaging way (such as community service).īut even if they were all released, the U.S. Why? Simply put, other countries do not use prison as a one-size-fits-all solution to crime. incarceration rate is nine times higher than Germany, eight times higher than Italy, five times higher than the U.K., and 15 times higher than Japan. That legacy continues to haunt the country today, even as most of the world has adopted punishment systems more in line with what de Tocqueville hoped to find. Of course, de Tocqueville also saw much to criticize in the young United States, including its commitment to slavery. His observations appeared in his classic work, Democracy in America. He found that certain states were attempting to administer humane and proportional punishment in a way France, and the rest of Europe, were not. in 1831 to study the young nation’s prisons and penitentiaries. This was a statement of priorities - and the world noticed.Īlexis de Tocqueville, the renowned 19th century French sociologist, came to the U.S. Four of the first 10 amendments to the Constitution protect the rights of the accused or convicted.
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The Founders, rebelling against a British legal system that vested all power in the Crown, wanted a justice system that guarded against government abuse.
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REAGAN IN OFFICE TIMELINE HOW TO
But before exploring how to fix the problem, it is worthwhile to conduct a brief review of the history of incarceration.įrom Noble Intentions to Knee-jerk Result is also the leader in the prison population rate. America’s approach to punishment often lacks a public safety rationale, disproportionately affects minorities, and inflicts overly harsh sentences. incarcerates more people than any nation in the world, including China. Simply put, it is shorthand for the fact that the U.S. You’ve heard the phrase “mass incarceration.” But what, really, does it mean? Advance Constitutional Change Show / hide.National Task Force on Democracy Reform & the Rule of Law.Government Targeting of Minority Communities Show / hide.Campaign Finance in the Courts Show / hide.Gerrymandering & Fair Representation Show / hide.Ensure Every American Can Vote Show / hide.