America's One-Million Nonviolent Prisoners : no mandatory minimum sentences
Br Dan Izzo
no mandatory minimum sentences
CENTER ON JUVENILE AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE PRESS RELEASE
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Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, 1622 Folsom Street, San
Francisco, CA 94103 Tel: (415) 621-5661 | Fax: (415) 621-5466
For Immediate Release: March, 1999
America's One-Million Nonviolent Prisoners
[Executive Summary] [View the Report]
CONTACT: Jacqueline Sullivan
E-mail: [jacqu...@cjcj.org]
Tel: (415) 621-5661 x319
America Imprisons Over A Million Nonviolent Offenders
Nonviolent Prisoners Increasing Faster than Violent Prisoners
Washington, DC: Coming just a week after the Justice Department
announced that 1.8 million Americans were behind bars, a new report by
the Justice Policy Institute has found that, for the first time, over
one million nonviolent offenders were incarcerated in America in 1998.
"Prisons are built and mandatory sentencing laws passed on the specter
of Willie Horton," stated Vincent Schiraldi, the Institute's Director;
"But increasingly, those prisons are filled with the 'gang that
couldn't shoot straight'."
Entitled America's One Million Nonviolent Prisoners, the JPI analysis
of recent United States Justice Department data showed that over the
past 20 years, the nonviolent prisoner population has increased at a
rate much faster than the violent prisoner population, and that 77% of
the people entering prisons and jails were sentenced for nonviolent
offenses. Since 1978, the number of violent prisoners entering
America's prisons doubled, the number of nonviolent prisoners tripled,
and the number of persons imprisoned for drug offenses increased
eight-fold.
The report, co-authored by John Irwin, professor emeritus from San
Francisco State University, and Jason Ziedenberg, JPI Policy Analyst,
also catalogued the tremendous costs of imprisoning over a million
nonviolent offenders. The $24 billion spent last year by federal,
state and local units of government to incarcerate 1.2 million
nonviolent offenders was almost 50% larger than the entire federal
welfare budget ($16.6 billion) which provides income supports for 8.5
million people, and represents six times what the federal government
will spend on child care for 1.25 million children. Further, America
is spending more building prisons ($2.6 billion) than universities
($2.5 billion). Overall, the combined expenditures for America's
prisons and jails has increased from $5 billion in 1978 to $31 billion
in 1997.
"Spending more to lock up nonviolent offenders than to feed or educate
our country's children is a cruel, self-fulfilling prophecy," stated
JPI Policy Analyst Jason Ziedenberg. "It's not just bad public policy,
but its downright mean-spirited."
The study also found that the overwhelming majority of male jail
inmates are not incarcerated for a violent offense (82.4%) and have no
violent offense history (64%). That is even truer for America's
fastest growing inmate population - women. Eighty-five percent of
female jail inmates are incarcerated for a nonviolent offense, and
83.1% of female jail inmates have no violent prior offenses. The
research corroborated the findings of other studies which have found
that African Americans are imprisoned at 8 times the rate of whites,
and Hispanics are imprisoned at 3 1/2 times the rate of whites. In the
1930s, 75% of the people entering prison were white (reflecting the
general demographics of the nation). Today, minority communities
represent 70% of all new prison admissions.
The study also found:
America's nonviolent prisoner population exceeds the combined general
population of Alaska and Wyoming.
America's nonviolent prisoner population is three times the violent
and nonviolent prisoner populations of the entire European Union.
Those nations have a combined general population of 370 million
people, compared to America's population of 274 million.
America's 1.2 million nonviolent prisoners is five times the number of
people held in India's entire prison system, even though India is a
country with roughly four times our population.
The growth of America's prison system has become so large that it has
spawned numerous family support and advocacy groups which were
unthinkable 20 years ago. For example, this study comes a day before
scores of people whose family members are incarcerated for nonviolent
crimes will convene in Washington for a national gathering of Families
Against Mandatory Minimums.
"The scale of this problem has become truly massive, with populations
the size of several states now behind bars" said Julie Stewart of
Families Against Mandatory Minimums. "But each one of them is an
individual human being, who has left behind a family and loved ones.
The statistics are merely a backdrop to their continuing loss."
From April 11 - 18, a newly-created organization called Critical
Resistance is preparing a series of prison visitations at institutions
around the country to highlight the overuse of incarceration. "Between
mandatory minimums and increasing construction, we are on a collision
course with our childrenís future," stated Ellen Barry of Critical
Resistance. "It is time for us to focus more on improving our system
of education than expanding our prison industry."
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Family members of people imprisoned for non-violent offenses can be
reached through the FAMM conference organizers at (202) 822-6700. The
Justice Policy Institute is a private, nonprofit research and policy
institute based in Washington, DC. This research was conducted with a
grant from the Center on Crime, Communities and Culture.
This site and its contents © 2002 Center on Juvenile and Criminal
Justice