NEW: We’ve just released the 2022 edition of Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie - the most comprehensive, up-to-date view of who is locked up in the U.S., where, and why: https://t.co/WH2BPEBCS6
First, the key #s from our report:
- ~1.9 million people are locked up in the U.S. today.
- Prison populations fell ~16% during the pandemic.
- Local jail populations fell about 13%.
It’s easy to read these #s as saying the pandemic sparked widespread criminal justice reform. It didn’t. COVID-19 jammed the gears of the criminal justice system, making it harder for various parts of the system to move.
A need for social distancing and a reduced number of staff in police depts, courts, and prisons meant booking people in jails - and transferring them to prisons - was harder. That meant the # of people admitted to prisons went down.
Meanwhile, the # of people *released* from prisons also went down. 10% fewer people were released from prison during 2020 than in 2019, and preliminary data suggests that fewer still were released in 2021. pic.twitter.com/Q5YOfzWwAI
Still, even after:
- A 46% increase in prison deaths in 2020
- A momentous drop in prison populations
The U.S. still locks up many times more people per capita today than any other country on earth.
I would say that a general decrease in the prison population is a good thing. However, we need to work on institutions that will direct people who do have something to contribute to society to the places that will allow them to do it.
Really?! What do you think caused the rise in crime rates? Many policing experts and a lot of victims claim it is repeat offenders, either unrepenetent sociopaths or borderline or basically mentally ill, being let out during the pandemic, exactly the phenomenon described in this research.
The reality is: we don't have the society or the science to reform those let out. We don't even know how to do it if we had the people to do it.
Not to mention, now there's lots more guns out there that people bought to "protect themselves" and the option of ghost guns and fewer police and prosecutors because of more than a year of protests, enough of them violent, presenting the opinion that the whole criminal justice system was racist.
I think we're stuck with lots more people incarcerated than other countries if we want a civil society until a lot of these incarcerated people get old enough to be more harmless or die. Really, the majority of violent crime in places like Chicago is being committed by people let out of jail and prison in the last two years. Meantime you can try your kumbaya solutions on those who haven't become irredeemable yet. It really doesn't seem to be the case that the "reformed" are being let out, they're being let out willy nilly because there was no system left to handle them during Covid.
I think the only hope is to start first with the first-time offenders, not to let so many repeat offenders out early when we don't even have a system to handle them. They're lost, you gotta let em be locked up if you want a civil society.
But I've been posting tons of them for at least a year. Beyond domestic violence with guns involved, it's very clear to me that the most violent crimes in the last couple years are by past offenders who were already in jail or prison for something else and recently let out, or juvies who have hankerings to adopt the lifestyle of those guys. Maybe some of those juvies could be saved. I don't think we have the knowledge or werewithal to save those others. They're not going to be happy at a low paying job and no one is going to pay them $200K a year so they can impress their homies in the way they have become accustomed to expect...
Message about who's in charge in Chicago > we have no fear of the rule of law:
There have been so many shootings at this North Side intersection, the city put temporary police surveillance cameras there last week. On Monday, a gunman opened fire on the police cameras — while taking a selfie.https://t.co/R1fzcrtwkr
How do you even start to reverse that except by giving tough sentences to convicted criminals? That rule of law is not a joke. Not that if you're arrested, no big deal, you'll be back on street in no time.
(You can thank official BLM for helping this to come to fruition! I.E., if we have police at all, all fear of them should be removed.)
dupe on purpose. Only BLM, get them social workers, kumbaya y'all:
Suspect that punched woman 125x in Yonkers arrested in Feb '21 for pushing another woman through glass window. Spent 5 mos in a substance abuse center/zero jail.
He has 4 other felony charges he never served time for.
This is the type of diversion that the Manhattan DA favors.
A man on parole for robbery robbed and repeatedly shot the president of a charity that "works to reduce recidivism among parolees" this week, prosecutor says.https://t.co/z20iU9NpEy
That's a bit unkind - it's needed work (tho not the whole solutuon by any means), but comes with a lot of danger. Obviously an armed robbery parolee would be more dangerous than a substance abuse parolee, but trying to limit how many recommit like crimes should likely lower the % of new offenses, by how much i don't know. But in today's climate, i don't know if this parolee should have been paroled at all - which places the blame not on a naive social volunteer but the parole system and ultimately our elected officials.
Question mark was added as that was the imaginary voice of a repeat offender. I do believe though, just from reading the news, that a lot of those released in 2020-21 are pretty unreformable grifters (at least while they're still young) looking to game anyone employed by the government, not just social workers but anyone from public defenders to parole boards & officer to judges etc. It's rap culture partly (and that doesn't affect just blacks, far from it.)
Comments
by artappraiser on Mon, 03/14/2022 - 9:33pm
I would say that a general decrease in the prison population is a good thing. However, we need to work on institutions that will direct people who do have something to contribute to society to the places that will allow them to do it.
by Orion on Tue, 03/15/2022 - 11:57am
Really?! What do you think caused the rise in crime rates? Many policing experts and a lot of victims claim it is repeat offenders, either unrepenetent sociopaths or borderline or basically mentally ill, being let out during the pandemic, exactly the phenomenon described in this research.
The reality is: we don't have the society or the science to reform those let out. We don't even know how to do it if we had the people to do it.
Not to mention, now there's lots more guns out there that people bought to "protect themselves" and the option of ghost guns and fewer police and prosecutors because of more than a year of protests, enough of them violent, presenting the opinion that the whole criminal justice system was racist.
I think we're stuck with lots more people incarcerated than other countries if we want a civil society until a lot of these incarcerated people get old enough to be more harmless or die. Really, the majority of violent crime in places like Chicago is being committed by people let out of jail and prison in the last two years. Meantime you can try your kumbaya solutions on those who haven't become irredeemable yet. It really doesn't seem to be the case that the "reformed" are being let out, they're being let out willy nilly because there was no system left to handle them during Covid.
I think the only hope is to start first with the first-time offenders, not to let so many repeat offenders out early when we don't even have a system to handle them. They're lost, you gotta let em be locked up if you want a civil society.
by artappraiser on Tue, 03/15/2022 - 1:05pm
P.S.
we&/#39;re going to declare this "electronic monitoring appreciation week."<br><br>All week, we'll have story after story about wonderful things people have allegedly done while they were supposedly on home confinement.</p>— CWBChicago (@CWBChicago) <a href=../_https_/twitter.com/CWBChicago/status/1503367198752100353/index.html?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%22>March 14, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src=../_https_/platform.twitter.com/widgets/index.html charset="utf-8"></script>"> just a few new examples of that revolving door syndrome here.
But I've been posting tons of them for at least a year. Beyond domestic violence with guns involved, it's very clear to me that the most violent crimes in the last couple years are by past offenders who were already in jail or prison for something else and recently let out, or juvies who have hankerings to adopt the lifestyle of those guys. Maybe some of those juvies could be saved. I don't think we have the knowledge or werewithal to save those others. They're not going to be happy at a low paying job and no one is going to pay them $200K a year so they can impress their homies in the way they have become accustomed to expect...by artappraiser on Tue, 03/15/2022 - 1:53pm
Message about who's in charge in Chicago > we have no fear of the rule of law:
How do you even start to reverse that except by giving tough sentences to convicted criminals? That rule of law is not a joke. Not that if you're arrested, no big deal, you'll be back on street in no time.
(You can thank official BLM for helping this to come to fruition! I.E., if we have police at all, all fear of them should be removed.)
by artappraiser on Tue, 03/15/2022 - 10:10pm
dupe on purpose. Only BLM, get them social workers, kumbaya y'all:
by artappraiser on Tue, 03/15/2022 - 11:38pm
there's a sucker social worker born every day?
by artappraiser on Fri, 03/18/2022 - 11:47pm
That's a bit unkind - it's needed work (tho not the whole solutuon by any means), but comes with a lot of danger. Obviously an armed robbery parolee would be more dangerous than a substance abuse parolee, but trying to limit how many recommit like crimes should likely lower the % of new offenses, by how much i don't know. But in today's climate, i don't know if this parolee should have been paroled at all - which places the blame not on a naive social volunteer but the parole system and ultimately our elected officials.
by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 03/19/2022 - 3:11am
Question mark was added as that was the imaginary voice of a repeat offender. I do believe though, just from reading the news, that a lot of those released in 2020-21 are pretty unreformable grifters (at least while they're still young) looking to game anyone employed by the government, not just social workers but anyone from public defenders to parole boards & officer to judges etc. It's rap culture partly (and that doesn't affect just blacks, far from it.)
by artappraiser on Sat, 03/19/2022 - 3:27am
rap picture worth a million words:
by artappraiser on Sat, 03/19/2022 - 3:59pm