PEW: Americans are tired of packing the prisons.

"CLOSED DOORS"
illustrating the school-to-prison-pipeline...

This press release below came to my attention tonight courtesy of Lois at the Real Cost of Prisons Project - check them out. And listen up, dear legislators...

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Public Opinion on Sentencing and Corrections Policy in America

On behalf of the Pew Center on the States, Public Opinion Strategies and the Mellman Group conducted phone interviews with 1,200 likely voters nationwide on January 10-15, 2012. The survey has a margin of error of ±2.8%. The margin of error is higher for subgroups.

2012 polling, consistent with 2010 research, indicates that voters are concerned first and foremost with keeping communities and people safe. Without question, voters want a strong public safety system where criminals are held accountable and there are consequences for illegal activities. They also believe that these goals can be reached while reducing the size and cost of the prison system.

A national public opinion survey conducted in January 2012, along with similar surveys in Georgia, Missouri, and Oregon, found those attitudes persist and revealed opinions on specific policy solutions. (The focus of this survey is people who have been convicted of non-violent offenses.)

1. American voters believe too many people are in prison and the nation spends too much on imprisonment.

2. Voters overwhelmingly support a variety of policy changes that shift non-violent offenders from prison to more effective, less expensive alternatives.

3. Support for sentencing and corrections reforms (including reduced prison terms) is strong across political parties, regions, age, gender, and racial/ethnic groups.

For details go to:

  http://www.pewcenteronthestates.org/uploadedFiles/wwwpewcenteronthestatesorg/Initiatives/PSPP/PEW_NationalSurveyResearchPaper_FINAL.pdf

Collatoral damage: prisoners, their futures, and their families.

This report is especially for those who think we need to make people pay for the cost of their own incarceration, as if they don't already pay a price. On the contrary, Americans make prisoners and their families pay, and pay, and pay - long past the original terms of the sentence, in so many ways. We might as well cut off some of these prisoners' right hands and brand their foreheads with "CRIMINAL", given the social and economic consequences of having a felony record.


Trust me, Arizona - we punish our more impoverished criminals sufficiently with their imprisonment and other sanctions - the ones with money to pay for their prison stay generally spent that money on lawyers who got them off on probation. We don't need to go after poor kids like we do, though they are often the target of the AZ Department of Corrections, which makes it hard for prisoners to support their families, and is now also imposing a new banking fee on prisoners and a $25 annual fee on each visitor to recoup their background check expenses. No wonder ADC director Chuck Ryan was hand-picked by Governor Jan Brewer to be her Chief Disciplinarian: he seems to think a lot like her and AZ Me Party Senate President Russ Pearce, who both believe that children should be punished for the "crimes" of their parents.


So, from the PEW Charitable Trusts / Economic Mobility Project, here's the executive summary of Collatoral Costs: Incarceration's Effect on Economic Mobility. In short, it's devastating, and amounts to cruel and unusual lifelong punishment for offenders and their families - and has a far more insidious effect on their communities than most people have any idea of. I think the powers that be just keep us all thinking it's a good idea because it assures them that they have a constant supply of slave labor for the state and low wage labor in the community to undercut unions and the working class if we start feeling too entitled to things like a living wage...

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Collatoral Costs: Incarceration's Effect on Economic Mobility

Executive Summary

Currently 2.3 million Americans are behind bars, equaling more than 1 in 100 adults. Up from just 500,000 in 1980, this marks more than a 300 percent increase in the United States’ incarcerated population and represents the highest rate of incarceration in the world.

Over the last four years, The Pew Charitable Trusts has documented the enormous expense of building prisons and housing inmates that is borne by states and the federal government. Indeed, in the face of gaping budget shortfalls, more than half of the states are now seeking alternative sentencing and corrections strategies that cost less than prison, but can protect public safety and hold offenders accountable. A less explored fiscal implication of incarceration is its impact on former inmates’ economic opportunity and mobility.

Economic mobility, the ability of individuals and families to move up the income ladder over their lifetime and across generations, is the epitome of the American Dream. Americans believe that economic success is determined by individual efforts and attributes, like hard work and ambition, and that anyone should be able to improve his or her economic circumstances.

Incarceration affects an inmate’s path to prosperity. Collateral Costs quantifies the size of that effect, not only on offenders but on their families and children. Before being incarcerated more than two-thirds of male inmates were employed and more than half were the primary source of financial support for their children.1 Incarceration carries significant and enduring economic repercussions for the remainder of the person’s working years. This report finds that former inmates work fewer weeks each year, earn less money and have limited upward mobility. These costs are borne by offenders’ families and communities, and they reverberate across generations.

People who break the law need to be held accountable and pay their debt to society. Prisons can enhance public safety, both by keeping dangerous criminals off the streets and by deterring would be offenders. However, virtually all inmates will be released, and when they do, society has a strong interest in helping them fulfill their responsibilities to their victims, their families and their communities.When returning offenders can find and keep legitimate employment, they are more likely to be able to pay restitution to their victims, support their children and avoid crime.

To calculate the impacts of incarceration on economic mobility, The Pew Charitable Trusts commissioned new analysis by two of the leading researchers in the field, Dr. Bruce Western of Harvard University and Dr. Becky Pettit of the University of Washington.


Major findings include the following:

INCARCERATION IS CONCENTRATED AMONG MEN, THE YOUNG, THE UNEDUCATED AND RACIAL AND ETHNIC MINORITIES—ESPECIALLY AFRICAN AMERICANS.

• One in 87 working-aged white men is in prison or jail, compared with 1 in 36 Hispanic men and 1 in 12 African American men.

• More young (20 to 34-year-old) African American men without a high school diploma or GED are currently behind bars (37 percent) than employed (26 percent).

INCARCERATION NEGATIVELY AFFECTS FORMER INMATES’ ECONOMIC PROSPECTS.

• Serving time reduces hourly wages for men by approximately 11 percent, annual employment by 9 weeks and annual earnings by 40 percent.

• By age 48, the typical former inmate will have earned $179,000 less than if he had never been incarcerated.

• Incarceration depresses the total earnings of white males by 2 percent, of Hispanic males by 6 percent, and of black males by 9 percent.

FORMER INMATES EXPERIENCE LESS UPWARD ECONOMIC MOBILITY THAN THOSE WHO ARE NEVER INCARCERATED.

• Of the former inmates who were in the lowest fifth of the male earnings distribution in 1986, two-thirds remained on the bottom rung in 2006, twice the number of those who were not incarcerated.

• Only 2 percent of previously incarcerated men who started in the bottom fifth of the earnings distribution made it to the top fifth 20 years later, compared to 15 percent of men who started at the bottom but were never incarcerated.

THE IMPACTS OF INCARCERATION REACH FAR BEYOND FORMER INMATES TO THEIR CHILDREN AND FAMILIES.

• 54 percent of inmates are parents with minor children (ages 0-17), including more than 120,000 mothers and 1.1 million fathers.

• 2.7 million children have a parent behind bars—1 in every 28 children (3.6 percent) has a parent incarcerated, up from 1 in 125 just 25 years ago. Two-thirds of these children’s parents were incarcerated for non-violent offenses.

• One in 9 African American children (11.4 percent), 1 in 28 Hispanic children (3.5 percent) and 1 in 57 white children (1.8 percent) have an incarcerated parent.

A CHILD’S PROSPECT OF UPWARD ECONOMIC MOBILITY IS NEGATIVELY AFFECTED BY THE INCARCERATION OF A PARENT.

• Previous research has shown that having a parent incarcerated hurts children, both educationally and financially.

• Children with fathers who have been incarcerated are significantly more likely than other children to be expelled or suspended from school (23 percent compared with 4 percent).2

• Family income averaged over the years a father is incarcerated is 22 percent lower than family income was the year before a father is incarcerated. Even in the year after the father is released, family income remains 15 percent lower than it was the year before incarceration.3

• Both education and parental income are strong indicators of children’s future economic mobility.4

With millions of prison and jail inmates a year returning to their communities, it is important to identify policies that address the impact of incarceration on the economic mobility of former inmates and their children. Based on information previously put forward by The Pew Charitable Trusts’ Public Safety Performance Project and Pew’s Economic Mobility Project, this report outlines ways to reduce the productivity losses associated with serving time in jail or prison.

These recommendations include the following:

• Proactively reconnect former inmates to the labor market through education and training, job search and placement support and follow-up services to help former inmates stay employed.

• Enhance former inmates’ economic condition and make work pay by capping the percent of an offenders’ income subject to deductions for unpaid debts (such as court-ordered fines and fees), and expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit to include non-custodial, low-income parents.

• Screen and sort people convicted of crimes by the risks they pose to society, diverting lower-risk offenders into high-quality, community-based mandatory supervision programs.

• Use earned-time credits, a proven model that offers selected inmates a shortened prison stay if they complete educational, vocational or rehabilitation programs that boost their chances of successful reentry into the community and the labor market.

• Provide funding incentives to corrections agencies and programs that succeed in reducing crime and increasing employment.

• Use swift and certain sanctions other than prison, such as short but immediate weekend jail stays, to punish probation and parole violations, holding offenders accountable while allowing them to keep their jobs.


1 Western, 2006; Glaze and Maruschak, 2008.
2 Johnson, 2009.
3 Ibid.
4 Isaacs, Sawhill and Haskins, 2008.

Stop The Madness. No New Prisons.

This was brought to my attention by another Arizona activist...

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New York Times

January 4, 2010

Editorial

Prisons and Budgets

The United States, which has less than 5 percent of the world’s population, has about one-quarter of its prisoners. But the relentless rise in the nation’s prison population has suddenly slowed as many states discover that it is simply too expensive to overincarcerate.

Between 1987 and 2007 the prison population nearly tripled, from 585,000 to almost 1.6 million. Much of that increase occurred in states — many with falling crime rates — that had adopted overly harsh punishment policies, such as the “three strikes and you’re out” rule and drug laws requiring that nonviolent drug offenders be locked away.

These policies have been hugely costly. According to the Pew Center on the States, state spending from general funds on corrections increased from $10.6 billion in 1987 to more than $44 billion in 2007, a 127 percent increase in inflation-adjusted dollars. In the same period, adjusted spending on higher education increased only 21 percent.

In 2008, the explosion of the prison population ground to a near halt, according to data released last month by the Bureau of Justice Statistics. About 739,000 inmates were admitted to federal and state facilities, only about 3,500 more than were released.

One factor seems to be tight budgets as states decide to release nonviolent offenders early. This can not only save money. If done correctly, it can also be very sound social policy. Many nonviolent offenders can be dealt with more effectively and more cheaply through treatment and jobs programs.

Michigan, which has been hard hit by the recession, has done a particularly good job of releasing people who do not need to be in prison. As the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Prison Project details in a new report, Michigan reduced its prison population by about 8 percent between March 2007 and November 2009 by taking smart steps, notably doing more to get nonviolent drug offenders out, while helping in their transition to a productive, and crime-free, life.

Not every state has gotten the message. Florida, for example, has a state law mandating that all prisoners serve a high percentage of their sentence, which is both dubious corrections policy and terrible fiscal policy.
For many years, driving up prison populations has been an easy thing for elected officials to do, popular with voters and powerful corrections officer unions. The new incarceration figures suggest, however, that in the current hard economic times, strapped states are beginning to realize that they do not have the money to keep people in prison who do not need to be there.

Words of wisdom: Rep. Cecil Ash on Sentencing Reform.

Here's to Truth, Peace and Justice - may all prevail in the New Year. 

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From the East Valley Tribune

December 8, 2009

Sentencing reform needed for Arizona

By Cecil Ash
Commentary

In 1990, a 31-year-old man went into a Fry's grocery store. When no one was looking, he picked up a carton of cigarettes and walked quickly to the exit. All of this was captured on the store video, and he was apprehended in the parking lot with the cartoon of cigarettes and no receipt.

This offense could have been prosecuted as a misdemeanor, given the value of the cigarettes ($16.95). A misdemeanor may carry up to six months in jail. However, the prosecutor at the time elected to charge it as a felony, since he entered the store for the purpose of committing a crime. Because the defendant had two previous, nonrelated convictions, he was sentenced to prison for 8.3 years.

Question No. 1: Do taxpayers of the state want to pay $20,000-plus per year to incarcerate people for this kind of a crime?

Question No. 2: In this case, who had the greatest say in what the time served would be? The prosecutor or the judge? The apparent answer is the prosecutor. But ultimately the fate of this defendant was sealed by members of the Legislature who set up the mandatory sentencing parameters of our current criminal code.

In 2008, Arizona spent $951 million incarcerating felons, many of whom posed no danger to the general public. A recent Pew Center report indicates that in 2008, one in 33 adults in Arizona was under correctional control, which includes jail, prison, parole and probation. Twenty-five years ago, this number was one in 79. What has changed so much is not human nature, but the offenses for which we incarcerate and the imposition of mandatory sentences.

In these times when budget deficits are mushrooming, it is time to take a fresh look at the sentencing structure of the state's criminal code. For this reason, House Speaker Kirk Adams, R-Mesa, has appointed an Interim Committee on Sentencing Reform to evaluate the effectiveness of our current criminal code.

All of us agree that the public must be protected from dangerous and repetitive offenders. But it is time to acknowledge that with new technologies and evidence-based sentencing, the state may be able to have a more effective criminal justice system at lower cost. And everyone agrees that there are plenty of other places in the state budget where the savings can be used.

The House Interim Committee on Sentencing Reform will hold its first meeting at 9 a.m. Tuesday. Public comment is invited by testimony, mail or e-mail. The committee will consider who needs to be incarcerated as a matter of public safety, and what evidence-based sentencing alternatives can reduce recidivism and rehabilitate, rather than simply warehouse offenders.

Mail may be sent to the Committee on Sentencing Reform, 1700 W. Washington St., Phoenix, AZ 85007. E-mail should be directed to the committee members: Reps. Cecil Ash (chairman), Kyrsten Sinema, Bill Konopnicki, Doris Goodale, Laurin Hendrix, and Anna Tovar.

With input from the public, the judiciary, and criminal justice agencies, this bipartisan effort will yield savings to Arizona, as well as in some cases redirecting inmates' misspent years into more productive use.

Rep. Cecil Ash is a Republican who represents District 18, which covers western Mesa.