HOW IS IT THAT AMERICA, WITH ONLY 5% OF THE WORLD POPULATION HAS 25% OF THE WORLDS PRISONERS ? THE LAND OF THE FREE, ARRESTS MORE OF ITS CITIZENS THAN ANY OTHER NATION AND ITS COSTING TAXPAYERS BILLIONS OF DOLLARS EACH YEAR. MONEY THAT COULD BE SPENT ON SCHOOLS, INFRASTRUCTURE, CREATING JOBS, OUR CRUMBLING BRIDGES AND ROADWAYS, REBUILDING OUR ECONOMY AND OTHER THINGS. EVERY AMERICAN SHOULD BE OUTRAGED THIS IS UNETHICAL IF YOU ASK ME.
The United States is not the biggest Nation, nor is it the most populous but it does break the record for most arrests of its citizens. More than China which has 4 times more (1,344,130,000 ) people, more than India which has more than 3 times as many (1,241,491,960 ) people. The U.S. has a much smaller population with just 311,591,917 people and we beat out every other Nation. That’s a sad commentary on a free Country. This is what happens when Americans turn off the tube or turn off the truth when it’s too hard to hear. You just gave those creating this mess the green light because your not paying attention. Think about that, your paying for this but you don’t want to hear about it. Well for those not paying attention you just handed over your checkbook to the very people creating more debt and more spending because not all these jails are run by the government in fact a lot of them are private contracted facilities which has made this in my mind a money making venture rather than one that is addressing the issues here, one that is actually making it worse if you ask me.
In 2008 1 in 31 adults was jailed, on parole or on probation.
The U.S. has the highest number of arrests with 743 for every 100,000 people. Russia is second with 577 for every 100,000 people. Well over the national average and considering it costs roughly $47,102 per inmate per year just for housing,security, and basic needs, . Then we have the costs of Courts, Judges, Lawyers, Parole Officers, Police Officers, Probabtion people, mental health, security, administrators and the building of more and more jails.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice statistics 2,266,800 adults were incarcerated in Federal, State and Local jails in 2010. That’s a whopping 7% of our adult population. Add to that the 4,933,667 adults for 2010 that were on probabtion or parole. In total more than 7,200,000, adults were under Correctional Supervision.
With many rehabilitation programs cut in the 80’s, 90’s and into present day budget planning, this has left many without the help needed to get back on their feet. Releasing felons back into society with no new tools or skills to deal with the issues that cause crime, and result in incarceration, has contributed greatly to the revolving door prisons have. 63% of all inmates will return within the first 3 months of being released . Without rehabilitation most inmates will not be equipped to lead productive lives once outside. And based on these numbers the current system by doing nothing has to take part of the blame.
CALIFORNIA’S OVERCROWDING, HUMAN RIGHTS CONCERNS & THE SUPREME COURT’ S DEMAND THAT CALIFORNIA RELEASE 30,000 INMATES A SIGN OF CRACKS IN THE SYSTEM.
How did we let this problem grow to the extent it is now? Well it wasn’t always this big of a problem, in fact in the 70’s we had less than 40,000 people arrested in a single year, but that’s because we didn’t incarcerate non-violent offenders like marijuana users, public nuisance issues, and those with mental health issues. We also didn’t jail people for selling lemonade without a permit, or homeless for sleeping in the park. Instead, they would often be given a fine, possibly probabtion and that was it. But then came this conservative “Tough on crime” mentality that created the three strikes laws and prompted legislators to strengthen penalties for these crimes, giving mandatory sentenceing for many of the crimes that wouldn’t have resulted like that in the 70’s. Add to that the closure of mental health facilities that would address behavioral and mental health related issues that are now the responsibility of the Police who have no alternative than to jail offenders these days they say. That means more people and more jails which in our current economic crisis we cant afford. This has created additional problems like overcrowding, and humanitarian issues, as well as health and safety concerns. In fact in some States like California they have been criticized by human rights activist and even the Supreme Court which found California’s 33 Prisons to be violating the Amendment rights of citizens, by forcing inmates to live in what they called “cruel and unusual punishment”. And facilities they deemed unsafe and of health and safety concern. California’s 33 prisons were built for 100,000 people only yet they are housing a whopping 170,000 inmates. Because of the overcrowding the Supreme Court demanded they release 30,000 inmates over the next two years which they have already begun to do but are already asking the Court for a more lenient time release than the two years they have been given.
According to data provided by the Bureau of Prisons which is a part of the U.S. Department of Justice the current Federal inmate population (which does not include local jails and County facilities which make up the biggest portion of inmates) is 218,107
Heres some more numbers you might find alarming
as of August 25, 2012
Inmate population 218,107
SEX OF INMATES
93.5% male
6.5% female
OFFENSES INMATES WERE INCARCERATED FOR
47.8% drug offenses
16% for weapons, arson type offenses
12 % Immigration
4.2% for Robbery
3.9% property offenses
5.6% sex crimes
5.6 % for fraud and bribery
2.9% for homicide
And the remaining categories like miscellaneous, embezzlement national security etc had each less than .5%
HOW LONG INMATES ARE DOING FOR CRIMES
28.9% 5-10years
20.3% 10-15years
14.5% 3-5years
12.4% 1-3years
9.8% more than 20 years
9.1% 15-20 years
3% life
58 of the 218,107 inmates in the federal prison system are scheduled for the death penalty
Only 11% are considered high risk while the rest are in medium, low, or minimum security levels
COUNTY FACILITIES NO BETTER
COUNTY FACILITIES NO BETTER
According to the Board of State and Community Corrections, the population in county jails rose by about 4 percent from an average of 71,293 in last year’s third quarter to 73,957 in the first quarter of 2012, the latest figures available. The overall national population of those incarcerated grew by 11% last year alone. At this rate we will surely go bankrupt in the not so distant future.
In Riverside County, like elsewhere, about two-thirds of the inmates are awaiting trial. They cant afford bail and are forced to stay behind bars until their trial. This is an astounding cost to taxpayers. In one case a guy who was busted with less than 10 dollars of methamphetamine which is a controlled substance, the guy did 56 days in jail, and the taxpayers foot the bill because the guy was unemployed which means taxpayers also paid for the prosecution, public defender, and is paying for the probation which this person is now under for the next five years. The individual had no other criminal record prior or after this incident and that seems like the cost far exceeds the crime. Besides the time the inmate did, he says he cant get a job now because this is on his record and nobody wants to hire him with a drug offense on his record. I find that rather harsh, rather expensive and frankly rather un-American where we profess not to be a Country that treats our citizens harshly, where we give everyone a chance, and where your mistakes like this are forgiven once you have paid your debt to society. Jailing this person for 56 days seems awfully cruel and unusual punishment when what he needed was probably drug dependency help or rehab. This is very typical of the kinds of cases you find when researching criminal trends and incarceration.
CALIFORNIA DEALING WITH THIS PROBLEM BY MOVING PEOPLE AROUND
Some jurisdictions have chosen to initiate policy such as California’s move called “realignment” which refers broadly to a reallocation of power from the state to counties. Specifically, it means shifting responsibility for punishment from prisons, which in America are state or federal operations, to jails, which are run by counties and their elected sheriffs.
Inmates already doing time in a state prison will stay there.
But since October, anybody in California who commits a new crime that is non-serious, non-violent, and non-sexual has been sent to a County Jail instead of prison.
The main difference is that sheriffs and their deputies have much more discretion over how to deal with such offenders than state-prison wardens do some say. People are saying they are being released sooner in what they call a “County bump”. In Federal Prison they call it a “Fed Bump”
Sheriffs can, for example, send troublemakers to mental-health treatment instead of jail, which in Riverside County they have closed most of the facilities run by the State and County limiting that ability altogether. In just one City like Palm Springs which used to have a mental facility until a few years ago so now they have to drive the mental health offender out of the City or to the jail and more often than not they go to jail. That alone is an outrage if you ask me. .
They also can “flash-incarcerate” people for just a few hours. They can make them wear an ankle bracelet surveillance gps monitor , or make them do community service and drug rehabilitation if that’s available. In most cases that’s not an option because funding for these services have been cut not increased. So they release some early? The cost hasn’t gone down though, it seems the cost of transporting and moving people around is costing people anyway.
WE NEED A SOLUTION FOR OUR PEOPLE NOT TO INCARCERATE MORE OF THEM
By allowing our Country to facilitate us like this is scary to me, because it allows those who are not doing anything about this to continue spending billions and arresting more people year after year with no plan for fixing this.
GUESS WHAT THIS DOES TO THE VOTING PUBLIC …FOR EVERY INMATE THAT GOES TO PRISON WITH A FELONY THEY CAN NO LONGER VOTE. THINK THAT’S BAD, THINK ABOUT THIS:
If your arrested with a misdemeanor drug charge it can later be changed to a Felony if you fail to meet weekly scheduled programs like Prop 36 or PC1000 which are programs often used to punish offenders without any rehabilitation. I don’t know what the rate of success is but many of the people I spoke with said they didn’t make it to these classroom like meetings where they show “outdated movies” like Faces of Death or DUI Not I which are film documentaries that show the results of driving drunk, including bloody dead people who didn’t live through the accidents. I get why they would want to show these films don’t get me wrong, but without drug rehabilitation you really expect them to make these meetings which are 2 and three times a week? Come on were setting people up for failure and nobody is paying attention or cares because they don’t think they can be one of those arrested? Well think again, one of the inmates I spoke with didn’t do anything wrong, he simply was ill and went to the Hospital. His employer who had tried to reach him after he didn’t show up to work decided to call Police who then broke into his home in which they did not find him because he was at the Hospital. The Officers noticed some pot in the house, and decided to label him as a “druggie” which for months after the incident they parked down his street waiting to stop guests coming or leaving the residence, eventually they pulled him over and he did have pot in the car. He wasn’t on pot, but nonetheless had it in his car. Some will have a problem with that but I find it a much bigger problem that this person has been singled out and harassed as I see it for his possession of a drug that California has already voted on approving its use for medicinal reasons which I find in this case are obvious. I asked if I could use his name but he was afraid of retaliation which clearly considering how his arrest took place one can understand. But in talking to former inmates I have found that to be the case with a lot of people who also feel they would be targeted.
Here’s my solution: Stop the incarceration of non-violent offenders who need help and without it keep getting arrested. Allocate the funds saved by doing this towards programs that address the core problems that relate to criminal activity like affordable housing, better education, employment that pays a living wage which the minimum wage no longer does. Focus on rehabilitation drug programs that facilitate back to work programs. Ending the incarceration of mentally ill offenders is a no-brainer. It’s inhumane, we can do better.
Can we really afford to look the other way any longer?
FOLKS THIS IS ABSURD, IF WE SIMPLY RE-INVESTED IN PEOPLE, WE WOULDN’T NEED JAILS.
It costs roughly $60,000 in California to house one inmate, a College tuition these days is half that, it would be cheaper to invest in people, and guess what? This would be more likely to produce citizens better equipped for the future, but also better equiooed to get jobs, making them tax paying citizens instead of tax absorbing inmates. It’s common sense. And it’s your money going down the drain right now. You should demand your legislators find better solutions and better ways of investing your tax dollars or let them know you will no longer be supporting them. You should be as outraged as I am.
Kurt Barrie is a Democratic Party Activist in the Desert, professionally he has been a campaign strategist for over 20 years winning all but one campaign in his entire career. He worked as a legislative Aide to San Francisco Supervisor Harry Britt, and was later a Special assistant to SF Mayor Frank M Jordan. He is founder of the Palm Springs Democratic Club and was elected to a two year term on the Riverside County Central Committee. To learn more about Kurt Barrie you can visit his website at http://www.kurtbarrie.wix.com/homepage