In the span of four days–between October 30 and November 2–federal prisons around the country released 6,000 nonviolent prisoners. This marked the largest single prisoner release in the history of the United States. The decision was the result of the government’s growing desire to address the overcrowding within the prison system. An additional 40,000 convicts could also be released in the coming months as new, more lenient sentencing rules can be retroactively applied to them as well. Read on to see what led to the recent release and how it compares to similar releases in the past. Now that the government is starting to deal with an issue that has been building for decades, what will a continued response look like and how will the prison system change in the future?

Releasing Prisoners

In the Past

While the recent release of so many prisoners all at once has drawn a variety of reactions, including warnings of increased crime, this is not the first time that a large number of prisoners has been released. In 2011, the Supreme Court ordered the state of California to release 30,000 inmates due to overcrowding in the state’s prison system.

On top of this are the prisoners that are also released over the course of a year as well–the federal government releases up to 55,000 prisoners each year. However, this is only a small portion of the inmates set free, as many as 10,000 are set free each week.

This Release

The recent release was a long time in the making. The final decision came about following the advice of the U.S. Sentencing Commission. The commission lowered maximum sentences for people convicted of drug-related offenses. The change could then be applied retroactively, meaning if a prisoner was already convicted and serving a sentence they could apply for early release. Ultimately, the decision was up to federal judges who reviewed eligible cases and determined whether the person in question would be a threat if released back into society.

Like the process, the release itself was not as straightforward as it may seem either. Of the 6,000 inmates, approximately a third were undocumented immigrants. This group will not be released into the public, but will instead be detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which will begin deportation proceedings. Additionally, many of those who were released were already on parole or in half-way houses. On average, those being released already served nine years of their sentences and were only being released around 18 months earlier than expected. The video below details the recent release:

Current Issues

Overcrowding

One of the major reasons for releasing these prisoners is that the prison population is simply too big for the system to manage effectively. There are 698 prisoners for every 100,000 people in the United States, the second highest rate in the world. A 2014 estimate from the Prison Policy Initiative suggests that there are as many as 2.4 million people in U.S. prisons on any given day, including 1.36 million in state prisons. Perhaps most troubling are the findings of a Department of Justice report, which shows that there are nearly 71,000 children in residential placement facilities in February 2010.

In order to properly put this in perspective, it is necessary to look at the U.S. prison population in an international context. As the NAACP points out, the United States has about 5 percent of the world’s population, but it has 25 percent of the world’s prison population. Not only is the United States’ prison population disproportionately large, its racial makeup is also heavily imbalanced. Although Hispanics and African Americans make up approximately 25 percent of the total population, they make up close to 60 percent of all American prisoners.

While simply having a massive number of prisoners does not necessarily mean that the existing prisons are overcrowded, when you look at the concentration of these prisoners it becomes clear that overcrowding is clearly an issue for many states. In fact, California’s mass prison release in 2011 was due specifically to over-crowding.  There were so many prisoners that inmates were being packed into gymnasiums. The situation became so bad that the Supreme Court forced the prisoner release because it was literally a health crisis. California is not an isolated case. While it may be the most extreme example, as of 2014, 17 states had prison populations far above the capacity of their facilities. While overcrowding recently caused states to reconsider their justice systems, it also led to the rise of controversial for-profit private prisons.

Sentencing

Overcrowding is largely a product of the United States’ historically severe sentencing rules. The idea of being “tough on crime” swept the nation in the 1980s. Tough on crime policies continued through the 1990s and early 2000s and only now is the trend starting to reverse itself. The severity of these laws varied from state to state. California had some of the toughest policies, enacting a three strikes law in 1994 that created mandatory punishments for repeat offenders. In 2012, California voters passed Proposition 36, which amended the state’s constitution to limit the use of its three-strikes law.

These sentences are known as mandatory minimums. As the name suggests, these policies lead to mandatory sentences of a minimum length for particular crimes, removing much of the discretion that judges have in the sentencing process. According to Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM), “Most mandatory minimum sentences apply to drug offenses, but Congress has enacted them for other crimes, including certain gun, pornography, and economic offenses.” A U.S. Sentencing Commission report found that 14.5 percent of all offenders in 2010 were subject to mandatory minimum penalties–a total of 10,605 prisoners.

What’s Next?

While there are some who fear that releasing so many prisoners, especially at the same time, will lead to a surge in crime, the numbers suggest otherwise. In the California mass release, only auto thefts increased after 30,000 of the state’s inmates were released. Furthermore, a Stanford University study, which involved 1,600 prisoners released when California changed its three strikes law, found a remarkably low recidivism rate. Prisoners released after the three-strikes law changed had a recidivism rate of just 1.3 percent compared to 30 percent for regularly released inmates.

Not all laws are created equally–perhaps the most infamous is the differing penalties for crack cocaine offenses compared to the one for cocaine in its powder form. Originally, the sentencing ratio was 100:1–with those sentenced for crack-related offenses facing much longer prison sentences. While that was reduced to 18:1 with the Fair Sentencing Act in 2010, a disparity remains. The troubling part of this issue is that most people arrested for crack-related offenses were black while most of those who were arrested for cocaine possession were white–reinforcing the racial imbalance in American prisons.

Post-Release Questions 

Another major issue is the question of what former prisoners will do once they get out. A notable concern is recidivism–when a prisoner returns to prison for another crime after his or her initial release. This worry seems warranted in light of a 2005 study by conducted by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS)–57 percent were re-imprisoned after one year, 68 percent by year three, and 77 percent by year five.

It should be noted that the way the Bureau of Justice Statistics records its numbers may not be the best way to understand recidivism. In a recent study, researchers found that recidivism is actually much lower than what is reported. Rates found in the BJS studies likely overrepresent people who are re-arrested after being released from prison.  However, even if these new findings are taken into account, which emphasize that certain offenders have a higher risk of recidivism, the issue remains a notable problem for American prisons.

Moreover, for those who do avoid re-offending, life can be difficult once they leave prison. While there are certainly a number of programs and organizations in place, it is still hard for someone with a criminal record to find a job. In a 2008 study from the Urban Institute, only 45 percent of ex-cons had jobs eight months after leaving prison. The following video discusses what happens to prisoners if and when they can make it out of prison:

Conclusion

The recent release of so many prisoners has reignited old fears that the reintroduction of prisoners into society will lead to a wave of crime. However, the evidence from past releases calls this line of thinking into question. Too many people, especially those of color, face long prison sentences, putting significant strain on American prisons. The current system is also costing the United States an estimated $39 billion each year.

To effectively reduce the size of the American prison population, changes beyond releasing prisoners need to be made. While recent sentencing reform, which led to this prisoner release, is an important step toward reducing the American prison population, it will not solve the issue. In addition to reducing the number of prisoners, policymakers will also have to deal with helping inmates readjust to society when they are released.

Resources

Vox: The biggest prisoner release in U.S. History, explained

Time: What happened when California released 30,000 inmates?

NPR: What You Should Know About the Federal Inmate Release

Newsweek: The Unconstitutional Horrors of Prison Overcrowding

FAMM: What are Mandatory Minimums?

The Economist: America’s Prison Population

CNN: Roughly 6000 Federal Inmates to be released

ACLU: Fair Sentencing Act

National Institute of Justice: Recidivism

Business Insider: Getting a Job after prison

NAACP: Criminal Justice Fact Sheet

Washington Post: Prisons in These 17 States are Over Capacity

Huffington Post: For-Profit Prisons are Big Winners of California’s Overcrowding Crisis

Slate: Why do so Many Prisoners End up Back in Prison? A New Study Says Maybe They Don’t

Michael Sliwinski

Michael Sliwinski (@MoneyMike4289) is a 2011 graduate of Ohio University in Athens with a Bachelor’s in History, as well as a 2014 graduate of the University of Georgia with a Master’s in International Policy. In his free time he enjoys writing, reading, and outdoor activites, particularly basketball. Contact Michael at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post What A Massive Prisoner Release Means for the Criminal Justice System appeared first on Law Street.

The number of prisoners under federal jurisdiction decreased for the first time since 1980, according to a recent report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Attorney General Eric Holder praised the new statistics Tuesday and announced that an even larger decline, as many as 10,000 prisoners, is projected to come over the next two years. Holder’s speech, a keynote address to the New York University School of Law, took place just two days before he announced his resignation, highlighting one of the largest achievements during his tenure as the nation’s top prosecutor.

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, there were roughly 1,900 fewer federal prisoners at year end in 2013 than there were at the same point in 2012. However, this drop was offset by an increase in the number of inmates in state prisons, which had roughly 6,300 more prisoners in 2013 than the previous year. A total of 28 states saw population increases in state prisons, which led to the first net increase in the total U.S. inmate population (federal and state) since its peak in 2009.

The chart below shows the trends for both state and federal prisons over the last 35 years.

Bureau of Justice Statistics, Prisoners in 2013 Report

The U.S. prison population went from roughly 307,000 in 1978 to more than 1.5 million in 2013, an increase greater than 400 percent. Many attribute this dramatic growth to the “tough on crime” policies that dominated criminal justice legislation from the mid-1980s to the early-2000s.

Smart on Crime

The recent statistics come just over a year after Attorney General Eric Holder announced his Smart on Crime Initiative, which aims to increase sentencing fairness and offer alternatives to incarceration for nonviolent criminals. The initiative gained significant momentum earlier this year when the U.S. Sentencing Commission voted to reduce mandatory sentencing guidelines for drug crimes in April. Shortly after that, the commission made the new guidelines retroactive, allowing as many as 50,000 prisoners to have their sentences reduced starting in 2015.

“This is nothing less than historic,” Holder said of the federal prisoner decrease on Tuesday in a keynote address at the Brennan Center for Justice. In his speech, he emphasized the new Smart on Crime policies and argued that they are starting to have some measurable effects.

In addition to last year’s decline, Holder said that the number of federal inmates is projected to drop by roughly 2,000 in the next year and by nearly 10,000 by the end of 2016, according to internal numbers from the Bureau of Prisons.

The consequences of this decline are significant for several reasons. Recent studies have argued that decreasing the prison population will not cause significant increases in crime rates.

“High incarceration rates and longer-than-necessary prison terms have not played a significant role in materially improving public safety, reducing crime, or strengthening communities.”

-Attorney General Eric Holder

Reducing the prison population is seen as a civil rights issue, as sentencing for drug crimes is widely seen as unfair to minorities. Reform advocates like the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) often cite the disproportionate amount of minorities who are arrested for drug crimes. According to the DPA:

Although rates of drug use and selling are comparable across racial lines, people of color are far more likely to be stopped, searched, arrested, prosecuted, convicted and incarcerated for drug law violations than are whites.

Arrest disparities combined with troubling recidivism statistics may indicate that long prison sentences are not always the best solution for nonviolent criminals. However, not everyone is in favor of decreasing the number of inmates, as some continue to argue that high incarceration rates were an important factor to America’s falling crime rates.

The high incarceration rate has also created a significant economic burden for the federal and state governments. According to a report from the Congressional Research Service, the cost per inmate in federal prisons was $29,291 in 2013, an increase of over 35 percent since 2000. In 2010 alone, the United States spent nearly $80 billion on incarceration in federal and state prisons.

The economic and civil rights issues connected to growth in the prison population have created bipartisan support for reform. Senators Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) cosponsored the Smarter Sentencing Act of 2014, which aims to reduce the influence of mandatory minimums in the sentencing process. The bill, which a recent report from the Congressional Budget Office said could save more than $4 billion, would give judges more discretion in the sentencing process, allowing them to decide penalties on a case-by-case basis.

While the future of sentencing reform and the size of the prison population are not yet certain, supporters like Attorney General Holder proudly claim that change is coming:

Clearly, criminal justice reform is an idea whose time has come. And thanks to a robust and growing national consensus… we are bringing about a paradigm shift, and witnessing a historic sea change, in the way our nation approaches these issues.

Kevin Rizzo

Kevin Rizzo is the Crime in America Editor at Law Street Media. An Ohio Native, the George Washington University graduate is a founding member of the company. Contact Kevin at krizzo@LawStreetMedia.com.

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The recent attack on the New York Times by a group of Chinese Hackers has once again brought the issue of cybercrimes to the forefront of the nation’s consciousness, serving as a forceful reminder to the United States Government that computer-based crime is something that they can no longer afford to ignore.

Just last year, the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) received 262,813 complaints from consumers who collectively lost more than $781 million in losses. This number represents a 48.8 percent increase in losses from 2012, and while the data is not yet available for 2014, it seems apparent that cybercrime is a very real problem for thousands of Americans, and it is not going anywhere anytime soon.

In fact, the United States leads the world in the number of complaints related to internet crime, monopolizing a whopping 90.63 percent of all complaints worldwide. Despite this not-so-prestigious position, legislation has not been able to keep pace alongside the rapid advance of technology, and there is a great deal of ambiguity on just how the perpetrators of cybercrimes should be punished.

Some people argue that the sentences for cybercrimes are far too lenient, often allowing for criminals to profit from their crimes and failing to deter other criminals from committing similar offenses. For example, Albert Gonzalez, the perpetrator of the infamous hacking of TJX Companies, was only sentenced to serve two concurrent 20 year sentences in prison. This means that despite the fact that he had stolen credit and debit card numbers from approximately 45.6 million people, he could be out of prison by 2025 if he is on his best behavior.

Had Gonzalez committed the equivalent of this crime in the real world (for example, robbing a bank for the money he stole, or physically stealing 45.6 million credit/debit cards from their rightful owners) he would most likely be in prison for the rest of his life. Yet despite the fact that the damage done inestimably larger than if he had committed his crime in the real world, the punishment is somehow less severe even though his actions quite literally affected the lives of millions.

Perhaps these discrepancies are what led the push for harsher maximum sentences for cybercrimes, or maybe it was a direct response to a flawed report released from  MacAfee stating that cybercrime costs the United States economy about $1 trillion a year (though that number was later amended to somewhere around $140 billion). Whatever the reason, there is now the fear that the government has gone too far in light of recent reforms meant to intimidate cybercriminals.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is a San-Francisco based group that believes that legislation such as the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) is too broad and vague to be fair, imposing harsh maximums on relatively harmless crimes. They advocate for changes in the legislation, stating that more precise language is needed in order to protect relatively harmless offenders from harsh and lengthy prison sentences and fines.

For example, the recently deceased Aaron Swartz faced 13 felony counts of hacking and wire fraud at the age of 26 simply because he used MIT’S computer network to download millions of articles from JSTOR without permission. Despite the fact that the crime was non-violent and relatively harmless, Swartz faced both the possibility of decades of jail time and backbreaking fines for those illegal downloads, a sharp contrast to violent crimes that carry much lighter sentences.

It seems inherently illogical that in today’s society that illegal downloads should carry a higher maximum sentence than violent crimes such as rape. Yet it also seems impractical that someone who steals millions of dollars from credit and debit cards should be in jail for less time than if they had gone through the trouble to physically rob a bank.

To say the least, cybercrime sentencing is an issue that needs a lot more exploration than it has currently been given. Current laws may even require new sentencing guidelines made specifically to accommodate internet crime. Cybercrimes fail to be contained within traditional modes of sentencing and punishment, and often the sentences given seem to be too harsh or too lenient to fit the crime.

Donald R. Mason, a professor at the University Of Mississippi School Of Law, suggests that more attention needs to be focused on post-conviction matters such as sentencing and victim impact, as well as alternative resolutions that are tailored to meet the complex issues raised by the complex nature of these crimes.

For example, if the motivations for cybercriminals are radically different from the motivations of traditional criminals, the existing models may no longer serve as effective deterrents to crime. Along those same lines, if the scope of internet victimization is hard to measure or not detectable until long after the incident occurs, traditional models of measuring harm may no longer be applicable or effective either.

Though much attention has been given up to this point on the subject of detecting, apprehending, and prosecuting cybercriminals, more attention needs to be paid to what happens next. Doing so is the only way to ensure that the punishment truly does fit the cybercrime, and that the victims of these offenses receive the justice they deserve.

Nicole Roberts

Nicole Roberts a student at American University majoring in Justice, Law, and Society with a minor in Mandarin Chinese. She has a strong interest in law and policymaking, and is active in homeless rights advocacy as well as several other social justice movements. Contact Nicole at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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A report released on Wednesday concluded that public opinion on drug offenses has started to shift, as a preference for treatment over jail time is growing, particularly for hard drug users.

The study conducted by the Pew Research Center details the results of public opinion surveys taken earlier this year, and concluded that 67 percent of Americans favor providing treatment to drug users for substances like cocaine and heroin. In contrast, only 26 percent of those surveyed favored the prosecution of drug users.

This survey reflects a notable change in public and policymakers’ opinions during the “war on drugs,” which President Nixon declared in 1971 in response to drug use in the 1960s. Decades later, U.S. incarceration rates have skyrocketed as a result of drug offenders, which make up a very large portion of the American prison population. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 52.1 percent of federal prisoners and 17.4 percent of state prisoners were convicted of drug related offenses. As federal and state governments face increasing financial pressures to save money, a trend to decrease prison sentences has started to emerge in the government as well.

Changing Opinions

The Pew Research Center’s report found that a change is occurring in the popular perception of mandatory sentencing policies for non-violent drug crimes. According to the survey, 63 percent of respondents believe that moving away from mandatory sentencing policies is a good thing, while only 47 percent held that view in 2001.

The research indicates that opposition of mandatory minimums and long prison sentences is not strictly based on financial reasons, rather public perceptions of imprisonment for drug offenses may be changing. Although the study found that most Americans see drug abuse as either a crisis or serious problem in the United States, the findings may not extend to marijuana as 69 percent of the public views it as less harmful than alcohol. Support for the legalization of marijuana has also experienced a recent boost, as now over half of Americans (54 percent) are in favor of such policies. Even more, people support the decriminalization of marijuana; 76 percent of the people surveyed, oppose jail time for possessing small amounts.

A news article that was published by Pew Research Center along with their report also noted how popular opinion of drug sentencing has changed dramatically over the past 25 years. A 1990 a survey found that 73 percent of Americans supported a mandatory death penalty for “major drug traffickers,” and nearly 60 percent thought police should be able to search known drug dealer’s houses without a warrant. The new research indicates that such attitudes may now be very different, marked by the public’s preference for treatment over prison sentences for hard drug users.

Pending Legislation

These findings come at an important time politically, as the Smart Sentencing Act (SSA) of 2014 was recently placed on the Senate’s legislative calendar. The bill, sponsored by Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah), calls for significant changes in the sentencing of drug related offenders. With bi-partisan support, the legislation would instruct the courts to create prison sentences without considering mandatory minimums if the defendant has no more than one prior offense. It would also amend the Controlled Substances Act and Controlled Substances Import and Export Act to reduce the minimum sentence times for several offenses.

The Smart Sentencing Act would make the Fair Sentencing Act (FSA), passed in 2010, retroactive. This means that anyone sentenced for a crime prior to the passage of the FSA may appeal their sentence and have it modified to reflect changes made by the legislation. The primary intentions of the bill is to both increase fairness in sentencing while also taking the fiscal concerns surrounding imprisonment into account during the sentencing process. Attorney General Eric Holder endorsed the bill earlier this year, and urged Congress to prevent “excessive mandatory minimum sentences that are out of proportion with their alleged conduct – and serve no deterrent purpose.”

Holder has also recently testified in front of the the U.S. Sentencing Commission, an independent agency that sets federal sentencing policies, in an effort to support a plan to reduce federal sentencing policies for drug trafficking offenders. These changes would affect as much as 70 percent of the drug trafficking offenders, and would reduce the average sentence by 11 months. The commission is expected to vote on the proposal sometime this month.

The changing trends and public opinion and recently proposed legislation indicate the possibility of a rare sense of agreement between the public and U.S. policymakers. Although the Smart Sentencing Act still faces several hurdles in congress, if passed it would mark an important deviation from the “war on drugs” that has been going on for decades.

Pew Research Center: Survey

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Kevin Rizzo (@kevinrizzo10)

Featured Image Courtesy of [Wikimedia]

Kevin Rizzo

Kevin Rizzo is the Crime in America Editor at Law Street Media. An Ohio Native, the George Washington University graduate is a founding member of the company. Contact Kevin at krizzo@LawStreetMedia.com.

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On Wednesday, the attorney general, Eric Holder, stated “the war on drugs is now 30.. 40 years old. There have been a lot of unintended consequences. There’s been a decimation of certain communities, in particular communities of color.” Holder is spearheading sentencing reform and expects speak on the proposals in a speech to American Bar Association in San Francisco, next week.

Holder is not the only one calling for sentencing reform. Two senators Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin and Utah Republican Mike Lee, are promoting a bill called the Smarter Sentencing Act of 2013- a law to lower mandatory minimums for several drug crimes as well as reduce overcrowding in the prison system by 40 percent capacity. In addition, Republican Rand Paul and Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy are moving their own bill- the Justice Safety Valve Act of 2013. Their bill differs by focusing on giving judges more power to impose lower sentences to all crimes, not solely drug crimes.

[JDJournal]

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Featured image courtesy of [Kate Ter Haar via Flickr]

Ashley Powell

Ashley Powell is a founding member of Law Street Media, and its original Lead Editor. She is a graduate of The George Washington University. Contact Ashley at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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