In October 2015, the US Justice Department announced that they were releasing 6,000 inmates
from federal prisons around the country; the largest release in history.
Officials have said that this is an attempt at dealing with overcrowded prisons.
The released inmates are mostly non-violent drug offenders and undocumented immigrants
awaiting deportation.
With millions of inmates still in prison, we wanted to know, why does the US have more
prisoners than any other country in the world?
Well, today the US incarcerates roughly one in 100 of its citizens.
That amounts to about 2.2 million adults behind bars.
But by comparison, in 1979, there were only about 300,000 total prisoners.
Over that same time period, the number of people incarcerated for drug offenses increased
by over 1,000%.
So what happened in 1980?
Two things.
The 80s saw a period of politicians running on the promise of “cracking down on crime”.
What this led to were much stricter and narrower mandatory sentencing guidelines.
Small crimes would send a person to jail whether it was justifiable or not.
People who had already been to jail were considerably more likely to return as a result of the “three-strikes”
laws.
Sentences were also made much longer, and parole was reduced in an effort to keep criminals
off the streets.
Unsurprisingly, the previous decade saw the start of the War on Drugs, and a huge increase
in nonviolent drug offenders facing years in prison.
And while laws were enacted that made it more likely that you’d go to jail, mental health
services around the country were cut to the bone.
This meant that mentally ill individuals who had been housed and helped in psychiatric
hospitals, were suddenly released onto the streets, where the police were forced to deal
with them.
Today, a huge number of prisoners suffer from mental illness as mental health budgets are
continually reduced.
Some have reported that there are ten times as many mentally ill people in prisons as
there are in mental health facilities.
Additionally, immigrants and non-citizens have been increasingly sent to prison while
awaiting deportation, or in lieu of deportation altogether.
More specifically, many sentencing guidelines and correctional policies end up targeting
minorities and the poor.
It took until 2010 for President Obama to pass the Fair Sentencing Act.
This eliminated a discrepancy where drugs which were primarily used by poor minorities
carried heavier sentences than those used by the affluent.
The US’s problems with overcrowding are further impacted by the influence of private
prisons, which see more money for more convictions.
Decades of broad efforts to eliminate crime have lowered the standard to spend time in
prison, and skyrocketed the number of prisoners.
Unlike in other countries, long-term incarceration is an accepted part of US culture.
Until the focus is shifted in line with other developed countries, the US will continue
cramming millions of inmates into 5,000 total prisons.
Another factor that adds to overcrowding?
The U.S. bail system, which keeps lower-income non-violent criminals behind bars.
To find out how the process works, watch this video.
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