Incarceration in the United States

Incarceration in the United States is one of the main forms of punishment and/or rehabilitation for the commission of felony and other offenses. The United States has the highest documented incarceration rate in the world. At year-end 2009 it was 743 adults incarcerated per 100,000 population.^{[2][3][4][5][6]}

According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) 2,292,133 adults were incarcerated in U.S. federal and state prisons, and county jails at year-end 2009 — about 1% of adults in the U.S. resident population.^[2][3][7][8] Additionally, 4,933,667 adults at year-end 2009 were on probation or on parole.^[2] In total, 7,225,800 adults were under correctional supervision (probation, parole, jail, or prison) in 2009 — about 3.1% of adults in the U.S. resident population.^[1][2][9] In addition, there were 86,927 juveniles in juvenile detention in 2007.^[10][11]

Prison population

On January 1, 2008 more than 1 in 100 adults in the United States were in prison or jail.^[7][12]

In 2008 approximately one in every 31 adults (7.3 million) in the United States was behind bars, or being monitored (probation and parole). In 2008 the breakdown for adults under correctional control was as follows: one out of 18 men, one in 89 women, one in 11 African-Americans (9.2 percent), one in 27 Latinos (3.7 percent), and one in 45 whites (2.2 percent). Crime rates have declined by about 25 percent from 1988-2008.^[13] 70% of prisoners in the United States are non-whites.^[14] In recent decades the U.S. has experienced a surge in its prison population, quadrupling since 1980, partially as a result of mandatory sentencing that came about during the "war on drugs." Violent crime and property crime have declined since the early 1990s.^[15]

In addition, there were 86,927 held in juvenile facilities as of the 2007 Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement (CJRP), conducted by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.^[10][11]

As of 2009, the three states with the lowest ratios of imprisoned people per 100,000 population are Maine (150 per 100,000), Minnesota (189 per 100,000), and New Hampshire (206 per 100,000). The three states with the highest ratio are Louisiana (881 per 100,000), Mississippi (702 per 100,000) and Oklahoma (657 per 100,000).^[16]

In 2009, 92.9% of prisoners (not jail inmates) were male.^[16]

A 2005 report estimated that 27% of federal prison inmates are noncitizens, convicted of crimes while in the country legally or illegally.^[17] However, federal prison inmates only account for six percent of the total incarcerated population; noncitizen populations in state and local prisons are more difficult to establish. The World Prison Brief puts the total number of foreign prisoners in all federal, state and local facilities at 5.9%.^[5]

Types of incarceration facilities

Those incarcerated for felony offenses usually serve their time in federal or state prisons. Less serious offenders, such as those convicted of misdemeanor offenses, may receive a short term sentence to be served in a local city or county jail, or to alternative forms of sanctions such as community corrections (halfway house) or house arrest. Different U.S. prisons operate at different levels of security, ranging from minimum-security prisons—that mainly house non-violent offenders—to supermax facilities that house the most dangerous criminals.

The federal government, states, counties, and many individual cities have facilities to confine people. Generally, "prison" refers to facilities for holding convicted felons (offenders who commit crimes where the sentence is at least one year). Individuals awaiting trial, being held pending citations for non-custodial offenses, and those convicted of misdemeanors (crimes which carry a sentence of less than one year), are generally held in county jails.

In most states, cities operate small jail facilities, sometimes simply referred to as "lock-ups", used only for very short-term incarceration—can be held for up to 72 business hours or up to five days—until the prisoner comes before a judge for the first time or receives a citation or summons before being released or transferred to a larger jail. Some states have "unified" systems, in which all the jails and prisons are operated by the state. The federal government also operates various "detention centers" in major urban areas or near federal courthouses to hold criminal defendants appearing in federal court.

Many of the smaller county and city jails do not classify prisoners (that is, there is no separation by offense type and other factors). While some of these small facilities operate as "close security" facilities, to prevent prisoner-on-prisoner violence and increase overall security, others may put many prisoners into the same cells without regard to their individual criminal histories. Other local jails are large and have many different security levels. For example, one of the largest jails in the United States is Cook County Jail in Cook County (located in Chicago). This facility has eleven different divisions, including one medical unit and two units for female prisoners, with each of the eleven divisions operating at a different security level, ranging from dormitory-style open housing to super-secure lock-down.

In the state of California, to prevent violence, prisoners are segregated by race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation while held in county jails and in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation's reception centers, where newly committed prisoners are assessed prior to being transferred to their "mainline", long-term institutions.

Duration

A judge sentences a person convicted of a crime. The length of the prison term depends upon multiple factors including the severity and type of the crime, state and/or federal sentencing guidelines, the convicted's criminal record, and the personal discretion of the judge. These factors may be different in each state and in the federal system as well. The vast majority of criminal convictions arise from plea bargains, in which an agreement is made between prosecutors and defense counsel for the defendant to plead guilty to a lesser charge for a lesser sentence than they would receive if found guilty at trial.

Some prisoners are given life sentences. In some cases, a life sentence means life, without the possibility of parole. In other cases, people with life sentences are eligible for parole after a time period determined at the time of sentencing. In some states, the death penalty may be applied. Death row inmates are kept in prison until their execution.

Many legislatures continually reduce discretion in both the sentencing process and the determination of when the conditions of a sentence have been satisfied. Determinate sentencing, use of mandatory minimums, and guidelines-based sentencing continue to remove the human element from sentencing, such as the prerogative of the judge to consider the mitigating or extenuating circumstances of a crime to determine the appropriate length of the incarceration. As the consequence of "three strikes laws," the increase in the duration of incarceration in the last decade was most pronounced in the case of life prison sentences, which increased by 83% between 1992 and 2003.^[19]

Violent and nonviolent crime

7.9% of sentenced prisoners in federal prisons on September 30, 2009 were in for violent crimes.^[16] 52.4% of sentenced prisoners in state prisons at year end 2008 were in for violent crimes.^[16] 21.6% of convicted inmates in jails in 2002 (latest available data by type of offense) were in for violent crimes. Among unconvicted inmates in jails in 2002, 34% had a violent offense as the most serious charge. 41% percent of convicted and unconvicted jail inmates in 2002 had a current or prior violent offense; 46% were nonviolent recidivists. ^[20]

From 2000 to 2008, the state prison population increased by 159,200 prisoners, and violent offenders accounted for 60% of this increase. The number of drug offenders in state prisons declined by 12,400 over this period. Furthermore, while the number of sentenced violent offenders in state prison increased from 2000 through 2008, the expected length of stays for these offenders declined slightly during this period.^[16]

Violent crime was not responsible for the quadrupling of the incarcerated population in the United States from 1980 to 2003. Violent crime rates had been relatively constant or declining over those decades. The prison population was increased primarily by public policy changes causing more prison sentences and lengthening time served, e.g. through mandatory minimum sentencing, "three strikes" laws, and reductions in the availability of parole or early release. These policies were championed as protecting the public from serious and violent offenders, but instead yielded high rates of confinement for nonviolent offenders. Nearly three quarters of new admissions to state prison were convicted of nonviolent crimes. Only 49 percent of sentenced state inmates were held for violent offenses. Perhaps the single greatest force behind the growth of the prison population has been the national "war on drugs." The number of incarcerated drug offenders has increased twelvefold since 1980. In 2000, 22 percent of those in federal and state prisons were convicted on drug charges. ^[21][22]

Recidivism

A 2002 study survey showed that among nearly 275,000 prisoners released in 1994, 67.5% were rearrested within 3 years, and 51.8% were back in prison.^[23] However, the study found no evidence that spending more time in prison raises the recidivism rate, and found that those serving the longest time, 61 months or more, had a significantly lower re-arrest rate (54.2%) than every other category of prisoner. This is most likely explained by the older average age of those released with the longest sentences, and the study shows a strong negative correlation between recidivism and age upon release.

Comparison with other countries

The United States has the highest documented incarceration rate in the world (743 per 100,000 population), Russia has the second highest rate (577 per 100,000), followed by Rwanda (561 per 100,000).^[4] As of year-end 2009 the USA rate was 743 adults incarcerated in prisons and jails per 100,000 population.^[2][4] At year-end 2007 the United States had less than 5% of the world's population^[26] and 23.4% of the world's prison and jail population (adult inmates).^[5]

By comparison the incarceration rate in England and Wales in October 2011 was 155 people imprisoned per 100,000 residents;^[27] the rate for Norway in May 2010 was 71 inmates per 100,000;^[28] Netherlands in April 2010 was 94 per 100,000;^[29] Australia in June 2010 was 133 per 100,000;^[30] and New Zealand in October 2010 was 203 per 100,000.^[31]

A 2008 New York Times article^[32] points out:

Still, it is the length of sentences that truly distinguishes American prison policy. Indeed, the mere number of sentences imposed here would not place the United States at the top of the incarceration lists. If lists were compiled based on annual admissions to prison per capita, several European countries would outpace the United States. But American prison stays are much longer, so the total incarceration rate is higher. ... "Rises and falls in Canada's crime rate have closely paralleled America's for 40 years," Mr. Tonry wrote last year. "But its imprisonment rate has remained stable."

Incarceration rate in the USA for federal and state prisons in 2007 was the highest in history of the country.^[33] It was 5.5 times greater than the sharp peak that occurred during the Great Depression at 137 per 100,000 in 1939.^[34] But historically, the current US incarceration rate is still slightly lower than the record-high Soviet Union's levels before World War II when the USSR's population reached 168 million, and 1.2 to 1.5 million people were in the Gulag system's prison camps and colonies (i.e. about 800 people imprisoned per 100,000 residents, according to numbers from Anne Applebaum and Steven Rosefielde).^[35][36] The Soviet Union's incarceration rates from 1934 to 1953 were historically the world's highest for a modern age country, according to The Gulag Archipelago book by Nobel Prize winner Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.^[37]

Minorities

Ethnicity

According to the US Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) non-Hispanic blacks accounted for 39.4% of the total prison and jail population in 2009.^[39] According to the 2010 census of the US Census Bureau blacks (including Hispanic blacks) comprised 12.6% of the US population.^[40][41][42]

Hispanics (of all races) were 20.6% of the total jail and prison population in 2009.^[39] Hispanics comprised 16.3% of the US population according to the 2010 US census.^[40]

In 2009 black non-Hispanic males were incarcerated at the rate of 4,749 inmates per 100,000 U.S. residents of the same race and gender. White males were incarcerated at the rate of 708 inmates per 100,000 U.S. residents. Hispanic males were incarcerated at the rate of 1,822 inmates per 100,000 U.S. residents.^[39][43] For female rates see the table above.

Census data for 2000, which included a count of the number and race of all individuals incarcerated in the United States, showed for each state that the proportion of blacks in prison populations exceeded the proportion of whites among state residents in every state.^[44] In twenty states, the percent of blacks incarcerated was at least five times greater than their share of resident population.^[44]

Women

As of December 31, 2009 the female prison population of federal and state prisons in the United States was 113,462.^[45] Within the US, the rate of female incarceration increased fivefold in a two decade span ending in 2001; the increase occurred because of increased prosecutions and convictions of offenses related to recreational drugs, increases in the severities of offenses, and a lack of community sanctions and treatment for women who violate laws.^[46] In the United States, authorities began housing women in correctional facilities separate from men in the 1870s.^[47] However, there are still multiple problems specific to female incarceration, like pregnancy and childbirth conflicts within the prison system, state regulations originally designed for male bodies, male paradigm of physical structures, difficulties to reintegrate into society after the release.

Youth

Through the juvenile courts and the adult criminal justice system, the United States incarcerates more of its youth than any other country in the world, a reflection of the larger trends in incarceration practices in the United States. This has been a source of controversy for a number of reasons, including the overcrowding and violence in youth detention facilities, the prosecution of youths as adults and the long term consequences of incarceration on the individual's chances for success in adulthood.

Aged

The percentage of prisoners in federal and state prisons aged 55 and older increased by 33% from 2000 to 2005 while the prison population grew by only 8%. The Southern Legislative Conference found that in 16 southern states the elderly prisoner population increased on average by 145% between 1997 and 2007. The growth in the elderly population brought along higher health care costs, most notably seen in the 10% average increase in state prison budgets from 2005 to 2006.

The SLC expects the percentage of elderly prisoners relative to the overall prison population to continue to rise. Ronald Aday, a professor of aging studies at Middle Tennessee State University and author of Aging Prisoners: Crisis in American Corrections, concurs. One out of six prisoners in California is serving a life sentence. Aday predicts that by 2020 16% percent of those serving life sentences will be elderly.^[48][49]

State governments pay all of their inmates' housing costs which significantly increase as prisoners age. Inmates are unable to apply for Medicare and Medicaid. Most Departments of Correction report spending more than 10 percent of the annual budget on elderly care.^[48][49]

Operational

Security levels

In various, but not all, state's department of corrections, inmates reside in different facilities that vary by security level, especially in security measures, administration of inmates, type of housing, and weapons and tactics used by corrections officers. The federal government's Bureau of Prisons uses a numbered scale from one to five to represent the security level. Level five is the most secure, while level one is the least. State prison systems operate similar systems. California, for example, classifies its facilities from Reception Center through Levels I through V (minimum to maximum security) to specialized high security units (all considered Level V) including Security Housing Unit (SHU)—California's version of supermax—and related units. As a general rule, county jails, detention centers, and reception centers, where new commitments are first held either while awaiting trial or before being transferred to "mainline" institutions to serve out their sentences, operate at a relatively high level of security, usually close security or higher.

Supermax prison facilities provide the highest level of prison security. These units hold those considered the most dangerous inmates. These include inmates who have committed assaults, murders, or other serious violations in less secure facilities, and inmates known to be or accused of being prison gang members. Most states have either a supermax section of a prison facility or an entire prison facility designated as a supermax. The United States Federal Bureau of Prisons operates a federal supermax, ADX Florence, located in Florence, Colorado, also known as the "Alcatraz of the Rockies" and widely considered to be perhaps the most secure prison in the United States. ADX Florence has a standard supermax section where assaultive, violent, and gang-related inmates are kept under normal supermax conditions of 23-hour confinement and abridged amenities. ADX Florence is considered to be of a security level above that of all other prisons in the United States, at least in the "ideological" ultramax part of it, which features permanent, 24-hour solitary confinement with rare human contacts or opportunity to earn better conditions through good behavior.

In a maximum security prison or area, all prisoners have individual cells with sliding doors controlled from a secure remote control station. Prisoners are allowed out of their cells one out of twenty four hours. When out of their cells, prisoners remain in the cell block or an exterior cage. Movement out of the cell block or "pod" is tightly restricted using restraints and escorts by correctional officers.

Under close security, prisoners usually have one- or two-person cells operated from a remote control station. Each cell has its own toilet and sink. Inmates may leave their cells for work assignments or correctional programs and otherwise may be allowed in a common area in the cellblock or an exercise yard. The fences are generally double fences with watchtowers housing armed guards, plus often a third, lethal-current electric fence in the middle.

Prisoners that fall into the medium security group may sleep in dormitories on bunk beds with lockers to store their possessions. They may have communal showers, toilets and sinks. Dormitories are locked at night with one or more correctional officers supervising. There is less supervision over the internal movements of prisoners. The perimeter is generally double fenced and regularly patrolled.

Prisoners in minimum security facilities are considered to pose little physical risk to the public and are mainly non-violent "white collar criminals". Minimum security prisoners live in less-secure dormitories, which are regularly patrolled by correctional officers. As in medium security facilities, they have communal showers, toilets, and sinks. A minimum-security facility generally has a single fence that is watched, but not patrolled, by armed guards. At facilities in very remote and rural areas, there may be no fence at all. Prisoners may often work on community projects, such as roadside litter cleanup with the state department of transportation or wilderness conservation. Many minimum security facilities are small camps located in or near military bases, larger prisons (outside the security perimeter) or other government institutions to provide a convenient supply of convict labor to the institution. Many states allow persons in minimum-security facilities access to the Internet.

Correspondence

Research indicates that inmates who maintain contact with family and friends in the outside world are less likely to be convicted of further crimes and usually have an easier reintegration period back into society. Many institutions encourage friends and families to send letters, especially when they are unable to visit regularly. However, guidelines exist as to what constitutes acceptable mail, and these policies are strictly enforced.

Mail sent to inmates in violation of prison policies can cost inmates "gain time" and even lead to punishment. Most Department of Corrections websites provide detailed information regarding mail policies. These rules can even vary within a single prison depending on which part of the prison an inmate is housed. For example, death row and maximum security inmates are usually under stricter mail guidelines for security reasons.

There have been several notable challenges to prison corresponding services. The Missouri Department of Corrections (DOC) stated that effective June 1, 2007, inmates would be prohibited from using pen pal websites, citing concerns that inmates were using them to solicit money and defraud the public.^[50] Service providers such as WriteAPrisoner.com, together with the ACLU, plan to challenge the ban in Federal Court. Similar bans on an inmate's rights or a website's right to post such information has been ruled unconstitutional in other courts, citing First Amendment freedoms.^[51] Some faith-based initiatives promote the positive effects of correspondence on inmates, and some have made efforts to help ex-offenders reintegrate into society through job placement assistance.^[52] Inmates' ability to mail letters to other inmates has been limited by the courts.^[53] Inmate correspondence with members of society is typically encouraged because of the positive impact it can have on inmates, albeit under the guidelines of each institution and availability of letter writers.

Conditions

The non-governmental organization Human Rights Watch raised concerns with prisoner rape and medical care for inmates.^[55] In a survey of 1,788 male inmates in Midwestern prisons by Prison Journal, about 21% claimed they had been coerced or pressured into sexual activity during their incarceration, and 7% claimed that they had been raped in their current facility.^[56]

In August 2003, a Harper's article by Wil S. Hylton estimated that "somewhere between 20 and 40% of American prisoners are, at this very moment, infected with hepatitis C". Prisons may outsource medical care to private companies such as Correctional Medical Services, which, according to Hylton's research, try to minimize the amount of care given to prisoners in order to maximize profits.

Also identified as an issue within the prison system is gang violence, because many gang members retain their gang identity and affiliations when imprisoned. Segregation of identified gang members from the general population of inmates, with different gangs being housed in separate units often results in the imprisonment of these gang members with their friends and criminal cohorts. Some feel this has the effect of turning prisons into "institutions of higher criminal learning."^[57]

Many prisons in the United States are overcrowded. For example, California's 33 prisons have a total capacity of 100,000, but they hold 170,000 inmates.^[58] Many prisons in California and around the country are forced to turn old gymnasiums and classrooms into huge bunkhouses for inmates. They do this by placing hundreds of bunk beds next to one another, in these gyms, without any type of barriers to keep inmates separated. In California, the inadequate security engendered by this situation, coupled with insufficient staffing levels, have led to increased violence and a prison health system that causes one death a week. This situation has led the courts to order California to release of 27% of the current prison population, citing the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment.^[59] The three-judge court considering requests by the Plata v. Schwarzenegger and Coleman v. Schwarzenegger courts found California's prisons have become criminogenic as a result of overcrowding.^[60]

In 2005, the Supreme Court of the United States case of Cutter v. Wilkinson established that prisons that received federal funds could not deny prisoners accommodations necessary for religious practices.

According to a Supreme Court ruling issued on May 23, 2011, California — which has the highest overcrowding rate of any prison system in the country — must alleviate overcrowding in the state's prisons, reducing the prisoner population by 30,000 over the next two years.^[61][62]

Privatization

In recent years, there has been much debate over the privatization of prisons. Both publicly provided and publicly financed prisons operate under the supervision of the Department of Corrections that exists at the state and federal level. The Department of Corrections fits the definition of a bureaucracy because it produces an output that is not measured or priced on a per unit basis and it obtains revenue from sources other than sales of an output. The concern in this case is that the bureau will not operate at the efficient budget, or where the public’s marginal demand for prison services meets the least marginal cost of operations. The prisons can offer to implement more inmate programs or costly security enhancements out to the level where the consumer surplus is depleted. The same result can happen if the prisons argue that the marginal cost is in fact higher than it actually is by taking advantage of the budget approving legislators’ lack of information. In this scenario the level of output is unchanged but the prison is receiving more funds than is necessary for an efficient outcome. Because public managers are under less pressure than their private industry counterparts when it comes to profitability and bankruptcy concerns, there is a risk that they may not run their operation as efficiently.

Allowing for publicly financed but privately provided prisons eliminates much of the concern about a bureaucracy operating in a manner that may be viewed as wasteful. The introduction of competition that accompanies private contracting creates market pressures that encourage private managers to seek more cost effective means of operating. Travis Snelling of the Corrections Corporation of America notes that his prisons are designed to save on labor, which represents 70% of the total costs over the useful life of a prison. Snelling estimates: "If you can eliminate one post by your architectural design, just one, that'll save you well over $100,000 in a given marketplace, as far as labor is concerned."^[63] Privately run prisons have greater flexibility in determining their labor force and salaries, which is more complicated with civil servants working in a publicly run prison. Competition can also allow for greater accountability and oversight. As long as there is more than one private contracting firm, then if the public is not satisfied with the performance or costs they can look to replace the current private firm with another. However, there could exist a conflict of interest by the profit driven, privately run prisons to provide programs that might lower recidivism rates because the lower prison population will then lower the profit margin.

California houses inmates in both private contract and public agency-operated facilities. Contract beds cost about $25,000 less to operate than a standard prison bed. About 48,000 prison beds are occupied by low-level offenders who are in prison only because of a chronic jail bed shortage. The State would reduce the prison budget by about $1 billion dollars annually if all the low level offenders were placed in contract facilities.

A study was performed using three comparable Louisiana medium security prisons, two of which were privately run by different corporations and the third was publicly run. The authors report the data from this study suggests the privately run prisons operated more cost effectively without sacrificing the safety of inmates and staff. They conclude the privately run prisons had a lower cost per inmate, fewer critical incidents, safer environment for employees and inmates, and a higher proportional rate of inmates who complete basic education, literacy, and vocational training courses. However, the publicly run prison outperformed the privately run prisons in areas such as less escape attempts, controlling substance abuse through testing, offered a wider range of educational and vocational courses, and provided a broader range of treatment, recreation, social services, and habilitative services.^[64]

The results of this study show why this issue is complicated without an obvious solution. The privately run prisons were found to be a cheaper alternative without diminishing the level of safety and generating a higher completion rate of the offered educational/vocational programs. But, the publicly run prison offered more services that suggest a larger commitment beyond guarding and housing inmates.

Controversy has surrounded the privatization of prisons with the landmark Arizona SB 1070 law. This law was written by Arizona State Congressman Russell Pearce and the Prison Corporation of America in the Grand Hyatt in Washington, D.C.^[65] There the group decided to turn an idea to house illegal immigrants in jail to model legislation that is almost word for word the Arizona SB 1070 law.

Companies operating in the private prison business include the Corrections Corporation of America, the GEO Group, Inc., Management and Training Corporation, and Community Education Centers. The GEO Group was formerly known as Wackenhut Securities, and includes the Cornell Companies, which merged with GEO in 2010.

Private companies which provide services to prisons combine in the American Correctional Association, which advocates legislation favorable to the industry. Such private companies comprise what has been termed the Prison-industrial complex.

Employment

It is estimated that 1 in 9 state government employees works in corrections.^[66] About 17% of prisoners are employed by UNICOR^[67]

Cost

In 2006, $68,747,203,000 was spent on corrections.^[68]

In 2005, it cost an average of $23,876 dollars per state prisoner. State prison spending varied widely, from $45,000 a year in Rhode Island to $13,000 in Louisiana.^[7][66]

In California in 2009, it cost an average of $47,102 a year to incarcerate an inmate in state prison. From 2001 to 2009, the average annual cost increased by about $19,500.^[69]

In 2001 among facilities operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, it cost $22,632 per inmate, or $62.01 per day.^[70]

Housing the approximately 500,000 people in jail in the USA awaiting trial who cannot afford bail costs $9 billion a year.^[71] Most jail inmates are petty, nonviolent offenders. Twenty years ago most nonviolent defendants were released on their own recognizance (trusted to show up at trial). Now most are given bail, and most pay a bail bondsman to afford it.^[72] 62% of local jail inmates are awaiting trial.^[18]

To ease jail overcrowding over 10 counties every year consider building new jails. As an example Lubbock County, Texas has decided to build a $110 million megajail to ease jail overcrowding. Jail costs an average of $60 a day nationally.^[72][73] In Broward County, Florida supervised pretrial release costs about $7 a day per person while jail costs $115 a day. The jail system costs a quarter of every county tax dollar in Broward County, and is the single largest expense to the county taxpayer.^[74]

Bondsmen have lobbied to cut back local pretrial programs from Texas to California, pushed for legislation in four states limiting pretrial's resources, and lobbied Congress so that they won't have to pay the bond if the defendant commits a new crime. Behind them, the bondsmen have powerful special interest group and millions of dollars. Pretrial release agencies have a smattering of public employees and the remnants of their once-thriving programs.

—National Public Radio, January 22, 2010.^[74]

The National Association of State Budget Officers reports: "In fiscal 2009, corrections spending represented 3.4 percent of total state spending and 7.2 percent of general fund spending." They also report: "Some states exclude certain items when reporting corrections expenditures. Twenty-one states wholly or partially excluded juvenile delinquency counseling from their corrections figures and fifteen states wholly or partially excluded spending on juvenile institutions. Seventeen states wholly or partially excluded spending on drug abuse rehabilitation centers and forty-one states wholly or partially excluded spending on institutions for the criminally insane. Twenty-two states wholly or partially excluded aid to local governments for jails. For details, see Table 36."^[75]

As of 2007 the cost of medical care for inmates was growing by 10 percent annually.^[7][66]

Criticism

High rates of incarceration may be due to sentence length. Shorter sentences may even diminish the criminal culture by possibly reducing re-arrest rates for first-time convicts.^[76] The U.S. Congress has ordered federal judges to make imprisonment decisions "recognizing that imprisonment is not an appropriate means of promoting correction and rehabilitation."^[77]

Critics have lambasted the United States for incarcerating a large number of non-violent and victimless offenders;^[78][79] half of all persons incarcerated under state jurisdiction are for non-violent offenses, and 20% are incarcerated for drug offenses (in state prisons, federal prison percentages are higher).^[39][80] "Human Rights Watch believes the extraordinary rate of incarceration in the United States wreaks havoc on individuals, families and communities, and saps the strength of the nation as a whole."^[78] The population of inmates housed in prisons and jails in the United States exceeds 2 million, with the per capita incarceration population higher than that officially reported by any other country.^[66] Criminal justice policy in the United States has also been criticized for a number of other reasons.^[81]

Reporting at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association (August 3, 2008), Becky Pettit, associate professor of sociology from the University of Washington and Bryan Sykes, a UW post-doctoral researcher, revealed that the mammoth increase in the United States’ prison population since the 1970s is having profound demographic consequences that affect 1 in 50 Americans. Drawing data from a variety of sources that looked at prison and general populations, the researchers found that the boom in prison population is hiding lowered rates of fertility and increased rates of involuntary migration to rural areas and morbidity that is marked by a greater exposure to and risk of infectious diseases such as tuberculosis and HIV or AIDS.^[82]

Penal system organization

The penal system of the United States is operated at both the federal, state, and territorial levels. Each system exists in a separate but related historical and legal context from the others. Federal prisoners have been convicted of federal crimes, state prisoners, of crimes against that state.

Federal

The Federal Bureau of Prisons of the United States Department of Justice is responsible for the administration of the federal prison system. The federal government has jurisdiction over both people and all other governments in the United States.^[83]

States and insular areas

See also

• Capital punishment in the United States
• Inmate telephone system
• Religion in the United States' prisons
• Statistics of incarcerated African-American males
• United States imprisonment rate

Administration:

• Federal Prison Industries, Inc.
• Kids for cash scandal

NGOs:

• November Coalition
• Prison Policy Initiative

Related:

• Crime in the United States
• Law enforcement in the United States
• Penal Labour

Lists:

• Prisons in California

Notes

External links

• The Economist:Too many laws, too many prisoners
• Prisoner Family Support, Info & News A global support and information community dedicated to inmates families and friends.
• The Economist:Rough justice. America locks up too many people, some for acts that should not even be criminal
• Women in Prison: How It Is With Us, by Assata Shakur
• Ken Silverstein - U.S.: America's Private Gulag
• Learn about America's Most Infamous Prisons and Inmates
• Term to Life Prisoner Support
• "Orleans Parish Prison before and after Katrina" from Dollars & Sense magazine
• U.S. Incarceration Rate Timeline from 1925. Yearly totals and rates. State rates for a recent year.
• Table lists. Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics.
• Table 6.13.2005 - Number and rate (per 100,000 U.S. residents) of persons in State and Federal prisons and local jails, United States, 1985, 1990-2005.