Sentencing Law and Policy

BJS releases data on "Correctional Populations" and "Probation and Parole" at end of 2021

The Bureau of Justice Statistics today released its latest detailed accounting of national correctional populations and populations on probation and parole at the close of 2021. This BJS press release reports on some highlights and provides links to the full documents with lots and lots of data:

The total correctional population in the United States fell 1% from yearend 2020 to 2021, according to statistics in Correctional Populations in the United States, 2021 – Statistical Tables and Probation and Parole in the United States, 2021, two reports released today by the Bureau of Justice Statistics.  The number of persons held in prison or jail or supervised in the community on probation or parole decreased by 61,100, down to an estimated 5,444,900.  Overall, an estimated 1 in 48 U.S. residents age 18 or older were under correctional supervision at yearend 2021, down from 1 in 47 in 2020.

“Although the COVID-19 pandemic caused significant short-term changes in correctional estimates, the overall correctional population continues to decline,” said Dr. Alexis Piquero, Director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Over the 10-year period from 2011 to 2021, the U.S. correctional population declined 22%.  A drop in the number of persons supervised in the community on probation accounted for 65% of this overall change, while decreases in the number of persons incarcerated in state and federal prison accounted for 26% of the change. 

In 2021, the U.S. incarceration rate increased for the first time in 15 years.  However, the rate was still lower than the pre-COVID-19 pandemic rate of 810 per 100,000 in 2019.  The increase in the incarceration rate was driven by a 16% growth in the number of persons housed in local jails, which held an additional 87,200 persons from 2020 to 2021.

In 2021, the community supervision rate fell to a 21-year low of 1,440 persons on probation or parole per 100,000 adult U.S. residents, after declining each year since it peaked at 2,240 persons per 100,000 in 2007. At yearend 2021, an estimated 3,745,000 adults were under community supervision, down 136,600 persons from January 1, 2021. During 2021, the probation population decreased in 31 states and in the U.S. federal system and increased in 18 states and the District of Columbia. The rate of adults on probation in 2021 was at its lowest point in 36 years (1,143 per 100,000 adult U.S. residents)....

Changes in the demographic characteristics of the U.S. correctional population were small from 2020 to 2021 but were greater than 20% over the decade from 2011 to 2021.  The number of males in the total correctional population declined less than 1% (down 28,300) from 2020 to 2021, while the number of females decreased 3% (down 32,800). Compared to 2011, the number of males under correctional supervision in 2021 declined by 21% and females decreased 25%.  Over that same decade, the number of black persons under correctional supervision decreased more than 27%, while the number of Hispanic persons declined 21% and whites declined 20%.

“It is important to note that while blacks and Hispanics remain incarcerated at greater rates than whites, we are seeing long-term reductions in those differences,” said Director Piquero.

Correctional Populations in the United States, 2021 – Statistical Tables was written by BJS Statisticians E. Ann Carson, PhD, and Richard Kluckow, DSW. It provides statistics from several BJS data collections on persons living in the community while supervised by probation or parole agencies and those incarcerated under the jurisdiction of state or federal correctional authorities or in the custody of local jails.

Probation and Parole in the United States, 2021 was written by BJS Statistician Danielle Kaeble. Findings are from BJS’s Annual Probation Survey, Annual Parole Survey and Federal Justice Statistics Program, which are the only national data collections that cover community corrections in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and the U.S. federal system.

CCJ releases "Long sentences, better outcomes: Opportunities to improve prison programming"

I keep noting this post from earlier this year discussing the Council of Criminal Justice's impressive Task Force on Long Sentences, in part because that Task Force is continuing to produce all sorts of interesting documents about long sentences (see prior posts linked below).  The latest report, available here, is authored by Roger Przybylski and is titled "Long sentences, better outcomes: Opportunities to improve prison programming."  Here is the report's introduction: 

People serving long prison sentences — defined as sentences of 10 years or more — make up a large and growing share of the prison population in the United States.  In 2005, roughly 459,000 people were serving long sentences, accounting for 46% of the state prison population.  By 2019, the number had grown to 524,000 and the proportion to 57%.

Policymakers, practitioners, and researchers have long been interested in prison-based programming that prepares people to engage productively in their communities post-release and reduces recidivism (i.e., re-arrest, reconviction, or reincarceration).  Although a robust body of knowledge on the types of prison programs most strongly associated with reduced recidivism has been developed over the past 40 years, research on the effectiveness of these programs has not focused specifically on participants serving long sentences.

Fewer than 10 prison systems have implemented programs specifically for people serving long sentences in recent years; these programs are in their infancy and have not yet been rigorously evaluated for effectiveness.  They focus on enhancing skills for adapting to prison life and/or mentoring younger incarcerated individuals serving shorter sentences — and are not designed to comprehensively meet the therapeutic, reentry, and other needs of people serving long sentences.  As a result, relatively little is known about the development, implementation, and effectiveness of programming that targets the unique needs of those in prison for long periods of time.

This brief describes the specialized needs of individuals serving long sentences, explores how prison-based programming might address those needs, describes existing programs for people serving long sentences, examines common obstacles to program access and engagement for this population, and identifies opportunities to enhance positive outcomes, both during custody and after release.

Prior related posts on CCJ's Task Force on Long Sentences:

• Notable CCJ new task force examining long prison terms
• Council on Criminal Justice releases "Long Sentences by the Numbers" 
• Council on Criminal Justice releases "Long Sentences: An International Perspective" 
• Council on Criminal Justice releases Illinois analysis of "The Public Safety Impact of Shortening Lengthy Prison Terms" 

Sentencing Project releases "Ending 50 Years of Mass Incarceration: Urgent Reform Needed to Protect Future Generations"

The folks at The Sentencing Project have a new website and a new "featured campaign" (with its own webpage) titled "50 Years and a Wake Up: Ending The Mass Incarceration Crisis In America." As explained on the webpage: "The campaign raises awareness about the dire state of the U.S. criminal legal system, the devastating impact of incarceration on communities and families, and proposes more effective crime prevention strategies for our country."

The most recent publication from the campaign is titled "Ending 50 Years of Mass Incarceration: Urgent Reform Needed to Protect Future Generations."  This eight-page document has a number of graphics and charts; its text begins this way (footnotes removed):

By year end 2021, the U.S. prison population had declined 25% since reaching its peak in 2009.  Still, the 1.2 million people imprisoned in 2021 were nearly six times the prison population 50 years ago, before the prison population began its dramatic growth. The United States remains a world leader in incarceration, locking up its citizens at a far higher rate than any other industrialized nation.

At the current pace of decarceration, averaging 2.3% annually since 2009, it would take 75 years — until 2098 — to return to 1972’s prison population.

It is unacceptable to wait more than seven decades to substantively alter a system that violates human rights and is out of step with the world, is racially biased, and diverts resources from effective public safety investments.  To achieve meaningful decarceration, policymakers must reduce prison admissions and scale back sentence lengths — both for those entering prisons and those already there.  The growing movement to take a “second look” at unjust and excessive prison terms is a necessary first step.  As the country grapples with an uptick in certain crimes, ending mass incarceration requires accelerating recent reforms and making effective investments in public safety.

Another longer document in this campaign was released a few weeks ago and is called "Mass Incarceration Trends." Among other part of that document is a chart highlighting that an era of massively increased incarceration also brought massive increases in community supervision:

As depicted in Figure 3, probation and parole have expanded both in the absolute number and length of supervision for several decades now.  Between 1980 and 2020, the number of people on probation nearly tripled and the number of people under parole supervision nearly quadrupled.

Council on Criminal Justice releases Illinois analysis of "The Public Safety Impact of Shortening Lengthy Prison Terms"

I keep noting this post from earlier this year discussing the Council of Criminal Justice's impressive Task Force on Long Sentences.  That Task Force keeps producing all sorts of interesting documents about long sentences (see prior posts here and here), and this latest report is authored by Avinash Bhati and titled "The Public Safety Impact of Shortening Lengthy Prison Terms."  This press release about the report provides this background and some particulars:

Shortening Illinois prison sentences of 10 years or more by modest amounts would result in very few additional arrests, cutting the state prison population significantly without jeopardizing public safety, according to a new analysis for a Council on Criminal Justice (CCJ) task force.

Reducing lengthy prison terms by as much as 30% would result in “a virtually undetectable increase” (less than one tenth of one percent) in annual arrests statewide, according to the report for CCJ’s Task Force on Long Sentences, which was produced in partnership with the Illinois Sentencing Policy Advisory Council (SPAC). Most additional arrests would be for drug, property, and other nonviolent crimes.

More than 1,100 people were released from Illinois prisons during the three-year study period, after serving a decade or more; the group served an average of nearly 19 years. While any additional arrests are cause for concern, the research estimates that reducing prison time served by those in the study group by one, two, or three years would result in between 11 and 37 additional arrests; in 2020, there were 89,173 total index crime and drug arrests in Illinois. No individual in the study group was estimated to have more than one additional arrest....

The research was conducted by the data analytics firm Maxarth LLC, which analyzed detailed arrest history data for the 1,127 people released from Illinois prisons between June 2016 and June 2019. For those who had served 10 years or more, researchers then created “microsimulations” to estimate the number of arrests that were averted due to the individuals’ long prison stays. (Details on the calculations and analysis can be found in the report methodology.)

Reductions in the size of the prison population, the analysis found, would range from a 2.4% drop if prison terms were trimmed by 10% (or 1.9 years), to a 7.2% cut if sentences were shortened by 30% (or 5.7 years). Such reductions represent potential cost savings. A separate 2021 analysis by SPAC found that a 3,000-person reduction in the average daily prison population, along with a reduction in staffing, could represent nearly $148 million in annual state correctional appropriations. Saltmarsh said that while these reductions in and of themselves would not automatically produce cost savings for Illinois, they could lead legislators to make different choices about how to fund IDOC’s general operations.

US Sentencing Commission releases "Weighing the Impact of Simple Possession of Marijuana: Trends and Sentencing in the Federal System"

This morning, the US Sentencing Commission has released this interesting new report titled "Weighing the Impact of Simple Possession of Marijuana: Trends and Sentencing in the Federal System."  This USSC webpage provides this summary and key findings:

The report entitled Weighing the Impact of Simple Possession of Marijuana: Trends and Sentencing in the Federal System updates a 2016 Commission study and examines sentences for simple possession of marijuana offenses in two respects.  Part One of the report assesses trends in federal sentencings for simple possession of marijuana since fiscal year 2014.  The report then describes the demographic characteristics, criminal history, and sentencing outcomes of federal offenders sentenced for marijuana possession in the last five fiscal years and compares them to federal offenders sentenced for possession of other drug types.

Part Two of the report examines how prior sentences for simple possession of marijuana (under both federal and state law) affect criminal history calculations under the federal sentencing guidelines for new federal offenses.  The report identifies how many federal offenders sentenced in fiscal year 2021 — for any crime type — received criminal history points under Chapter Four of the Guidelines Manual for prior marijuana possession sentences.  The report then assesses the impact of such points on those offenders’ criminal history category, one of the two components used to establish the sentencing guideline range.

Key Findings

Federal Sentencings for Simple Possession of Marijuana

• The number of federal offenders sentenced for simple possession of marijuana is relatively small and has been declining steadily from 2,172 in fiscal year 2014 to only 145 in fiscal year 2021.
• The overall trends were largely driven by one district, the District of Arizona, which accounted for nearly 80 percent (78.9%) of all federal marijuana possession sentencings since 2014.  As the number of such cases in the District of Arizona declined from a peak of 1,916 in 2014 to just two in fiscal year 2021, the overall federal caseload followed a similar pattern.
• Federal offenders sentenced for marijuana possession in the last five fiscal years tended to be male (85.5%), Hispanic (70.8%), and non-U.S. citizens (59.8%).  A little over two-thirds (70.1%) were sentenced to prison; the average prison sentence imposed was five months.
• As of January 2022, no offenders sentenced solely for simple possession of marijuana remained in the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

Impact of Prior Sentences for Simple Possession of Marijuana

• In fiscal year 2021, 4,405 federal offenders (8.0%) received criminal history points under the federal sentencing guidelines for prior marijuana possession sentences.  Most of the prior sentences (79.3%) were for less than 60 days in prison, including non-custodial sentences.  Furthermore, ten percent (10.2%) of these 4,405 offenders had no other criminal history points.
• The criminal history points assigned under the federal sentencing guidelines for prior marijuana possession sentences resulted in a higher criminal history category for 1,765 of the 4,405 offenders (40.1%).
• Of the 1,765 offenders whose criminal history category was impacted by a prior marijuana possession sentence, most were male (94.2%), U.S. citizens (80.0%), and either Black (41.7%) or Hispanic (40.1%).
• Nearly all (97.0%) of the prior marijuana possession sentences were for state convictions, some of which were from states that have changed their laws to decriminalize (22.2%) or legalize (18.2%) marijuana possession, states that allow for expungement or sealing of marijuana possession records (19.7%), or some combination thereof.  Prior sentences for marijuana possession from these states resulted in higher criminal history calculations under the federal sentencing guidelines for 695 offenders.

Reviewing prosecutions and sentencings two years after January 6 Capitol riots

A number of major papers today provide some major reviews of the prosecution and sentencing of January 6 rioters on the two-year anniversary of the storming of the Capitol.  Here are headlines and links, as well as an except from the story most focused on sentencing outcomes:

From the New York Times, "Two Years Later, Prosecutions of Jan. 6 Rioters Continue to Grow: The Justice Department’s investigation of the Capitol attack, already the largest it has ever conducted, has resulted in 900 arrests, with the potential for scores or hundreds more to come."

From USA Today, "More than 950 people have been charged in Jan. 6 Capitol riot, but investigation 'far from over'"

From the Washington Post, "Review of Jan. 6 cases finds judges give harsh lectures, lighter sentences: Judges have gone below prosecutors’ recommendations three-quarters of time, and below federal sentencing guidelines a little less than 40 percent":

Of more than 460 people charged with felonies, only 69 have been convicted and sentenced so far, mostly for assaulting police or obstructing Congress; all but four have received jail or prison time. The average prison sentence for a felony conviction so far is 33 months, according to a Washington Post database....

About half of the arrests so far have been for misdemeanors, and for those given actual jail time, the average sentence has been 48 days. But most of the misdemeanants have not received any jail time: most have received probation, home detention or halfway house time, or a fine. These defendants are typically rioters who entered the Capitol and didn’t engage with the police, but left a trail of social media posts and photos before, during and after Jan. 6.

If we include those who didn’t receive jail time among the misdemeanor sentences, the average jail time drops to 22 days. The number of defendants being held in jail before trial, or awaiting sentencing, is about 50, according to a list provided by the Justice Department....

For the 25 defendants sentenced so far for assaulting law enforcement, the average sentence has been more than 48 months — in line with the nationwide average for that offense in recent years, according to data from the U.S. Sentencing Commission. Former New York City police officer Thomas Webster received a 10-year term for fighting with an officer and helping breach the outer perimeter. There are still nearly 180 defendants whose assault cases are pending.

The most serious charge for those not accused of assaulting the police has been obstruction of an official proceeding. Only 28 people have been sentenced for obstruction or conspiracy to obstruct the certification of the electoral vote, receiving an average sentence of about 42 months....

The judges appointed by Democratic presidents have imposed jail or prison sentences in 61 percent of their cases, and probation in 18 percent of the cases, while judges appointed by Republican presidents have given jail or prison sentences in 48 percent of their cases, and probation in 34 percent of cases. In the remaining cases, judges have sentenced defendants to home detention or a halfway house, or imposed a fine. Judge Tanya Chutkan, an Obama appointee, has handled 22 sentencings and imposed incarceration in every one, but another Obama appointee, Judge Rudolph Contreras, has handled 16 sentencings and jailed only one defendant.

Judges Dabney Friedrich and Trevor N. McFadden, both Trump appointees, have given probation sentences to about half of their Jan. 6 defendants. McFadden is also the only judge to have acquitted a defendant at trial and the only judge to have imposed only a fine on a defendant.

Another year-end report from the Chief Justice with a few federal criminal caseload highlights

The Chief Justice of the United States always closes out a calendar year by releasing a year-end report on the federal judiciary, and that report typically includes some notable federal criminal justice caseload data.  Chief Justice John G. Roberts' 2022 version of the year end report can be found at this link, and here are some data excerpts that might interesting federal criminal justice fans:

In the regional courts of appeals, filings fell six percent from 44,546 to 41,839 in FY 2022.  This represents a 14 percent drop from FY 2019, the last full year prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.  Total civil appeals were down five percent from the prior year to 22,181.  Criminal appeals were down six percent from the prior year to 9,973.... Prisoner petitions accounted for 22 percent of appeals filings (a total of 9,401), and 86 percent of prisoner petitions were filed pro se, compared with 34 percent of other civil filings....

The federal district courts docketed 68,315 criminal defendant filings in FY 2022, eight percent fewer than the prior year. This represents a 26 percent drop from FY 2019.  The largest categories of criminal defendant filings involved drug offenses, which decreased 15 percent to 19,589, and immigration offenses, which decreased one percent to 19,148....

A total of 122,872 persons were under post-conviction supervision on September 30, 2022, an increase of less than one percent from the prior year and a five percent decrease compared to FY 2019.  Of that number, 109,781 were serving terms of supervised release after leaving correctional institutions, an increase of one percent.  Cases activated in the pretrial services system, including pretrial diversions, fell four percent to 73,690. Pretrial case activations were 32 percent lower than in FY 2019.

Bureau of Justice Statistics releases "Federal Justice Statistics, 2021"

This week, the Bureau of Justice Statistics released this big data report titled simply "Federal Justice Statistics, 2019." This press release about the report provides these highglights (which are only a small sample of data reported):

The study found that arrests by federal law enforcement agencies declined 35% from fiscal year (FY) 2020 to FY 2021, reaching the lowest level over the past two decades.  Due to the coronavirus pandemic, federal arrests declined 81% and cases charged in federal court declined 77%, from March to April 2020, with an additional decline of 25% in arrests and 20% in cases charged, from October 2020 to February 2021.

About 6 in 10 federal arrests in 2021 were for immigration, drug, or supervision violations (48,257).  The largest percentage decrease in arrests from FY 2020 to FY 2021 was for immigration offenses (down 72%), from 51,723 to 14,446 arrests.  Arrests for property offenses increased 11% during this time.

While federal arrests declined substantially from FY 2020 to FY 2021, the number of persons charged with a federal offense in U.S. district court decreased less than 1%, from 66,059 to 65,880.  During that period, the number of persons charged with violent offenses increased 18% and the number charged with public order offenses increased 13%, while the number of persons charged with immigration offenses decreased 18%....

Of the 63,380 defendants adjudicated in federal district courts in FY 2021, about 9 in 10 were convicted.  Among those convicted, nearly three quarters (74%) were sentenced to prison.  The median prison sentence for persons convicted was 37 months.  Among persons sentenced to prison, both white and black defendants were sentenced to a median of 60 months.

The type of sentence imposed in FY 2021 varied by sex, race or Hispanic origin and age of defendants.  Convicted males (77%) were sentenced to prison more commonly than convicted females (59%).  Those sentenced to prison had a median age of 35 years, while those sentenced to probation had a median age of 38 years.  A greater percentage of blacks (85%) and American Indians or Alaska Natives (82%) who were convicted were sentenced to prison compared to convicted persons who were white (77% ), Hispanic (71%) or Asian, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander (69%).

For the 10-year period from fiscal yearend 2011 to 2021, the number of persons under federal correctional control declined 15%, from 410,887 to 350,543.  The proportion in confi nement or community supervision did not change during that period.  Approximately 3 in 5 of these persons were in secure confinement and 2 in 5 were on community supervision in each year.

"Felony Sentencing in New York City: Mandatory Minimums, Mass Incarceration, and Race"

The title of this post is the title of this new report from the Center for Court Innovation authored by Fred Butcher, Amanda B. Cissner, and Michael Rempel.   The full report runs over 30 pages, but this CCI webpage provides this two-page summary which includes this brief accouting of the report's findings:

Of the more than 65,000 such arrests in 2019, we found a third of people arrested were potentially subject to a mandatory minimum.  That doesn’t mean everyone ultimately received a minimum prison sentence, but the wide eligibility confers outsized power on prosecutors; in plea negotiations, prosecutors can wield the threat of a higher charge with guaranteed, generally lengthy, prison time against someone hesitant to accept a plea.

Arrests, and with them exposure to charges eligible for a mandatory minimum, are the formal entry-point to the criminal legal system.  Our analysis found Black people accounted for 51% of people arrested on a felony in New York City in 2019, more than double their representation in the general population; for white people, the figure was 11%. For arrests with exposure to a mandatory minimum, the disparity was even more striking: Black and Hispanic/Latinx New Yorkers combined to make up 91% of such arrests; for white people, the proportion was only 7%.

Looking at the subgroup of those convicted of a felony, Black people were also more likely to suffer imprisonment and almost six of ten convictions carrying a mandatory minimum sentence went to a Black person.

Indeed, while race was a significant predictor of whether someone convicted of a felony received a prison sentence — 58% of Black versus 43% of white people — an even stronger predictor was a prior felony conviction. Here the overlap — or, for people of color, doublebind — is considerable.  Systemic issues such as underinvestment paired with over-policing of Black and Brown communities increase the likelihood that members of these communities will acquire the kind of criminal history that can trigger, not only a sentence of incarceration, but also exposure to a mandatory minimum (whether actualized or used against them to leverage a less favorable plea).

Lots of new data and a notable date from the US Sentencing Commission

The US Sentencing Commission yesterday published two new data reports: (1) this updated compassionate release data report and (2) this FY 2022 fourth quarter sentencing data.  There are lots of stories within all these data, though I still see the top stories to be those discussed here before: there are dramatic district variations in compassionate release grant rates and there are still relatively few "within guideline" sentences" being imposed by judges.

Specifically, on compassionate release, the three districts of Georgia show one notable example of variation: the Southern District of Georgia has granted only 8 out of 296 sentence reduction motions for a 2.7% grant rate; the Middle District of Georgia has granted only 4 out of 265 sentence reduction motions for a 1.5% grant rate; but the Northern District of Georgia has granted 80 out of 174 sentence reduction motions for a 46% grant rate.  On original sentencing more generally, this most recent USSC data show that, for all of FY 22, only 42% of all federal sentences have been imposed "Within Guideline Range" (and the number is under 28% for "Drug Trafficking" cases).

For various reasons and in various ways, all these data in some sense reflect the consequences of the US Sentencing Commission having to function without a quorum and being unable to amend any guidelines for nearly five years.  But, of course, we now have a fully loaded Commission, and the Commissions are clearly hard at work on guidelines reforms.  We know that because the Commission has now officially announced that it will have a public meeting on January 12, 2023, and that announcement notes the meeting agenda is to include "Possible Vote to Publish Proposed Guideline Amendments and Issues for Comment."

The Bureau of Justice Statistics releases data on "Jail Inmates in 2021" and "Prisoners in 2021"

Just in time to ring in 2023, the Bureau of Justice Statistics in the US Department of Justice has a lot of great new data about incarceration levels and rates as of the end of 2021. This press release, titled "U.S. Jail Population Increased While Prison Population Decreased in 2021," provides these highlights (and links) to the lastest data:

The Bureau of Justice Statistics is announcing the release of statistical tables on Jail Inmates in 2021 and Prisoners in 2021. Of note, the two incarcerated populations diverged in 2021, with the number of persons held in local jails increasing by 16% from 2020, while the number of persons in prison decreased 1%.  Both populations decreased from 2019 to 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Regarding the jail population, local jails held 636,300 persons on the last weekday in June 2021, up from 549,100 at midyear 2020.  The number of males confined in local jails increased 15% from 2020 to 2021, while females increased 22%.

The racial and ethnic composition of people held in local jails remained stable from 2020 to 2021.  At midyear 2021, about 49% of people in local jails were white, 35% were black, and 14% were Hispanic. American Indians or Alaska Natives; Asians, Native Hawaiians, or Other Pacific Islanders; and persons of two or more races together accounted for 2% of the total jail population.

At midyear 2021, 29% of persons held in jail (185,000) were convicted, either serving a sentence or awaiting sentencing on a conviction, while 71% (451,400) were unconvicted, awaiting court action on a current charge or held in jail for other reasons.  Unconvicted people in jail accounted for 81% of the increase in the jail population from midyear 2020 to midyear 2021.  Three-quarters (76%) of all persons incarcerated in local jails at midyear 2021 were held for felony offenses (485,700 persons) compared to 18% (114,000) for misdemeanors and 6% (36,600) for other types of offenses.

Based on the occupancy rate, jails are still less crowded than about a decade ago.  At midyear 2021, about 70% of jail beds were occupied, which is higher than the occupancy rate of 60% at midyear 2020 but lower than the rates from 2011 to 2019, which ranged from 81% to 85%.

The number of persons supervised by local jails outside of a jail facility increased by 12,100 (31%) from midyear 2020 to midyear 2021.  At midyear 2021, local jails supervised 50,800 persons in various programs, such as electronic monitoring, home detention, day reporting, community service, alcohol or drug treatment programs, and other pretrial supervision and work programs outside of a jail facility.

Regarding the U.S. prison population, for the eighth consecutive year, the number of persons held in U.S. prisons declined, dropping from 1,221,200 at yearend 2020 to 1,204,300 at yearend 2021.  The overall decline reflected a decrease in prison populations in 32 states that was offset by an increase in 17 states and the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP). This one-year change is vastly different from 2019 to 2020, when 49 states (data for Idaho are not comparable) and the BOP had a decrease in the number of persons in prison, largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The imprisonment rate for adult U.S. residents in state or federal prison serving a sentence of more than one year also declined (down 2%) from yearend 2020 to 2021, from 460 to 449 sentenced prisoners per 100,000 adult U.S. residents.  Over the 10-year period from 2011 to 2021, the adult imprisonment rate declined 30%.

Among racial and ethnic groups, black persons had the highest imprisonment rate in 2021 (1,186 per 100,000 adult black residents), followed by American Indian/Alaska Natives (1,004 per 100,000), Hispanics (619 per 100,00), whites (222 per 100,000) and Asians (90 per 100,000).  Compared to 2011, adult imprisonment rates declined for all racial and ethnic groups in 2021, including a 40% decrease for black persons, 37% for Hispanics, 34% for Asians, 27% for whites, and 26% for American Indian/Alaska Natives.

Regarding the offense for which people were imprisoned, more than 651,800 persons (62% of all state prisoners) were serving sentences in state prison for a violent offense at yearend 2020, the most recent year for which offense data were available.  Forty-seven percent (66,500) of all persons in federal prison were serving time for a drug offense on September 30, 2021 (the most recent date for which federal prison offense data were available), and an additional 20% (28,500) of persons sentenced to federal prison were serving a sentence for a weapons offense.

At yearend 2021, private facilities contracted to state departments of corrections or the BOP held 96,700 persons, a 3% decrease from yearend 2020.  Local jail facilities held an additional 65,400 state or federal prisoners, down 11% from yearend 2020.  Together, private and local facilities housed more than 13% of the total U.S. prison population in 2021.

The findings in the Jail Inmates in 2021 – Statistical Tables report are based on data from BJS’s Annual Survey of Jails, which BJS has conducted annually since 1982, and Census of Jails, which BJS has conducted periodically since 1970. It is the 35th report in a series that began in 1982.  Findings in the Prisoners in 2021 – Statistical Tables report, the 96th report in the series, are based on data from BJS’s National Prisoner Statistics program, which has collected data on the U.S. prison population annually since 1926.

Jail Inmates in 2021 – Statistical Tables (NCJ 304888) was written by BJS Statistician Zhen Zeng, PhD. Prisoners in 2021 – Statistical Tables (NCJ 305125) was written by BJS Statistician E. Ann Carson, PhD. 

DPIC releases year-end report emphasizing botched executions and no 2022 increases in death penalty support

The Death Penalty Information Center this morning released this annual report under the heading "The Death Penalty in 2022: Year End Report; Public Support for Death Penalty at Near-Record Low Despite Perception that Violent Crime is Up."  Here is the start of the report's introduction, with lots and lots of interesting capital punishment data and discussion thereafter:

In a year awash with incendiary political advertising that drove the public’s perception of rising crime to record highs, public support for capital punishment and jury verdicts for death remained near fifty-year lows.  Defying conventional political wisdom, nearly every measure of change — from new death sentences imposed and executions conducted to public opinion polls and election results — pointed to the continuing durability of the more than 20-year sustained decline of the death penalty in the United States.

The Gallup crime survey, administered in the midst of the midterm elections while the capital trial for the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida was underway, found that support for capital punishment remained within one percentage point of the half-century lows recorded in 2020 and 2021.  The 22 new death sentences imposed in 2022 are fewer than in any year before the pandemic, and just 4 higher than the record lows of the prior two years.  With the exception of the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021, the 18 executions in 2022 are the fewest since 1991.

One by one, states continued their movement away from the death penalty.  On December 13, 2022, Oregon Governor Kate Brown announced the commutation of the capital sentences of all 17 death-row prisoners and instructed corrections officials to begin dismantling the state’s execution chamber.  The commutations completed what she called the “near abolition” of the death penalty by the state legislature in 2019.  Thirty-seven states — nearly three-quarters of the country — have now abolished the death penalty or not carried out an execution in more than a decade.

For the eighth consecutive year, fewer than 30 people were executed and fewer than 50 people were sentenced to death.  The five-year average of new death sentences, 27* per year, is the lowest in 50 years.  The five-year average of executions, 18.6 per year, is the lowest in more than 30 years, a 74% decline over the course of one decade.  Death row declined in size for the 21st consecutive year, even before Governor Brown commuted the sentences of the 17 prisoners on Oregon’s death row.

2022 could be called “the year of the botched execution” because of the high number of states with failed or bungled executions. Seven of the 20 execution attempts were visibly problematic — an astonishing 35% — as a result of executioner incompetence, failures to follow protocols, or defects in the protocols themselves.  On July 28, 2022, executioners in Alabama took three hours to set an IV line before putting Joe James Jr. to death, the longest botched lethal injection execution in U.S. history.  Executions were put on hold in Alabama, Tennessee, Idaho, and South Carolina when the states were unable to follow execution protocols.  Idaho scheduled an execution without the drugs to carry it out.  One execution did not occur in Oklahoma because the state did not have custody of the prisoner and had not made arrangements for his transfer before scheduling him to be put to death.

Mississippi completes likely last execution in United States for 2022

As reported in this AP article, a "man who raped and killed a 16-year-old girl in Mississippi was put to death by lethal injection on Wednesday, becoming the second inmate executed in the state in 10 years." Here is more:

Thomas Edwin Loden Jr., 58, was pronounced dead at 6:12 p.m. by Sunflower County Coroner Heather Burton. He’d been on death row since 2001, when he pleaded guilty to capital murder, rape and four counts of sexual battery against Leesa Marie Gray. She was stranded with a flat tire in June 2000 when Loden forced her into his van....

Earlier this month, a federal judge declined to block Loden’s execution amid a pending lawsuit by him and four other Mississippi death row inmates over the state’s use of three drugs for lethal injections, a protocol they allege is inhumane....

In November, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey sought a pause in executions and ordered a “top-to-bottom” review of the state’s capital punishment system after a series of failed lethal injections. Mississippi has done “mock executions and drills” on a monthly basis to avoid a botched execution, Jeworski Mallett, deputy commissioner of institutions for the Department of Corrections, told reporters.

The Department of Corrections revealed in court papers in July 2021 that it had acquired three drugs for its lethal injection protocol: midazolam, which is a sedative; vecuronium bromide, which paralyzes the muscles; and potassium chloride, which stops the heart. Since 2019, only Alabama, Oklahoma, Mississippi and Tennessee have used a three-drug protocol, said Jim Craig, a MacArthur Center attorney, speaking at a November court hearing.

This page at the Death Penalty Information Center reports that there are execution dates scheduled in two states tomorrow, but also that those execution are not likely to move forward. Therefore it appears that this Mississippi execution will be the last in the US this year, which means that there were a total of 18 execution in this us in 2022. That marks more executions in the US than in 2021 (11) and 2020 (17), but fewer than in every other year going back until 1991 (14).

Bureau of Justice Statistics releases "Federal Prisoner Statistics Collected Under the First Step Act, 2022"

Via email this morning, I learned of this 25-page report produced by DOJ's Bureau of Justice Statistics. This BJS webpage provides this discriptive overview and these "highlights":

This is the fourth report as required under the First Step Act of 2018 (FSA; P.L. 115-391). It includes data on federal prisoners provided to BJS by the Federal Bureau of Prisons for calendar year 2021.  Under the FSA, BJS is required to report on selected characteristics of persons in prison, including marital, veteran, citizenship, and English-speaking status; education levels; medical conditions; and participation in treatment programs.  Also, BJS is required to report facility-level statistics, such as the number of assaults on staff by prisoners, prisoners’ violations of rules that resulted in time credit reductions, and selected facility characteristics related to accreditation, on-site healthcare, remote learning, video conferencing, and costs of prisoners’ phone calls.

Highlights

• The federal prison population increased more than 3%, from 151,283 at yearend 2020 to 156,542 at yearend 2021.
• In 2021, a total of 74 pregnant females were held in BOP-operated prison facilities, a 19% decrease from 2020 (91).
• During 2021, a total of 378 prisoners were receiving medication-assisted treatment (MAT) approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat a substance use disorder prior to their admission to federal prison, and 1,127 prisoners received MAT while in custody.
• In 2021, a total of 17,252 federal prisoners participated in a nonresidential substance use disorder treatment program, while 10,919 participated in a residential program.

Sobering numbers from "mass" marijuana pardon efforts in Pennsylvania

In this post over at my marijuana blog a few months ago, I flagged the announcement of outgoing Pennsylvania Gov Tom Wolf to create a large-scale project, called the Pennsylvania Marijuana Pardon Project, to enable people with certain low-level convictions to submit an application online for an official pardon from the state.  Subsequent reports about this effort noted that many thousands of people had submitted pardon applications.  But this new local article, headlined "Thousands applied, but fewer than 250 qualified for Wolf’s marijuana pardon," spotlights how the devil is often in the details in this arena:

When announcing the marijuana pardon project earlier this year, Gov. Tom Wolf said it had the potential to help thousands of Pennsylvanians clear their records. But it has fallen well short of that goal. More than 3,500 people applied for the program, aimed at wiping out low-level marijuana convictions in a one-time mass act of clemency. Fewer than 250, however, will have an opportunity to clear their record later this month.

On Thursday, the Pennsylvania Board of Pardons voted whether to move forward on more than 2,600 applications from the project. Of those, 231 were approved and will go for a final vote by the board on December 16. Any of the cases that make it through that round, will go on to Wolf to grant the pardon. Another 2,002 applications were denied Thursday because they did not meet the requirements of the project and 434 were held under advisement, meaning the board can vote on them at a later date.

The program only applied to people who were convicted of possession of a small amount of marijuana and excluded anyone who had any additional criminal convictions on their record. Advocates said the narrowness of the program was a significant concern for how effective the program could be.

“Often cannabis consumers get multiple convictions when they are arrested that first time,” said Chris Goldstein, NORML’s Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware regional organizer. “They get a paraphernalia charge, and they get a possession charge all at once. You would have to essentially lead a police-free life other than that one marijuana encounter to qualify.”

Goldstein said the fact that program had a very short window for people to apply also likely limited its impact. Wolf announced the program on September 1 and people had until September 30 to apply....

Goldstein said more than 13,000 people were arrested for possession of a small amount of marijuana in 2021. About 10 percent of those people wind up with a conviction for the offense. Most others are either dismissed or plead out to a lower level crime.

More than 1,150 people were sentenced in 2018 with possession of a small amount of marijuana as the highest charge in their case, according to the latest year of data available from the Pennsylvania Sentencing Commission.

While Goldstein said he was disappointed that only a fraction of the people affected will receive a pardon through the program, clemency for those people will mean less barriers to housing, employment and hopefully improve their lives. “I’m sure to the 231 people who went through this process, got approved, do qualify, when they get the pardon certificate in their hands, it will matter in their lives,” he said. “They had a reason they wanted this pardon. Whether they wanted it for their own person justice, to clear their own name, or they needed it as answer to their record, those pardons will matter.”

New DPIC analysis finds "murder rates during the pandemic were highest in states with the death penalty"

The Death Penalty Information Center has posted this notable new review of murder data under the heading "DPIC Analysis: Pandemic Murder Rates Highest in Death Penalty States." I recoemmend the full posting, and here are excerpts (with links and the chart from the original, footnotes removed):

A DPIC analysis of 2020 U.S. homicide data has found that murder rates during the pandemic were highest in states with the death penalty and lowest in long-time abolitionist states.

DPIC reviewed the 2020 murder data compiled by the center-left think tank The Third Way for its March 2022 report, The Red State Murder Problem.  Then, taking the analysis out of the realm of politics and into the context of public policy, DPIC compared the data to states’ death-penalty status and historic usage of the death penalty.  That analysis found that pandemic murder rates generally correlated not just with the presence or absence of the death penalty in a state but with the states’ general level of death-penalty usage.

The data show that nine of the ten states with the highest pandemic murder rates — ranging from 9.9 to 20.5 murders per 10,000 residents — are death penalty states. On the other hand, eight of the eleven states with the lowest pandemic murder rates — ranging from 0.88 to 3.49 murders per 10,000 residents — had abolished the death penalty. DPIC found that the three death penalty states with the lowest pandemic murder rates — all 2.89 murders per 10,000 residents — have not carried out an execution in more than a decade, and one had a gubernatorial moratorium on executions.

Murder rates in the mostly high death-penalty usage, high pandemic-murder-rate states ranged from roughly triple to 23 times higher than in the mostly no death penalty, low pandemic-murder-rate states.

More than half of all death penalty states (14 of 27) had murder pandemic murder rates of at least 7.00 per 100,000 residents, and 30 percent (8 states) had pandemic murder rates of 10.29 per 100,000 residents or higher. By contrast, nearly two-thirds of the states that had abolished the death penalty (15 of 23) had pandemic murder rates of 5.14 or less per 100,000 residents, more than a third (8 states) had pandemic murder rates below 3.5 murders per 100,000 residents....

DPIC’s review of The Third Way pandemic murder data found that 15 of the 20 states with the highest pandemic murder rates are death penalty states, of which 12 have carried out 20 or more executions each in the past half century. Collectively, these 12 states have accounted for more than three quarters of all executions in the U.S. since the 1970s.

At the other end of the spectrum, none of the 23 states with the lowest pandemic murder rates are historically heavy users of capital punishment. Fifteen had abolished the death penalty, including nine who had not had the death penalty at any time during the 21st century.  The eight death penalty states with the lowest pandemic murder rates include two with moratoria on executions, six who have executed five or fewer people in the past half century, one that has carried out seven executions, and six who have not executed anyone in more than a decade.

Twenty U.S. states have carried out ten or more executions in the past half-century.  All of them, including three who have since abolished the death penalty, are among the 28 states with the highest pandemic murder rates.

Are there going to be five executions in four US states over the next ten days?

The question in the title of this post is prompted by my quick look this morning at the "Upcoming Executions" page over at the Death Penalty Information Center.   That page shows that Texas has two executions scheduled, and Alabama, Arizona and Oklahoma each have one execution scheduled, between November 9 and November 17.  If all five of these executions go forward, it will be the most executions completed in the US within such a short period of time in a decade.  (In 2012, between November 6 and 15, Texas completed three executions and Ohio and Oklahoma also completed one execution.)

So many executions in a short period would be a pretty dramatic break from recent norms throughout the US.  Since roughly the start of the pandemic, the US has averaged only about one execution per month as various states have continued to have various difficulties with converting death sentences into completed executions.  Even before COVID hit, the US averaged only about two executions per month when President Trump was in office and less than four executions per month during President Obama's years in the oval office. (About seven executions per month was the national average during President Clinton's second term, and around five per month was the national norm for most of President Bush's two terms).

With all the recent political discussions about crime and crime policy, I have been a bit surprised that we have not seen a significant uptick in chatter about capital punishment polcies and practices this election season.  But it does seem we may be on the verge of an uptick in the number of executions this November.

UPDATE:  I just saw this notable new Salon commentary by Austin Sarat headlined "Crime is a hot issue, but even Republicans don't talk about the death penalty: That's good news."  I recommend the full extended piece, and here are a few excerpts:

In the past, politicians at every level responded to public concerns about crime with law-and-order campaigns in which promises to bring back or enforce the death penalty featured prominently....

Throughout the late 20th and early 21st centuries, death-penalty ballot measures have been used as tools of partisan and political advantage, largely to increase turnout among a targeted portion of the electorate in order to benefit "law and order" candidates.

But not this year.

Only in Alabama will voters be asked to decide on a death-penalty ballot measure. It would "require the governor to provide notice to the attorney general and make reasonable efforts to notify a designated family member of a victim before granting a commutation (a reduced sentence such as life imprisonment) or reprieve (temporary stay of execution) of a death sentence." ...

But in campaigns up and down the ballot, even as conservative candidates have accused their opponents of being soft on crime and promised robust anti-crime measures, Republican gubernatorial candidates in Arizona, Georgia, New York and Oklahoma have said little or nothing about the death penalty....

Whatever the verdict delivered by voters this week may be, the relative invisibility of the death penalty in this year's political campaigns is a clear sign of the progress abolitionists have made in changing the national temperature on that issue.

US Sentencing Commission produces "additional analyses" of those receiving federal marijuana possession pardons

In an update to this post last week, I noted that the US Sentencing Commission had produced this three-page analysis of "data relating to offenders sentenced between fiscal year 1992 and fiscal year 2021 convicted of at least one count of simple possession involving marijuana."  That analysis explained where "senior administration officials" were getting the talking point that around 6500 people were going to benefit from President Joe Biden's decision to grant a blanket pardon to "all current United States citizens and lawful permanent residents who committed the offense of simple possession of marijuana in violation of the Controlled Substances Act"  That USSC accounting also led me to wonder if we might ever get "race and gender and age and criminal history information" regarding this now-pardoned population.

Excitingly, late yesterday the US Sentencing Commission issued this news advisory announcing that it had completed "additional analyses" of the pardoned population "providing additional information on demographics and geographic distribution."  The additional USSC analyses include race and gender data (but no age and criminal history data), and the biggest story in the new analyses seems to be that the pardoned population is comprised of more Whites (41.3%) and Hispanics (31.8%) than Blacks (23.6%).  This reality may be a bit surprising given that the ACLU has repeatedly documented that states have in recent decades arrested Blacks at nearly four times the rate as whites (see here and here).  But since most federal marijuana possession offenses are concentrated near the border or on federal property (like military bases and national parks), this racial distribution perhaps should not be all that surprising.

Prior related posts:

• October surprise: Prez Biden announces he is "pardoning all prior federal offenses of simple marijuana possession"! Wow!
• A few more details about President Biden's mass pardon of federal offenses of simple possession of marijuana
• Rounding up a few (of many) reactions to Prez Biden's marijuana possession pardons
• Prez Biden's one miss in his marijuana moves: failing to urge Congress to move on federal record relief mechanisms

Notable new research on modern operation and impact of Three Strikes law in California

I just came across this notable new report from the California Policy Lab released a couple of months ago titled simply "Three Strikes in California." Here is the 45-page report's listing of "Key Findings" (with bolding in the original):

• Three-Strikes enhancements affect a large share of the currently incarcerated prison population, but a smaller share of admissions to prison.  Less than one-third of prison admissions since 2015 involve a strike enhancement, with most receiving a doubled-sentence enhancement and a smaller percentage receiving a third-strike enhancement. At a given point in time however, individuals with strike enhancements constitute a larger proportion of the incarcerated population because they serve longer sentences

• Nearly 65% of admissions to prison with a doubled-sentence enhancement are for a non-violent, non-serious offense.

• Given the longer sentences imposed for serious or violent offenses, the reverse is true for people currently incarcerated: approximately 71% of those with doubled-sentence enhancements were convicted of a serious or violent offense.

• Black individuals are heavily over-represented among people serving sentences with third-strike enhancements, and to a lesser degree, with doubled-sentence enhancements. Overrepresentation exists relative to the racial/ ethnic composition of the prison population, and overwhelmingly relative to the racial/ethnic composition of the resident population of California.

• Judicial and prosecutorial discretion can mitigate the severity of strike enhancements.  The data suggests that judges and prosecutors may mitigate the severity of doubled-sentence enhancements by choosing (or accepting) lower sentence length options, but the effect of discretion on overall sentence length is modest.

• The use of strike enhancements varies widely across counties.  While third-strike sentences are considerably more rare today than in past years and the ordering across counties has changed over time, high-use and low-use counties documented in the early 2000s are largely similar in terms of rank today.

• The implementation of Three Strikes does not explain statewide declines in crime over time.  Early evaluations claiming large impacts on crime fail to account for national crime trends and also suffer from methodological flaws. More recent research suggests that Three Strikes may have a modest deterrent effect on relatively less serious crime, but likely does not account for the declines in California’s crime rates beginning in the mid-1990s.  Crime fell contemporaneously throughout the nation, and comparisons of crime trends in California to states that did not pass Three-Strikes laws reveal very similar trends over the subsequent two decades.

"The Problematic Structure of Indigent Defense Delivery"

The title of this post is the title of this new article authored by Eve Brensike Primus now available via SSRN. Here is its abstract:

The national conversation about criminal justice reform largely ignores the critical need for structural reforms in the provision of indigent defense.  In most parts of the country, decisions about how to structure the provision of indigent defense are made at the local level, resulting in a fragmented patchwork of different indigent defense delivery systems.  In most counties, if an indigent criminal defendant gets representation at all, it comes from assigned counsel or flat-fee contract lawyers rather than public defenders.  In those assigned-counsel and flat-fee contract systems, the lawyers representing indigent defendants have financial incentives to get rid of assigned criminal cases as quickly as possible.  Those incentives fuel mass incarceration, because the lawyers put less time into each case than their public defender counterparts and achieve poorer outcomes for their clients.  Moreover, empirical research shows that assigned-counsel and flat-fee contract systems are economically more costly to the public fisc than public defender systems.

This Article collects data from across the country to show how prevalent assigned-counsel and contract systems remain, explains why arguments in favor of substantial reliance on the private bar to provide for indigent defense are outdated, argues that more states need to move toward state-structured public defender models, and explains how it is politically possible for stakeholders to get there. 

Taking account of extreme sentences under "habitual offender" laws in Mississippi and Louisiana

Tana Ganeva has this lengthy new piece at The Appeal which details the impact and import of repeat offender laws in two southern states. The full title of this piece previews in coverage: "'Habitual Offender' Laws Imprison Thousands for Small Crimes — Sometimes for Life: Data obtained by The Appeal show nearly 2,000 people in Mississippi and Louisiana are serving long — and sometimes life — sentences after they were labeled “habitual offenders." But most are behind bars for small crimes like drug possession." I recommend the full piece and here are some excerpts:

The Appeal took a deeper look at Louisiana and Mississippi, states that changed their laws in 1994 or 1995 and now have some of the highest rates of incarcerated people in the country.  The Appeal sent freedom of information requests to both the Mississippi Department of Corrections and Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections for data on people serving 20-year-plus sentences and, where possible, information regarding whether their sentences had been enhanced by a habitual offender statute.  We broke the data down by race, crime, time served, and sentence. In total, datasets suggest there are close to 2,000 people currently serving long sentences enhanced by habitual offender statutes in these two states.

A small number of these people in these two states committed serious crimes.  But most are serving 20-plus years primarily because of habitual offender status, where the triggering offense was drug possession, drug sale, illegal gun possession, or another crime besides murder or rape.  Scores of people are serving virtual or literal life sentences for nonviolent drug possession....

In the mid-1990s, Mississippi instituted some of the most restrictive habitual offender laws in the country and virtually did away with parole for repeat offenders....  According to data analyzed by The Appeal, as of August 4, 2021, there were nearly 600 people in Mississippi who were serving 20 years or more with no parole date and were considered habitual offenders....  In Mississippi, 75 percent of “habitual offenders” are Black, while 25 percent are white. (Other racial groups make up a negligible number.) ...

The majority of habitual offender convictions analyzed by The Appeal are linked to possession of drugs, possession of firearms, or contraband in prison. In the most extreme cases, multiple people convicted of drug crimes were given virtual life sentences because of their habitual offender status.  Perry Armstead is serving 63 years for five charges of cocaine possession and sales. Keith Baskin is serving 60 years for possession of cannabis with intent to distribute. Timothy Bell is serving 80 years after being convicted of possessing a firearm as a felon and selling meth twice. Malcolm Crump is serving 56 years for selling meth on three occasions. Paul Houser got 60 years for meth. Anthony Jefferson got 60 years for possession of cannabis with intent to distribute....

There are nearly 900 people serving sentences longer than 20 years in Louisiana because of habitual offender statutes who aren’t eligible for parole. (Overall, there are more than four thousand people serving life without parole in the state.)

According to data acquired through a freedom of information request, the most serious crimes are in the minority. Less than 3 percent of those imprisoned due to habitual offender status were convicted of first-degree murder.  Slightly less than 5 percent are serving time for second-degree murder. Almost 6 percent are serving time for rape. Meanwhile, 12.6 percent are serving 20-plus years because of habitual offender statutes triggered by a drug crime.  Of those serving decades for drug crimes, 49 people were convicted for possession, 34 for possession with intent to distribute, and 31 for distribution.

Spotlighting the ugly problems with incarceration deaths (and with data collection by the Justice Department)

Last week brought this notable bipartisan Senate report with a title that largely highlights its main points: "Uncounted Deaths in America’s Prisons & Jails: How the Department Of Justice Failed to Implement the Death In Custody Reporting Act."  Here is the report's "Executive Summary":

Approximately 1.5 million people are incarcerated in state and local correctional facilities throughout the United States.  Thousands die every year.  The Death in Custody Reporting Act of 2013 (“DCRA 2013” or “the reauthorization”) — reauthorizing a law that first passed in 2000 — requires states that accept certain federal funding to report to the Department of Justice (“DOJ” or “the Department”) about who is dying in prisons and jails.

Over the course of a ten-month bipartisan investigation into DOJ’s implementation of the law, the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (“PSI” or “the Subcommittee”) found that DOJ is failing to effectively implement DCRA 2013.  DOJ’s failed implementation of DCRA 2013 undermined the effective, comprehensive, and accurate collection of custodial death data.

This failure in turn undermined transparency and Congressional oversight of deaths in custody.  The Subcommittee has found that DOJ will be at least eight years past-due in providing Congress with the DCRA 2013-required 2016 report on how custodial deaths can be reduced.  The Subcommittee also highlights the following key facts: in Fiscal Year (“FY”) 2021 alone, DOJ failed to identify at least 990 prison and arrest related deaths; and 70% of the data DOJ collected was incomplete.  DOJ failed to implement effective data collection methodology, despite internal warnings from the DOJ Office of the Inspector General (“OIG”) and the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS).  DOJ’s failures were preventable.

Here was just some of the media coverage from the release of this report and the associated hearing:

From The Marshall Project, "‘A Moral Disgrace’: How The U.S. Stopped Counting Deaths Behind Bars; The Department of Justice is failing miserably at collecting data on deaths. Experts say that makes it hard to identify the worst prisons and jails."

From NBC News, "Hundreds of prison and jail deaths go uncounted by the federal government, report finds; A Senate subcommittee hearing is focusing on how lawmakers say the Justice Department has "failed to implement" the Death in Custody Reporting Act.

From The Washington Post, "DOJ slammed by senators over poor reporting on deaths in custody"

"What’s Dangerous Is America’s Lack of Crime Data"

The title of this post is the headline of this new opinion piece by Matthew Yglesias.  I recommend the full piece and here are excerpts:

Crime is on the political agenda in a big way this year, with Republicans zeroing in on it as their favorite topic now that gasoline prices are moderating.  Which naturally raises the question: Is crime rising?  To which the shocking answer is — nobody knows.  Not because anything unusual is happening, but simply because the usual state of America’s information on crime and policing is incredibly poor.

Contrast this state of affairs with the amount of data available on the US economy.  There are monthly updates on job creation, the unemployment rate and multiple indexes of inflation.  Commodity prices are publicized on a daily basis. Reports on gross national product come out quarterly, with timely revisions as more data comes in.  Policymakers benefit from a deeply informed debate, enriched by commentary from academics and other observers.

But on crime the US is, to a shocking extent, flying blind.  As a July report from the Brennan Center for Justice noted: “More than six months into 2022, national-level data on crime in 2021 remains unavailable.”...

The dearth of information is a problem not only for rigor-minded policymakers.  It also leaves the political arena open for manipulation by demagogues.  Since nobody actually knows in real time what’s happening, anecdotes can just stand in for made-up fears.  Since the very real murder surge of 2020 now has people primed to believe “crime is out of control” narratives, any particular instance of violence can be used to support that story....

By the same token, when murder really was soaring in 2020, it was easy for progressives to stay in ideologically convenient denial for far too long, since it was genuinely impossible to actually prove that it was happening until much later.  The people who dismissed the anecdotal evidence of rising crime were, in that case, mistaken. But the Republicans who are stoking fears of rising crime right now also appear to be mistaken.  And the lack of information about geographical patterns in murder trends means no one has much ability to assess what social or policy factors may be in play.

What makes this all especially maddening is that collecting this information in a timely manner shouldn’t be that difficult. Police departments know how many murders are committed in their jurisdiction. That information is stored on computers. It doesn’t need to be delivered to the Department of Justice via carrier pigeon. The DOJ should be given some money to create a system that can be easily updated by law enforcement agencies, and actually filing that information in a timely way should be a condition of receiving federal police grants.  A small team at the Bureau of Justice Statistics could have the job of phoning up departments who haven’t done it and “reminding” them to update the numbers.  And then the data could be released on a regular basis in a machine-readable form — the same way numbers for jobs, inflation, and other major economic statistics are.

Knowing what’s actually happening would not, by itself, solve America’s crime problems.  But successful efforts to reduce violence, such as the one in New York City in the 1990s, were driven by a commitment to rigorous measurement.  A serious federal investment in crime data collection is no panacea, and it’s not exactly a winning political slogan.  But it would be a huge boost to all kinds of crime-control efforts.

US Sentencing Commission releases latest "Compassionate Release Data Report" with detailed data through March 2022

I just noticed that the US Sentencing Commission late last week published this updated compassionate release data report, which includes data on all "motions decided by the courts during fiscal years 2020, 2021, and the first half of 2022 (October 1, 2019 – March 31, 2022)."   As I have noted with prior data runs, there are lots and lots of interesting data points throughout this report covering the period just before, during and after the heights of the COVID pandemic.  

As I also have noted before, perhaps most striking data points are the dramatic variations in grant rates from various districts.  As but one of many remarkable examples, I must note again the stark disparities in the three districts of Georgia: the Southern District of Georgia granted only 6 out of 272 sentence reduction motions for a 2.2% grant rate; the Middle District of Georgia granted only 4 out of 238 sentence reduction motions for a 1.7% grant rate; but the Northern District of Georgia granted 80 out of 174 sentence reduction motions for a 46% grant rate.  And the District of Maryland — with a total of 244 sentencing reduction motions granted (though "only" a grant rate of 33%) — granted more of these motions than all the courts of five different circuits (and circuit grant rates ranged from a low of 9.8% in the Fifth Circuit to a high of 29.6% in the First Circuit).

I expect the newly confirmed Sentencing Commission will be giving these data a good luck as the consider revisions to the out-of-data guideline that is supposed to help courts considering sentencing revision motions brought under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A).  

Fascinating data and transparency project from Colorado district attorneys

The Denver Post has this lengthy and interesting account of a remarkable new data project in Colorado involving numerous district attorneys.  The piece should be read in full and is headlined "Eight Colorado DAs unveil detailed data about prosecutions, racial disparities; Public dashboards show racial disparities, offer unprecedented detail."  Here is how the article gets started:

Eight Colorado district attorneys released detailed data about their operations Thursday in an attempt to be more transparent with the public amid broader criticism of racial disparities in and distrust of the U.S. criminal justice system.

The data offers a look at the inner workings of Colorado’s prosecutors in unprecedented detail, with researchers tracking 55 different aspects of prosecution, ranging from charging and bond decisions to sentencing to how long cases take to be resolved

“For too long and too often, the justice system feels like a black box of information,” 18th Judicial District Attorney John Kellner said during a news conference Thursday. “…That changes today.”

The data is presented publicly in online dashboards — collected at data.dacolorado.org — for each of the eight offices that participated in the research project, which was funded by an $882,000 grant from the Microsoft Justice Reform Institute. The research was carried out by the University of Denver’s Colorado Evaluation and Action Lab and by the Prosecutorial Performance Indicators project.

New Sentencing Project report addresses "How Many People Are Spending Over a Decade in Prison?"

The Sentencing Project has long done a lot of great work on long sentences, especially through various reports on life sentences (examples here and here).  Today, The Sentencing Project has a notable new publication looking at persons serving sentences of a decade or longer.  This new report is titled with a question: "How Many People Are Spending Over a Decade in Prison?".  But the subtitle of the report provides this answer: "In 2019, over half of the people in U.S. prisons — amounting to more than 770,000 people — were serving sentences of 10 years or longer — a huge jump from 2000."  Here are other "key findings" from the start of the report:

• Nearly one in five people in U.S. prisons—over 260,000 people—had already served at least 10 years in 2019. This is an increase from 133,000 people in 2000—which represented 10% of the prison population in that year.

• In California, 29% of imprisoned people had already served at least 10 years in 2019. In Washington, DC, the level was even higher in 2020, at 39%. By 2021 in Texas, 25% of imprisoned people had served at least a decade.

• Over 770,000 people in U.S. prisons were serving sentences of 10 years or longer in 2019—56% of the total prison population. This is an increase from 587,000 people in 2000—which represented 44% of the prison population in that year.

• The 12 U.S. jurisdictions where two-thirds or more of the prison population are serving sentences of at least a decade are: Georgia, West Virginia, Alabama, Montana, Hawaii, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Utah, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, and Washington, DC.

• In 2019, Black Americans represented 14% of the total U.S. population, 33% of the total prison population, and 46% of the prison population who had already served at least 10 years.

Notable review of research on public safety and criminal justice reform from Arnold Ventures

This new webpage at Arnold Ventures explores in thoughtful ways the important question that it is title of the webpage: "What Does the Research Say About Public Safety and Criminal Justice Reform?".  Here is an explanation of the effort (with emphasis in the original) along with the links to the research papers most focused on reform of the back-end of the criminal justice system:

As a philanthropy dedicated to improving lives by driving sustainable change to the justice system, the spike in homicides and the resulting political pushback by some against criminal justice reform led Arnold Ventures to reflect on the relationship between community safety and justice reform. Arnold Ventures’ programmatic work, from policing to pretrial justice to corrections, is built on the idea that reform and safety are not opposite ends of a spectrum, but can operate in tandem. 

That is why we turned to the experts to help us understand what the evidence says about the relationship between community safety, the justice system, and reform. We collaborated with eight scholars who have deep substantive and methodological expertise in their respective issue areas, and asked that they write discussion papers looking at the state of research around specific aspects of the criminal justice system. These papers each respond to two broad prompts. 

First, how does a particular aspect of the justice system advance or undermine community safety? 

Second, what is your summary or assessment of the evidence, and are there remaining research questions that need to be answered? 

The following six papers are the scholars’ independent and thoughtful reviews of the available evidence in response to those prompts:...

[Other papers looked at community-based, policing and pre-trial reforms...]

• Dr. Jennifer Doleac (Texas A&M University) and Dr. Michael LaForest (Penn State University) discuss the limited empirical evidence of the effect of community supervision (probation and parole) policy and practice on community safety despite the scale of its use as a sanction for criminal behavior and alternative to incarceration. 
  Read the paper: Community Supervision & Public Safety
  
• Dr. Daniel Nagin (Carnegie Mellon University) discusses how the current incarceration practices in the United States, particularly multi-decade sentences, are an inefficient use of public resources and are not shown by evidence to have a deterrent effect on crime. 
  Read the paper: Incarceration & Public Safety
  
• Dr. Megan Denver and Ms. Abigail Ballou (Northeastern University) discuss how widespread post-conviction sanctions, restrictions, and disqualifications for individuals with criminal records and histories of justice system involvement can interact and accumulate in ways that are counterproductive to safety. 
  Read the paper: Collateral Consequences & Public Safety

These papers make a significant contribution to the public conversation as individual products, but they can also be read together as concluding: The evidence suggests there are real public safety benefits associated with the functions of the justice system.  At the same time, some of the current practices remain inefficient, produce serious harms, and operate in ways that are counterproductive to community safety.

Great new Robina Institute report on "Examining Prison Releases in Response to COVID"

I was so pleased to see this week that the Robina Institute of Criminal Law and Criminal Justice has this great big new report titled "Examining Prison Releases in Response to COVID: Lessons Learned for Reducing the Effects of Mass Incarceration."  The full 86-page report is a must read and it so rich and intricate, I can only here excerpt a portion of the executive summary:

In response to the global pandemic in 2020, states and the federal government began to make non-routine releases from prison in order to reduce prison populations to allow for social distancing in prison facilities. This report is aimed at describing where such prison releases occurred, the legal mechanisms used to achieve these releases, and the factors within jurisdictions that made non-routine prison releases more or less likely to occur. We write this report, not to examine the national response to the pandemic, but to better understand when and how extraordinary measures may be used to effect prison release, and to determine whether there are lessons from this experience that can be applied to reducing the effects of mass incarceration.

Prevalence of Release:

• We estimate that a total of 80,658 people were released from prisons in 35 jurisdictions (34 states and the federal prison system) due to COVID-related policies, which was equivalent to about 5-1/2% of the total state and federal prison population in 2019.
• Most COVID-related releases were quite modest, amounting to the equivalent of less than 10% of the 2019 prison populations in 27 of the 35 jurisdictions in which releases occurred (Figure 2).

Legal Mechanisms:

• The legal mechanisms used most frequently to release people from prison during the pandemic were parole (11 jurisdictions), compassionate release (10 instances in 9 jurisdictions), home confinement (8 jurisdictions), commutation (7 jurisdictions), and good time or earned time credits (6 jurisdictions) (Figure 3).

Criteria for Release:

• Type of crime, COVID health risk, and time left to serve on one’s sentence were the criteria most frequently used — either alone or in combination — to determine eligibility for release due to COVID-related policies.
• Most release groups (39 of 73) required that a person had to have been convicted of a non-violent offense (Figure 4).
• COVID health risks — addressing both medical vulnerability and age — were used as criteria in 38 of 73 release groups (Figure 6).
• Most release groups (37 of 73) required that a person have a short time left to serve on their sentence (Figure 7). Though the amount of time varied from 30 days in New Mexico to 5 years in Kentucky, the average was 9 months, and the most frequently used time period was 12 months.

Political and Structural Influences:

• Gubernatorial leadership played a larger role in whether the jurisdictions made releases, with fewer jurisdictions with Republican leadership making releases. However, determinacy may have affected how many releases were possible, with indeterminate jurisdictions making larger releases than determinate jurisdictions regardless of political leadership.
• All but three Democratic-led jurisdictions (21 of 24) made COVID-related prison releases while only about half of Republic-led jurisdictions (14 of 27) did so (Table 4).
• Nearly all of the jurisdictions (7 of 8) with the largest COVID-related releases — those greater than 10% of the 2019 prison population — were indeterminate in structure.

US Sentencing Commission reports on "Older Offenders in the Federal System"

I received an email this morning spotlighting two interesting and important new data reports from the US Sentencing Commission. One of these new USSC reports is this 68-page effort titled "Older Offenders in the Federal System." Highlights are provided via this USSC webpage where one can find this "Summary" and "Key Findings":

Congress requires courts to consider several factors when determining the appropriate sentence to be imposed in federal cases, among them the “history and characteristics of the defendant.”  The sentencing guidelines also specifically authorize judges to consider an offender’s age when determining whether to depart from the federal sentencing guidelines.  In this report, the Commission presents information on relatively small number of offenders who were aged 50 or older at the time they were sentenced in the federal system.  In particular, the report examines older federal offenders who were sentenced in fiscal year 2021 and the crimes they committed, then assesses whether age was given a special consideration at sentencing.  This report specifically focuses on three issues that could impact the sentencing of older offenders: age and infirmity, life expectancy, and the risk of recidivism.

Older offenders commit fraud and sexual offenses at higher rates than all other offenders.

• Older offenders had roughly three times the rate of fraud offenses (17.8%) and a greater proportion of sex offenses (7.3%), compared to offenders under age 50 (6.4% and 4.1%, respectively).
• The rate of offenders committing sex offenses increased incrementally as the age of the offender increased. Offenders 70 and older committed sex offenses at nearly three times the rate (11.9%) of offenders under the age of 50 (4.1%).

Roughly 40 percent (40.7%) of older offenders had a physical disability prior to arrest for the instant offense.

• The rate of offenders with a disability increased incrementally as offenders' age at sentencing increased, so that roughly two-thirds (63.3%) of offenders 70 and older had a physical disability.

About one-third (31.2%) of older offenders had used drugs or misused prescription drugs in the year prior to arrest.

• Among older drug users, the most used substances were marijuana (32.4%) and methamphetamine (28.5%).

Older offenders have less extensive criminal histories, compared to all other federal offenders.

• More than half (52.5%) of older offenders were in Criminal History Category (CHC) I, the lowest criminal history category, compared to 37.5 percent of offenders under 50 years of age.

The overwhelming majority (80.1%) of older offenders were sentenced to prison. However, older offenders were also more likely to receive fines and alternative sentences, compared to offenders under age 50.

• The oldest offenders were the most likely to receive an alternative sentence or fine; roughly a third (31.3%) of offenders 65 through 69 and more than 40 percent (42.1%) of offenders 70 and older received an alternative sentence or fine.
• The oldest offenders were most likely to have received sentences that exceed life expectancy.

Nearly forty percent (38.6%) of offenders who were sentenced at 70 years of age or older received a sentence that exceeds their life expectancy, compared to 7.1 percent of offenders 65 through 69, and less than one percent of offenders under the age of 50.

In fiscal year 2021, a nearly equal proportion of older offenders (36.7%) were sentenced within the guideline range as received a below range variance (35.5%).

• The proportion of offenders receiving variances increased as an offender’s age at sentencing increased, with the oldest offenders being the most likely to receive a variance.
• Offenders 65 and older were nearly as likely to receive a variance (48.9%) as they were to receive a sentence under the Guidelines Manual (51.1%).

The recidivism rate of older offenders (21.3%) was less than half that of offenders under the age of 50 (53.4%).

• As offenders’ age at sentencing increased, recidivism rates decreased.
• Recidivism events for older offenders were less serious, compared to offenders under the age of 50.
• Older offenders take a longer time to recidivate, compared to their younger peers.

US Sentencing Commission reports on "Life Sentences in the Federal System"

I received an email this morning spotlighting two interesting and important new data reports from the US Sentencing Commission. One of these new USSC reports is this 40-page effort titled simply "Life Sentences in the Federal System." Highlights are provided via this USSC webpage where one can find this "Summary" and "Key Findings":

There are numerous federal criminal statutes authorizing a sentence of life as the maximum sentence allowed, such as for offenses involving drug trafficking, racketeering, and firearms crimes.  While convictions under these statutes are common, sentences of life imprisonment are rare, accounting for only a small proportion of all federal offenders sentenced. 

In February 2015, the Commission released Life Sentences in the Federal Criminal Justice System, examining the application of life sentences by federal courts during fiscal year 2013.  Using data from fiscal years 2016 through 2021, this report updates and augments the Commission’s previous findings by examining the offenses that led to the life sentences imprisonment imposed, along with offender demographics, criminal histories, and victim-related adjustments.

Offenders Sentenced to Life Imprisonment

• During fiscal years 2016 through 2021, there were 709 federal offenders sentenced to life imprisonment, which accounted for 0.2 percent of the total federal offender population.
• Almost half (48.7%) of offenders sentenced to life imprisonment were convicted of murder.
• Approximately half (47.5%) of offenders sentenced to life imprisonment were found to either have possessed a weapon in connection with their instant offense or were convicted under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) — for possession or use of a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence or drug trafficking crime.  This is almost five times the rate for offenders who were sentenced to less than life imprisonment (9.8%).
• Nearly one-third (31.4%) of offenders sentenced to life imprisonment received an aggravating role enhancement as an organizer, leader, manager, or supervisor in the offense, which is approximately eight times higher than those sentenced to less than life imprisonment (4.2%).
• Offenders sentenced to life imprisonment qualified as repeat and dangerous sex offenders in 11.8 percent of cases, in comparison to 0.6 percent of offenders sentenced to less than life imprisonment.
• The trial rate of offenders sentenced to life imprisonment was 75.6 percent, which was over thirty times higher than the 2.3 percent trial rate for all other federal offenders.

Offenders Sentenced to De Facto Life Imprisonment

• There were 799 offenders sentenced to de facto life imprisonment, which accounted for 0.2 percent of the total federal offender population.
• Half (50.6%) of offenders sentenced to de facto life imprisonment were convicted of sexual abuse.
• One-third (33.2%) of offenders sentenced to de facto life imprisonment were found to either have possessed a weapon in connection with their instant offense or were convicted under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) — for possession or use of a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence or drug trafficking crime.
• More than one-in-seven (15.4%) offenders sentenced to de facto life imprisonment received an aggravating role enhancement as an organizer, leader, manager, or supervisor in the offense.
• Offenders sentenced to de facto life imprisonment qualified as repeat and dangerous sex offenders in 39.4 percent of cases.
• The trial rate of offenders sentenced to de facto life imprisonment was 39.4 percent.

Spotlighting the "unheard-of decline in Black incarceration"

Keith Humphreys and Ekow Yankah have this notable new Chicago Tribune commentary headlined "The unheard-of decline in Black incarceration." This piece should be read in full, and here are excerpts:

Two years after George Floyd’s murder, protest-filled streets and countless invocations of a “racial reckoning,” public backlash and boredom have led many people to despair that the criminal justice system will never change.  But that dispiriting illusion is false, maybe even dangerous.  After generations of soul-crushing mass incarceration, African Americans have cause for hope: The Black imprisonment rate is at a 33-year low, having fallen to about half its level of a generation ago. But an inadvertent collaboration of ideological adversaries makes the decline of Black incarceration unspeakable.

On the one hand, the good news is hidden by racism. The narrative of inherent Black violence and immorality has been used to terrify white people and justify the oppression of Black people for centuries. As a Media Matters study demonstrated, if a criminal suspect is Black, the case is more likely to be covered on television news. Social media platforms greatly magnify the distortion. Within the narrative of inherent Black criminality, the decline in Black incarceration seems an impossibility: Black people must be in prison because that is where they belong. And even the racists who are aware of the decline in Black imprisonment may decide to keep silent — the truth is less important than the social or political gain offered by continual whispers of the Black boogeyman.

Anti-racist advocates oppose this narrative, emphasizing instead the structural forces that use fear of Black Americans to feed the fire of mass incarceration. But anti-racists may share racists’ unawareness or discomfort with declining Black incarceration. Black hopes have been dashed too many times to trust a change in their oppressor’s character. Other anti-racists are aware of the change but have fears of acknowledging it. White concern for racial justice has a history of evaporating. Two years after police murdered George Floyd, it is disheartening to see how quickly earnest proclamations of a “racial reckoning” withered into a commitment to abolish a pancake mix logo.

To be sure, the disproportionate incarceration of Black Americans remains a national tragedy that cannot be consigned to history if white people become complacent. Reformers understandably fear that focusing on the decline in Black incarceration (or positive comparison with white people) will further slow the dismantling of a system that still destroys countless lives. Still, assuming American racism is intractable creates a narrative that also cannot account for the decline in Black imprisonment.

Despite their competing premises, the racist and anti-racist narratives accidentally reinforce each other. They share a code of silence about Black de-incarceration that misleads Americans about the current racial realities of mass incarceration. In the absence of corrective information from journalists and activists, most people assume incorrectly that prisons continue to gobble up the lives of an increasing number of African Americans.

No matter our politics, we should care about what is true — the Black imprisonment rate has been dropping for a generation.  Hundreds of thousands of African Americans who would have been behind bars are now free.  Callous actors will claim this is too many, and anti-racists will argue it’s too few.  But would anyone argue with a straight face that such a dramatic change in the fate of hundreds of thousands of people warrants no discussion at all?...

In a country where so many — particularly people of color — long to see images of Black excellence celebrated, stories of Black progress should be highlighted rather than buried. Without ever forgetting the work still to be done, Americans of all races should be told of the progress that has and can be won.

I am always glad to see important data about modern incarceration emphasized, though I think op-eds could be written about all sorts of data realities going largely ignored or being misunderstood in many era.  There was precious little public discourse about mass increases in US incarceration for decades, and still very few talk about the remarkable increases and decreases in federal incarceration (and caseloads) over the last 25 years.  Though there is often discourse around private prisons, relatively few highlight what a small part they play in the national incarceration map.  Demographics such as gender and age and class (often combining with racial dynamics) can vary dramatically in incarcerated populations depending on crimes and jurisdictions, and dynamic recent modern changes in urban and rural incarceration rates have also often been overlooked or underexamined.  And, of course, data lags and other factors make it hard to even know how profoundly the COVID pandemic has reshaped our incarceration levels or whether any changes brought by COVID may prove enduring.

Put slightly differently, in this context, I do not see all that many thought-out "narratives" seeking to hide or obscure key data.  Instead, I see many advocates and media with relatively little interest in data combining with a general paucity of clear and effective data resources.  That said, given the considerable attention given to racial issues in broader criminal justice narratives and elsewhere in policy debates, I am still eager to praise Professors Humphreys and Yankah for this important commentary.  But, for me, it is just one small part of a much bigger story of political rhetoric often having little interest in complicated policy data.

A few of many older and newer related prior posts:

• Notable data on racial and gender dynamics of recent changes in incarceration rates (from 2016)
• Some surprising racial realities to discover when taking a deep dive into modern mass incarceration data (from 2016)
• "Racial Disparity in U.S. Imprisonment Across States and over Time" (from 2017)
• Looking at the changing demographics of modern mass incarceration (from 2017)
• Examining gender realities and disparities in modern federal sentencing (from 2018)
• "Mass Incarceration: New Jim Crow, Class War, or Both?" (from 2018)
• Council on Criminal Justice releases new report on "Trends in Correctional Control by Race and Sex"  (from 2019)
• "A Comparison of the Female and Male Racial Disparities in Imprisonment" (from 2020)
• "The Color of Justice: Racial and Ethnic Disparity in State Prisons" (from 2021)
• New Sentencing Project fact sheet highlights rise (and recent declines) in the incarceration of women and girls (from 2022)

Notable debate over access to sentencing data as Ohio builds out new sentencing data platform

In a few posts over the last few years (linked below), I have flagged the work of some Ohio jurists and others in the development of a statewide sentencing database.  I have had the honor of playing a small role in this work, and I have found fascinating many of the challenges and debates surrounding efforts to build out the Ohio Sentencing Data Platform.  One big lurking issue all along is now spotlighted by this new local article headlined "Statewide judges’ group wants sentencing data collected under proposed database kept secret."  Here are the excerpts from a lengthy article worth reading in full: 

A group that represents Ohio’s common pleas court judges does not want the public to see data that would be collected under a proposed statewide sentencing database for fears it could be cherry-picked and lead to criticism of the courts.  The head of the Ohio Common Pleas Judges’ Association wrote in a letter to the Ohio Supreme Court’s sentencing commission last month that judges recognize the value in the creation of a database for their own use.

Judges, however, are concerned that attorneys, journalists and other organizations could selectively pull data from the database to use “as a basis to critique imposed sentences and advocate for an overhaul to Ohio’s sentencing statutes.”  “In short, the OCPJA has significant concerns that broad public accessibility to the data would negatively impact the independence of the judiciary and interfere with its discretion in sentencing decisions,” the group’s president, Morrow County Common Pleas Court Robert Hickson, wrote.

The letter urged the seven justices to scrap proposed changes to the rules of superintendence that govern the state’s courts.  That would allow the court to run the project through the sentencing commission and come up with new proposals. In the alternative, state lawmakers should pass legislation mandating the data be exempt from Ohio’s public record laws, the letter said.... Hickson wrote that the letter represents the “unanimous position” of the group’s board.  Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Administrative Judge Brendan Sheehan is the group’s first vice president....

Sheehan’s colleague on the bench and predecessor as administrative judge wrote a letter of his own to the Ohio Supreme Court justices in which he said the views of the state judges’ group “cannot be farther from my own.” “In my opinion, the fears and skepticism expressed in the OCPJA letter are unfounded,” Judge John J. Russo wrote.  Russo, who was elected in 2006 and served as administrative judge from 2014 to 2020, told cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer that keeping the data secret and available only to the judges was akin to creating a “secret club” and would only harm the public’s confidence in the justice system more than making it public....

Russo also said that the letter by the judges’ group does not reflect the stance of the majority of the Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court.  The Ohio Public Defender’s Office, Ohio Bar Association, Black Lives Matter and Common Cause Ohio all urged the commission to make the data available to the public.

The leader of the Ohio Prosecuting Attorney Association expressed a similar concern that the data would not paint a complete picture of all of the factors that go into each sentencing decision, and it would be open to manipulation.  While the group stopped short of calling for the data to remain hidden from the public, it did challenge that the legislature would have to create the commission, rather than the court.

The letters are in response to the Ohio Supreme Court’s sentencing commission’s call for public comment on proposed rule changes that would create a uniform sentencing entry, a lengthy document that judges would fill out after each sentencing hearing that articulates why judges imposed each sentence.  Each county’s common pleas court uses its own system to document the sentences judges there hand down, and they vary widely.  Some courts in small, rural counties still use handwritten sentencing documents, the Supreme Court said in a 2021 article published in the court’s news letter.

The commission would take data from the document and enter it into a database kept by the court that would give those who can access it the ability to see what the average sentence each person convicted of a particular crime received in each county’s common pleas court.  The sentencing commission hopes that creating a central database for the entire state that is populated by a single, uniform document that each judge fills out will make it easier for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.  It would allow the prison system to keep track of the sentences each inmate is serving and prevent trial court judges from committing errors during sentencing that appellate courts would later overturn....

Ohio Supreme Court Justice Michael Donnelly, a former judge in Cuyahoga County who served on the bench alongside Sheehan and Russo, told cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer that the database will help judges make sure they’re doling out similar sentences.  “That’s not just a good idea. That’s what the law mandates now,” Donnelly said. “It’s just that, how do you do that with the lack of information and the lack of data that we have?”

Donnelly also said that the public has a right to know how their courts are operating and that he believes the data should be made public. “We all serve at the pleasure of the public,” Donnelly said of judges in state court. “Everything else about our decisions is reviewable. Why should the most important decision we make as judges, whether to incarcerate someone, be any different than any other decision we make in this system of checks and balances?”

Prior related posts:

• A notable judicial pitch for better sentencing data in the Buckeye State"
• "Making a great case for greater data to improve sentencing decision-making and sentencing systems" 
• Updating the Buckeye State's progress creating a needed felony sentencing database 

 

UPDATE:  Cleveland.com has published this notable new opinion piece authored by Judge Ronald B. Adrine under the headline "Ohio’s Black judges support public release of criminal-sentencing database information." Here are excerpts:

The Ohio Black Judges Association Inc. (OBJA) voices its strong support for the Supreme Court of Ohio’s plan to allow public access to a proposed criminal sentencing database compiled by, among other things, race, as referenced in a recent article which appeared in The Plain Dealer.  Regrettably, our support puts us at odds with the Ohio Common Pleas Judges Association, which opposes public access to the database....

Our members across the state are acutely aware of the fact that the lack of data impedes legitimate inquiry into the degree to which racial justice is, or is not, a reality in Ohio.  At minimum, the existence of an open-access criminal sentencing database will sensitize all judges who make sentencing decisions to the potential for implicit bias, where it exists, and to reassure them of their positive practices, where it does not!

The position taken by the Common Pleas Judges Association calls for worst-case speculation concerning the occasional misuse of the database, while overlooking the overwhelming benefits to be realized in the majority of situations where the database is accessed.  Aggressively promoting viable efforts to increase the public’s confidence in our courts and to seek justice system accountability for all are OBJA’s primary motivators for supporting public access to the database.

We would like to assume that the vast majority of the members of the Ohio Common Pleas Judges Association have nothing to fear from public access to their sentencing practices.  If that assumption is incorrect, then the case for creating and maintaining the database is made even stronger.

There may be legitimate reasons for racial or other disparities that have nothing to do with bias.  If that is the case, having the database will assist in identifying them. By the same token, if the sentencing practices of individual judges suggest the need for practice adjustments, then that fact should be brought to the attention of those judges and the public should be able to monitor their progress in eliminating any explicit or implicit bias uncovered.

Council on Criminal Justice releases "Long Sentences by the Numbers"

In this post a couple of month ago, I noted the formation of the Council of Criminal Justice's impressive Task Force on Long Sentences. Today, I was alerted to the release are this fascinating new resource from CCJ titled "Long Sentences by the Numbers."  The full resource merits a deep dive, and here are excerpts:

Launched by the Council in Spring 2022, the Task Force on Long Sentences is assessing our nation’s use of long prison terms and formulating recommendations to advance safety and justice.  This series of charts serves as a foundation for the deliberations of the group, a diverse set of experts from varied sectors of the criminal justice field and across the ideological spectrum.

The data below address three fundamental questions.  Each provides a different perspective on the nature and extent of long prison sentences, which the Task Force defines as a court-imposed prison term of 10 years or more, independent of the time people actually serve.

• Admissions: What are the number and share of people admitted with a long prison sentence? Admissions data show changes in the frequency with which courts impose long sentences.
• Population: What is the size of the prison population serving long sentences, and what share of the total population do these individuals represent?  Prison population data, based on a snapshot of people incarcerated at a moment in time (typically at year’s end), reveal how many people behind bars are serving long sentences.
• Releases: What are the number and share of people released from prison after serving a long sentence and how much time did they actually serve?  Every jurisdiction has statutes and policies such as discretionary parole and credits for good behavior that permit people to be released prior to serving their maximum sentence. Release data enable us to discern how many people are released after having served 10 or more years, independent of the upper limit of their sentences.

[These data are drawn] from varying combinations of up to 29 state prison systems submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice's National Corrections Reporting Program (NCRP) from 2005 through 2019.  Council researchers selected the states and time period because they offered the most complete and consistent set of relevant national-level data to describe basic trends in long sentences....

Key Takeaways

• People with long sentences account for a relatively small share of state prison admissions and releases, but because they serve long periods, their numbers stack up over time.  In 2019, 17% of people admitted to prison were sentenced to 10 years or more, and 3% of those released had served 10 years or more.  At year-end, 57% of people in prison were serving a long prison sentence, up from 46% in 2005.

• The length of time served by people sentenced to 10 years or more has grown. Between 2005 and 2019, the average amount of time served by this group increased from 9.7 years to 15.5 years.

• The share of people convicted of a violent crime who received long sentences grew from 7% in 2005 to 10% in 2019. The percentage of people convicted of property and drug offenses who received long sentences remained stable, at 3% and 2%, respectively.

• The shares of Black and White people receiving long sentences have grown over time and the gap between those shares has widened, from 1 percentage point in 2005 to 4 percentage points in 2019. When accounting for conviction offenses, Black people are more likely to receive long sentences for violent crimes while White people are for some property crimes. White people convicted of drug crimes were more likely than Black people to get a long sentence in 2005 but less likely by 2019.

• Compared to other age groups, people aged 55 and over are the fastest-growing age group serving long sentences. Between 2005 and 2019, the share of people serving long sentences who were aged 55 and over grew from 8% to 20%.

• Men are more likely than women to receive and serve a long sentence. On average, men are about 72% more likely to receive a long sentence and over three times more likely to serve a long sentence than women, mostly because men are convicted of more serious, violent crimes. Greater shares of both men (up 4%) and women (up 3%) received sentences of 10 years or more in 2019 than in 2005.

"Federal Sentencing of Illegal Reentry: The Impact of The 2016 Guideline Amendment"

The title of this post is the title of this notable new US Sentencing Commission report. This relatively short report (only 38 pages) is summarized on this USSC webpage providing an "Overview" and a bunch of "Key Findings." Here is that overview and some of the key findings:

Overview

In 2016, the United States Sentencing Commission promulgated an amendment that comprehensively revised the guideline covering illegal reentry offenses — §2L1.2 (Unlawfully Entering or Remaining in the United States).  The amendment, Amendment 802, became effective November 1, 2016, and represented the most comprehensive revision of a major guideline in the last two decades.  This report examines the impact of Amendment 802 by looking back at sentencings under §2L1.2 over the last ten fiscal years.  The report first describes the concerns leading to the amendment, including that §2L1.2’s 12- and 16-level increases were overly severe and led to variances, and that using the “categorical approach” to apply enhancements was overly complex, resource intensive, and increased litigation and uncertainty.  After outlining the changes made by Amendment 802, the report assesses its impact on guideline application for §2L1.2 offenders and on appeals involving §2L1.2.

Key Findings

• Over the last ten fiscal years, immigration offenders have represented either the highest number or second-highest number of offenders sentenced annually.  The vast majority of immigration offenders were sentenced under §2L1.2.
   
• Amendment 802 to the Guidelines Manual ameliorated concerns about the severity of §2L1.2’s enhancements.
  • While variance rates for §2L1.2 offenders remained largely consistent before and after the amendment, courts imposed sentences within the applicable guideline range at a higher rate on average (66.0%) in the five fiscal years after the amendment than the five fiscal years before the amendment (56.6%). Furthermore, the difference between the average guideline minimum and the average sentence imposed decreased from at least three months before the amendment to no more than one month between fiscal years 2017 and 2020, and slightly over two months in fiscal year 2021.
  • These sentencing trends likely are attributable to the decreasing severity of the sentencing enhancements applicable to offenders sentenced under §2L1.2. The number of offenders who received sentencing increases of 12 or more offense levels decreased substantially from 26,094 in the five fiscal years before the amendment to 5,497 in the five fiscal years after the amendment. The average sentencing increase similarly decreased from seven to four offense levels.
     
• Amendment 802 significantly simplified guideline application and reduced appeals.
  • In the five fiscal years before the amendment, 31,824 offenders sentenced under §2L1.2 (37.1%) received a sentencing enhancement that potentially required courts to analyze predicate offenses using the categorical approach. That number decreased considerably to only 59 offenders (0.1%) in the five fiscal years after the amendment.
  • After Amendment 802, the number of opinions on §2L1.2 appeals decreased by 90 percent, from 239 in fiscal year 2017 to 24 in fiscal year 2021. Notably, this decline occurred even while the number of immigration sentencings rose steadily from fiscal year 2017 to a ten-year high in fiscal year 2019. By contrast, before the amendment, appellate courts issued 249 opinions on §2L1.2 appeals in fiscal year 2016 alone, and two-thirds of the appeals raised application issues relating to the categorical approach.

"What Do Federal Firearms Offenses Really Look Like?"

The title of this post is the title of this notable new US Sentencing Commission report. This relatively short report (only 46 pages) is summarized via this USSC webpage providing an "Overview" and a bunch of "Key Findings." Here is that overview and some of the key findings:

This report provides in-depth information on federal firearms offenders sentenced under the primary firearms guideline, §2K2.1. The Commission has published reports on various aspects of firearms offenses, including reports on armed career criminals, mandatory minimum penalties, and firearms offenders’ recidivism rates. The Commission’s prior research shows that firearms offenders are generally younger, have more extensive criminal history, and are more likely to commit a new crime than other offenders. The Commission’s previous research also shows that firearms offenders are more likely than other offenders to engage in violent criminal behavior. This publication continues the Commission’s work and provides detailed information about offenders sentenced under §2K2.1.

• Firearms offenses are among the most common crimes prosecuted and sentenced in federal court....
• The guidelines exert a strong influence on the sentences imposed in firearms cases.
  • In fiscal year 2021, half (49.6%) of the felony offenders sentenced under §2K2.1 received a sentence within the guideline range, which is approximately ten percentage points higher than the within guideline range rate for all other offenders.
• Firearms offenders sentenced under §2K2.1 have criminal histories that are more extensive and more serious than other offenders.
  • Firearms offenders were more than twice as likely to have a prior conviction for a violent offense compared to all other offenders (60.6% compared to 29.0%).
• The vast majority of firearms offenders (88.8%) sentenced under §2K2.1 were prohibited from possessing a firearm.
  • Prohibited persons include offenders with a prior felony conviction or status in another prohibited class, such as aliens unlawfully in the United States, fugitives from justice, or persons who unlawfully use or are addicted to controlled substances.
• In addition to most §2K2.1 offenders being prohibited from possessing a firearm, firearms offenders often engaged in aggravating criminal conduct.
  • In more than one-quarter of §2K2.1 cases, the firearm facilitated, or had the potential to facilitate, another felony offense (most commonly drug trafficking)....
• Firearms offenses often involved stolen firearms or particularly dangerous weapons....
• The average sentence for §2K2.1 firearms offenders varied depending on the presence of aggravating factors.
  • Prohibited persons who did not engage in aggravating conduct received an average sentence of 35 months.
  • Courts imposed longer sentences on prohibited persons whose offenses involved:
    • a stolen firearm or a firearm with an altered or obliterated serial number (55 months);
    • a prohibited weapon (such as a sawed-off shotgun or machine gun) (58 months);
    • trafficking in firearms (62 months);
    • or the use of, or conspiracy to use, a firearm in connection with a crime of violence or drug trafficking crime (119 months).

Furman at 50: some recent notable coverage

As noted in this recent post, the US Supreme Court's remarkable death penalty opinion in Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972), is now a half century and I have not decided to create a series of "Furman at 50" posts.  Unsurprisingly, I am not the only one to note the Furman milestone, and here is a round-up of some recent coverage and commentary I have seen from various sources:

From the Dalton Daily Citizen, "50 years after SCOTUS ruled death penalty cruel and unusual, race factors heavily in executions"

From the Death Penalty Information Center, "DPIC Analysis Finds Prosecutorial Misconduct Implicated in More than 550 Death Penalty Reversals or Exonerations"

From The Marshall Project, "The Supreme Court Let The Death Penalty Flourish.  Now Americans are Ending It Themselves."

From Slate, "Fifty Years Ago, the Supreme Court Tried to Reduce Racial Bias in the Death Penalty. Did It Work?"

From UPI, "50 years after Furman ruling, death penalty may come down to states, experts say"

From The Washington Post, "Death penalty’s 50-year rise and fall since Supreme Court struck it down"

Related prior posts:

• Furman at 50: so much and so little
• Furman at 50: DPIC provides a census of nearly 10,000 death sentences

US Sentencing Commission produces another great updated set of "Quick Facts" publications

Long-time readers have long heard me praise the US Sentencing Commission for producing a steady stream of insightful little data documents in the form of its "Quick Facts" publications (which are designed to "give readers basic facts about a single area of federal crime in an easy-to-read, two-page format").  After finalizing its fiscal year data, the USSC typically provides updated Quick Facts, and here are some of its newest ones:

Sentencing Issues

• Mandatory Minimum Penalties (June 2022)

Drugs

• Drug Trafficking (July 2022)
• Methamphetamine Trafficking (July 2022)
• Powder Cocaine Trafficking (July 2022)
• Crack Cocaine Trafficking (July 2022)
• Heroin Trafficking (July 2022)
• Marijuana Trafficking (July 2022)
• Oxycodone Trafficking (July 2022)
• Fentanyl Trafficking (July 2022)
• Fentanyl Analogue Trafficking (July 2022)

Firearms

• Section 924(c) (June 2022)
• Felon in Possession of a Firearm (June 2022)

Sex Offenses

• Sexual Abuse (June 2022)
• Child Pornography (June 2022)

Offender Groups

• Career Offenders (June 2022)

Furman at 50: DPIC provides a census of nearly 10,000 death sentences

As noted in this recent post, the US Supreme Court's remarkable death penalty opinion in Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972), is now a half-century old, which provides me with an excuse to do a series of "Furman at 50" posts.  Helpfully, I am not the only one celebrating this milestone, and the Death Penalty Information Center has created a remarkable "Death Penalty Census."  As described here, this "census is the most comprehensive database of death sentences ever assembled, containing more than 9,700 death sentences." Here is more:

In the census, DPIC has attempted to identify every death sentence handed down in the U.S. from the day Furman was decided through January 1, 2021 and track the status of each sentence. The data provide powerful evidence that the nation’s use of capital punishment continues to be arbitrary, discriminatory, and rife with error....

The database contains the name, race, and gender of each defendant sentenced to death; the state and county (or federal district or military branch) of prosecution; the year of sentencing; the outcome of the particular sentence; and the final outcome or current status of the case.

Here are just a few of many "key findings" from DPIC’s analysis of more than 9,700 death sentences that were sent to me via email:

• Fewer than 1 in 6 death sentences result in an execution.
• A death sentence is 3 times more likely to be reversed as a result of a court decision than it is to result in an execution.
• At least 189 people who were wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death have been exonerated since 1973. That is one person exonerated for every 8.2 people who are executed. (189 exonerations/1547 executions based on data updated through June 29, 2022.)
• More than 530 capital convictions and/or death sentences have been overturned because of, or resulted in exonerations involving, prosecutorial misconduct. That is nearly 5.5% of all death sentences imposed in the U.S. in the past 50 years.
• Fewer than 2.4% of all counties in the U.S. (just 75 counties) account for half of all death sentences imposed in state courts in the past 50 years.
• It is 5.9 times more likely that an execution carried out in the U.S. over the past 50 years involved one or more white victims (1207 cases) than that it involved only Black victims (206 cases). 78.1% of executions in the U.S. in the past 50 years were in cases involving white victims. 13.3% were in cases with only Black victims. 6.5% were in cases with only Latinx victims.
• Defendants of color constitute 52.8% of those sentenced to death over the past 50 years. Yet they make up 64.2% of death-row exonerees and 83.1% of all death-row prisoners later found to be ineligible for the death penalty because of intellectual disability.
• Death sentences have declined in the United States by approximately 90% after peaking at more than 300 per year for three consecutive years in the mid 1990s, including a 70% decline over the decade preceding the pandemic. There have been fewer than 50 new death sentences imposed each year since 2015.
• Executions have declined in the United States by approximately 75% after peaking at 98 in 1999, to an average of 23.6 in the five years before the pandemic. There have been fewer than 30 executions in the U.S. every year since 2015.

Related prior post:

• Furman at 50: so much and so little

US Sentencing Commission releases another recidivism report examining "status points" in criminal history calculations

Despite lacking a quorum, the US Sentencing Commission keeps churning out a remarkable amount of research in recent times, especially in the area of recidivism of federal offenders.  Today brings this notable notable USSC report on recidivism and criminal history under the title "Revisiting Status Points."  The term "status points" is a short-hard reference to the two points added to a defendant's criminal history score under guideline § 4A1.1(d) if he committed the offense while still serving a sentence in another case (eg, while being on probation or parole).  This webpage provides an overview and key findings from the new report:

Overview

In 2005, the Commission examined status points (addressed in §4A1.1(d)) as part of a broader analysis of how well the guidelines’ criminal history computation predicts recidivism.  This report revisits the examination of status points with greater focus, including a detailed analysis of their application and significance.  The report begins by outlining how criminal history is calculated under the guidelines and by reviewing prior Commission research on the association between criminal history and recidivism.  The report then examines how many offenders received status points in the last five fiscal years and compares them to offenders who did not receive status points.  Next, the report analyzes the rearrest rates for offenders with and without status points who were released from prison or began a term of probation in 2010.  Finally, the report considers how much status points contribute to the criminal history score’s prediction of rearrest.

Key Findings

In the last five fiscal years:

• Over one-third of federal offenders (37.5%) received two “status points” under §4A1.1(d) as part of their criminal history scores. For 61.5 percent of such offenders, the inclusion of the two points resulted in a higher Criminal History Category.
• The vast majority of offenders who received status points (92.6%) had criminal history scores that placed them in Criminal History Category III and higher, compared to a little less than half of offenders who did not receive status points (47.0%)....

Among offenders who were released in 2010:

• Those who received status points were rearrested at similar rates to those without status points who had the same criminal history score. For example, among offenders whose criminal history score was seven, 69.6 percent of those with status points and 70.4 percent of those without status points were rearrested in the eight years after release.
• Three-fifths (61.1%) of offenders who received status points had five or more criminal history points for prior sentences (i.e., before adding in two status points). These offenders had a statistically similar rearrest rate to offenders without status points who had the same number of points for prior sentences.
• The remaining two-fifths (38.9%) of offenders who received status points had one to four criminal history points for prior sentences (i.e., before adding in two status points). These offenders had a statistically higher rearrest rate than offenders without status points who had the same number of points for prior sentences.
• Status points only minimally improve the criminal history score’s successful prediction of rearrest — by 0.2 percent. With status points included in the calculation for eligible offenders, the score successfully predicts rearrest 65.1 percent of the time, compared to 64.9 percent of the time with status points removed.

US Sentencing Commission releases another report on "Length of Incarceration and Recidivism"

A few years ago, as noted in this blog post, the US Sentencing Commission released a report titled "Length of Incarceration and Recidivism."  Today, the USSC has issued another report under the same title, and this webpage provides an overview and key findings:

Overview

This study, the seventh in the recidivism series, examines the relationship between length of incarceration and recidivism. In 2020, the Commission published its initial comprehensive study on length of incarceration and recidivism.  In that study, which examined offenders released in 2005, the Commission found that federal offenders receiving sentences of more than 60 months were less likely to recidivate compared to a similar group of offenders receiving shorter sentences.  This study replicates the prior analysis, however, it examines a more current cohort of federal offenders released in 2010.  This study examines the relationship between length of incarceration and recidivism, specifically exploring three potential relationships that may exist: incarceration as having a deterrent effect, a criminogenic effect, or no effect on recidivism.

This study examines 32,135 federal offenders who satisfied the following criteria:

• United States citizens;
• Re-entered the community during 2010 after discharging their sentence of incarceration or by commencing a term of probation;
• Not reported dead, escaped, or detained;
• Have valid FBI numbers which could be located in criminal history repositories (in at least one state, the District of Columbia, or federal records).

Key Findings

• The results of this study, examining federal offenders released in 2010, are almost identical to the findings established in prior Commission research examining federal offenders released in 2005.  In both studies, the odds of recidivism were lower for federal offenders sentenced to more than 60 months incarceration compared to a matched group of offenders receiving shorter sentences.
• The odds of recidivism were approximately 29 percent lower for federal offenders sentenced to more than 120 months incarceration compared to a matched group of federal offenders receiving shorter sentences.
• The odds of recidivism were approximately 18 percent lower for offenders sentenced to more than 60 months up to 120 months incarceration compared to a matched group of federal offenders receiving shorter sentences.
• For federal offenders sentenced to 60 months or less incarceration, the Commission did not find any statistically significant differences in recidivism.

Federal prison population up a lot more than another 1,500 persons in a little more than a month

Regular readers are now used to my regular monthly posts about the federal prison population based on Bureau of Prison data.  These posts of late have regularly noted significant and steady population growth in recent months  In this post on March 18, I noted that the federal prison population had grown by over 1,100 persons in just four weeks from mid February and mid March.  And this post on April 8 noted that it then took only three weeks for another 1000+ person surge of federal prisoners between mid March and early April. 

The federal Bureau of Prisons now has updated reporting of "Total Federal Inmates" as of May 12, 2022, and these basic growth trends are continuing.  As of April 7, 2022, the official BOP count was at 155,274, but now as of May 12, the total number of federal inmates is at 156,939.  So, in just the last five weeks, there has been another 1,655 more federal prisoners added to the population compared to the total in early April.  If this pace of federal prison growth continues in coming months, it is quite possible that 2022 could experience a level of federal incarceration growth we have not seen in decades. 

As I have said before, I am inclined to guess that this recent spike in the number of federal prisoners reflects some "return to normal" operations for the federal criminal justice system, with fewer COVID-related delays in cases and prison admissions (and fewer COVID-related releases).  Such a development (especially after 2021 being a year of notable federal prison population growth) would be particularly significant given that candidate Joe Biden promised to "take bold action to reduce our prison population" and to "broadly use his clemency power for certain non-violent and drug crimes."   To his credit, since my last posting on prison population, Prez Biden did grant 75 commutation to federal inmates (most of whom were already serving their time on home confinement).  But a one-time grant of 75 clemencies necessarily looks somewhat paltry in the face of week-over-week-over-week-over-week federal prison population growth averaging more than 300 persons.

US Sentencing Commission releases latest detailed "Compassionate Release Data Report"

Via email, I got word that the US Sentencing Commission today published this updated compassionate release data report.  Here is the very brief accounting of the report from the email (as well as a reprinting of the graphic that appears as Figure 1 of the report):

With the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, the courts received thousands of compassionate release motions, most filed by offenders.  This report provides an analysis of the compassionate release motions filed with the courts during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Commission received the following information from the courts on motions decided during fiscal years 2020 and 2021 (October 1, 2019 – September 30, 2021):

• 3,867 offenders were granted compassionate release. This represents 17.2% of motions.

• 18,653 offenders were denied compassionate release. This represents 82.8% of motions.

There are lots and lots of interesting data points throughout this data report, including data highlighting that people sentenced long ago (and before the guidelines became advisory) had significantly higher success in getting a sentence reduction.  Also interesting is the data detailing the reasons that courts provided for granting these sentencing reduction motions, which suggests some small evolution in stated reasons from FY 2020 to FY 2021.

But most striking data are those details the dramatic variations in grant rates from various districts. As but one of many remarkable examples, consider the three districts of Georgia: the Southern District of Georgia granted only 5 out of 248 sentence reduction motions for a 2% grant rate; the Middle District of Georgia granted only 4 out of 217 sentence reduction motions for a 1.8% grant rate; but the Northern District of Georgia granted 76 out of 170 sentence reduction motions for a 44.7% grant rate.  One could also tell an island variation story, and no motions were granted (out of only six) in the Virgin Island district; but that lovely island district of Puerto Rico saw 79.2% of motions (19 of 24) granted. 

Remarkably, the District of Maryland — with a total of 211 sentencing reduction motions granted (though "only" a grant rate of 32.7% with 646 motions) — granted more of these motions that all the courts of the Fifth Circuit!  (The Fifth Circuit had the lower total circuit grant rate of 9.3% with only 204 motions granted out of 2,197 total brought.) 

Important new report explores "The Limits of Recidivism: Measuring Success After Prison"

The quoted portion of this post is the title of this important new report released by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.  Here is an account of this report from the NAS website:

Nearly 600,000 people are released from state and federal prisons annually. Whether these individuals will successfully reintegrate into their communities has been identified as a critical measure of the effectiveness of the criminal legal system.  However, evaluating the successful reentry of individuals released from prison is a challenging process, particularly given limitations of currently available data and the complex set of factors that shape reentry experiences.

The Limits of Recidivism: Measuring Success After Prison finds that the current measures of success for individuals released from prison are inadequate.  The use of recidivism rates to evaluate post-release success ignores significant research on how and why individuals cease to commit crimes, as well as the important role of structural factors in shaping post-release outcomes.  The emphasis on recidivism as the primary metric to evaluate post-release success also ignores progress in other domains essential to the success of individuals returning to communities, including education, health, family, and employment.

In addition, the report highlights the unique and essential insights held by those who have experienced incarceration and proposes that the development and implementation of new measures of post-release success would significantly benefit from active engagement with individuals with this lived experience.  Despite significant challenges, the report outlines numerous opportunities to improve the measurement of success among individuals released from prison and the report’s recommendations, if implemented, will contribute to policies that increase the health, safety, and security of formerly incarcerated persons and the communities to which they return.

The full report runs a full 200 pages, and this three-page pdf provides highlights.  And this press release also provides this additional overview and more summary details, and here is an excerpt:

Recidivism is an inadequate measurement of success after release from prison, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. The report recommends researchers develop supplementary measures that evaluate success across multiple areas of a person’s life after prison — including employment, housing, health, social support, and personal well-being — and that measure interactions with the criminal justice system with more nuance. Federal efforts should be directed to developing national standards for recidivism data and new measurements....

“Our report draws on the expertise of individuals who have experienced reentry, those who work in corrections and reentry services, as well as victims’ advocates and many other communities — and it’s clear that it’s time we recognize the numerous shortcomings of relying exclusively on recidivism data,” said Richard Rosenfeld, Curators’ Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, and chair of the committee that wrote the report. “Better measures could open many doors for better decision-making and policy.”...

Recidivism is also limited in that it is a binary measure, says the report. Decades of research have shown that ceasing criminal activity is a process and may involve setbacks. Recidivism rates fail to capture indicators of progress toward the cessation of criminal activity, such as reductions in the seriousness of criminal activity or increases in time between release and a criminal event. Researchers should supplement recidivism rates with these measures of moving away from crime, the report says.

The report recommends the development of new measures of post-release success that take into account a number of factors in people’s lives after incarceration, including personal well-being, education, employment, housing, family and social supports, health, civic and community engagement, and legal involvement.  In particular, significant efforts — including by federal agencies — should be directed to developing national standards for measuring post-release success.  Creating national standards could make data easier to compare across programs and jurisdictions. Creating a website that contains core measures and data collection instruments could hasten development of these standards, the report says.

Federal agencies, including the National Institute of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Bureau of Justice Assistance, and National Institutes of Health, should convene research panels to assess new measures of post-release success.  These agencies should also solicit grant proposals from researchers and practitioners who work collaboratively with formerly incarcerated people to review new measures.

Researchers should also develop new ways to measure barriers to and facilitators of post-release success, which could help improve understanding of how to best serve those released from prison. Individuals released from prison face a number of significant barriers, such as returning to communities without adequate employment opportunities, or lacking access to mental health counseling, among others — and better measures could enhance our understanding of which community and policy factors make post-release success more or less likely.

"Abolishing the Evidence-Based Paradigm"

The title of this post is the title of this notable new paper authored by Erin Collins now available via SSRN.  Here is its abstract:

The belief that policies and procedures should be data-driven and “evidence-based” has become criminal law’s leading paradigm for reform.  This evidence-based paradigm, which promotes quantitative data collection and empirical analysis to shape and assess reforms, has been widely embraced for its potential to cure the emotional and political pathologies that led to mass incarceration.  It has influenced reforms across the criminal procedure spectrum, from predictive policing through actuarial sentencing.  The paradigm’s appeal is clear: it promises an objective approach that lets data – not politics — lead the way and purports to have no agenda beyond identifying effective, efficient reforms.

This Article challenges the paradigm’s core claims.  It shows that the evidence-based paradigm’s objectives, its methodology, and its epistemology advance conventional assumptions about what the criminal legal system should strive to achieve, whom it should target, and whose voices and interests matter.  In other words, the evidence-based paradigm is political, and it does have an agenda.  And that agenda, informed by neoliberalism and the enduring legacy of white supremacy in the criminal legal system, strengthens — rather than challenges — the existing system.

The Article argues that, if left unchallenged, the evidence-based paradigm will continue to reproduce the system’s disparities and dysfunctions, under the veneer of scientific objectivity.  Thus, it must be abolished and replaced with a new approach that advances a true paradigm shift about the aims of criminal legal reform and the role and definition of data and empiricism in advancing that vision.

US Sentencing Commission releases "Overview of Federal Criminal Cases, Fiscal Year 2021"

The US Sentencing Commission, despite the persistent lack of a quorum, continues churn out federal sentencing data and helpful reports about that data.  This week brings its regular annual review of federal criminal case data, released under the title "Overview of Federal Criminal Cases, Fiscal Year 2021."  The full 32 page report is available at this link, and the Commission describes and summarizes the report on this webpage in this way:

Summary

The United States Sentencing Commission received information on 57,377 federal criminal cases in which the offender was sentenced in fiscal year 2021.  Among these cases, 57,287 involved an individual offender and 90 involved a corporation or other “organizational” offender.  The Commission also received information on 4,680 cases in which the court resentenced the offender or otherwise modified the sentence that had been previously imposed.  This publication provides an overview of these cases.

Highlights

A review of cases reported to the Commission in fiscal year 2021 reveal the following:

• The 57,287 individual original cases reported to the Commission in fiscal year 2021 represent a decrease of 7,278 (11.3%) cases from fiscal year 2020, and the lowest number of cases since fiscal year 1999.  The number of offenders sentenced in the federal courts reached a peak in fiscal year 20114 and the number of cases reported in fiscal year 2021 was 33.5 percent below that level.
  • Despite the decrease in overall caseload, sizeable increases were reported in drug trafficking, firearms, sex abuse, child pornography and money laundering cases.

• Cases involving drugs, immigration, firearms, and fraud, theft, or embezzlement accounted for 83.1% of all cases reported to the Commission.
• Drug offenses overtook immigration offenses as the most common federal crime in fiscal year 2021, accounting for 31.3% of the total caseload.
  • Drug possession cases continued a five-year downward trend, decreasing 29.6 percent from fiscal year 2020, while the number of drug trafficking cases rose 7.4 percent after reaching a five-year low in 2020.
  • Two-thirds (67.7%) of drug trafficking offenders were convicted of an offense carrying a mandatory minimum penalty.
  • Methamphetamine remained the most prevalent drug type. The 8,494 methamphetamine cases accounted for 48.0 percent of all drug crimes. The proportion of methamphetamine cases has increased steadily since fiscal year 2017, when those cases accounted for 36.6 percent of all drug cases.
  • The number of fentanyl cases increased 45.2 percent from the year before and now constitute the fourth most numerous drug type. In contrast, the proportion of the drug caseload involving heroin and marijuana has steadily decreased over the last five years.

US Sentencing Commission releases FY 2022 first quarter sentencing data (with notably low percentage of within-range sentences)

This weekend I noticed that the US Sentencing Commission just published here its latest quarterly data report which sets forth "1st Quarter 2022 Preliminary Cumulative Data (October 1, 2021, through December 31, 2021)."  These new data provide another official accounting of how the COVID pandemic has impacted federal sentencing.  Specifically, as reflected in Figure 2, while the three quarters prior to the pandemic averaged roughly 20,000 federal sentencings per quarter, the three quarters closing out 2020 had only between about 12,000 and 13,000 cases sentenced each quarter.  Calendar year 2021 has seen a rebounding of total cases sentenced, but this latest quarter had just over 15,000 total federal cases sentenced.  Figure 2 also shows that a steep decline in immigration cases continues to primarily accounts for the decrease in overall cases sentenced.

As I have noted before, the other big COVID era trend is a historically large number of below-guideline variances being granted, and this trend has now extended over the last six quarters (as detailed in Figures 3 and 4).  Though one possible explanation for this trend is that more federal judges are imposing lower sentences because of COVID-related concerns, other data suggest that other factors may be in play.  Specifically, Figure 5 shows that the average guideline minimum and average sentences for all cases has been historically high during the COVID era, which is likely a product of the altered case mix with fewer immigration case and perhaps also because federal prosecutors during COVID are more likely to be moving forward with the most aggravated of cases.  With the "Average Guideline Minimum" and also the "Average Sentence" higher in all COVID-era quarters, we may be seeing a higher percentage of below-guideline sentences largely because the guideline benchmarks are particularly high. 

Whatever the full explanation, in this most recent quarter the data show that only 41.6% of all federal sentences are imposed "Within Guideline Range."  I think this number around the lowest it may have ever been.  And yet, this still mean that more than two out of every five cases are imposed within the guidelines while all the others are still sentenced in the shadow of the guidelines.  (Figure 5 shows how closely the sentences actually imposed and guideline ranges track each other.)  So, even with a notably low percentage of within-range sentences, the guidelines still matter a lot (and many of them remain badly broken).  We should all hope that there will be appointments to the US Sentencing Commission soon so that the government agency tasked by Congress with establishing and improving "sentencing policies and practices for the Federal criminal justice system" can finally get back into full swing.

Prison Policy Initiative releases new report providing a "deep dive into state prison populations"

As detailed in this press release, today the "the Prison Policy Initiative published Beyond the Count, a report that examines the most recent and comprehensive demographic data about people in state prisons and provides a groundbreaking view of the lives of incarcerated people before they were locked up."  Here is more about the report from the press release:

The report analyzes data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ “Survey of Prison Inmates,” collected in 2016 and released in late 2020.  The data show what many in the criminal justice reform movement already know: that the U.S. criminal justice system today locks up the least powerful people in society.  Key takeaways include:

• Many, if not most, people in prison grew up struggling financially. 42% of survey respondents said their family received public assistance before they were 18. Respondents also reported uncommonly high levels of homelessness, foster care, and living in public housing before the age of 18.

• Most individuals in state prisons report that their first arrest happened when they were children. 38 percent of the people BJS surveyed reported a first arrest before age 16, and 68% reported a first arrest before age 19. The average survey respondent had been arrested over 9 times in their life.

• The typical person in state prison is 39 years old and has a 10th grade education, a fact that is most likely linked to youth confinement, which disrupts a young person’s life and schooling.

• Half (49%) of people in state prisons meet the criteria for substance use disorder (SUD), and 65% were using an illicit substance in the immediate lead-up to their incarceration, suggesting that many people who are not locked up for drug offenses are still victims of our country’s choice to criminalize substance use rather than treat it as a health issue.

The Prison Policy Initiative’s report includes more than 20 detailed data tables that allow readers to better understand the people who are in state prisons and the challenges they have faced in their lives.  Beyond the Count also includes a section diving into the data on the race, age, gender identity, and sexual orientation of people in state prisons, explaining that a disproportionate number of incarcerated people are racial minorities, very young or very old, or LGBTQ.  Many of the key demographic findings in Beyond the Count (such as incarcerated people’s age at first arrest) are also broken down by race or gender.  While the data in this report is about people in state prisons, it does not allow statistics to be broken out for individual states.

Could a shortage of state prosecutors put a further dent in mass incarceration?

Professor John Pfaff effectively documented the important insights, discussed in this article about his 2017 book Locked In, that more prosecutors filing more felony charges was an important contributor to modern mass incarceration.  Against that backdrop, this new Reuters article has me wondering if fewer prosecutors filling fewer charges might further contribute now to declining incarceration.  The article is headlined "Prosecutors wanted: District attorneys struggle to recruit and retain lawyers," and here are excerpts:

District attorneys’ offices across the U.S. are struggling to recruit and retain lawyers, with some experiencing vacancies of up to 16% and a dearth of applicants for open jobs, according to interviews with more than a dozen top prosecutors and five state and national prosecutors’ associations.

The district attorneys said the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and increasing concern about racial inequities in the criminal justice system — compounded by long-standing issues with relatively low pay and burnout — have made a career as a state prosecutor a tougher sell in the past several years.

“We're seeing a prosecutor shortage throughout the country; it's not limited to large jurisdictions versus small jurisdictions,” said Nelson Bunn, executive director of the National District Attorneys Association, a trade group with 5,000 members....

Staffing shortages are affecting prosecutors’ decisions about whether to bring certain criminal cases to trial, according to Anthony Jordan, president of the District Attorneys Association of the State of New York. "We don’t get to choose the crimes that come in," said Jordan, who is the district attorney in Washington County, New York. "But if you don’t have enough people to prosecute them then you have to let certain ones go.”

Data from the Maricopa County Attorney's Office in Phoenix, Arizona illustrate that challenge.  The number of cases the office prosecuted dropped from nearly two-thirds of felonies referred by law enforcement in 2018 to under half in 2020. And the number of vacancies in the office of 338 attorneys continues to rise — increasing nearly 53% between July 2020 and April 2022.

Recent BJS data, flagged here, indicate that the national prison population has declined nearly 25% from 2010 to 2020, although a good portion (but not all) of this prison population decline has been a consequence of COVID pandemic dynamics.  Ultimately, a number of legal and extra-legal forces have been contributing to a decline in incarceration in recent years.  And Pfaff's work suggests that, if there is a sustained period of fewer prosecutors filling fewer charges nationwide, we should expect some continued declines (or at least reduced likelihood of US prison populations growing significantly in coming years).

BJS releases new report on "Correctional Populations in the United States, 2020 – Statistical Tables"

I just noticed that last week the Bureau of Justice Statistics released a new accounting of correctional populations in this document titled ""Correctional Populations in the United States, 2020 – Statistical Tables." The first page of the 14-page document provides this overview and "highlights":

At yearend 2020, an estimated 5,500,600 persons were under the supervision of adult correctional systems in the United States, 11% fewer than at the same time the previous year.  This was the first time since 1996 that the total correctional population dropped to less than 5.6 million.  About 1 in 47 adult U.S. residents (2.1%) were under some form of correctional supervision at the end of 2020, a decrease from 1 in 40 (2.5%) at the end of 2019.  This report summarizes data on populations supervised by probation or parole agencies and those incarcerated in state or federal prisons or in the custody of local jails. 

• About 7 in 10 persons under correctional supervision were supervised in the community (3,890,400) at yearend 2020, while about 3 in 10 (1,691,600) were incarcerated in a state or federal prison or local jail.
• The decline in the correctional population during 2020 was due to decreases in both the community supervision population (down 276,700 or 6.6%) and the incarcerated population (down 294,400 or 18.9%).
• From 2010 to 2020, the correctional population decreased 22.4% (down 1,588,400 persons).
• From 2010 to 2020, the decrease in the probation population accounted for 63.1% of the total decline in the correctional population.
• Among persons under community supervision at yearend 2020, the majority were on probation (3,053,700), while a smaller portion were on parole (862,100).
• During the past decade, the parole population was the only segment of the correctional population to increase, growing from 11.9% of those under correctional supervision in 2010 to 15.7% in 2020.
• At yearend 2020, about 2,140 per 100,000 adult U.S. residents were under correctional supervision.
• The incarceration rate dropped each year during the last decade, from 960 per 100,000 adult U.S. residents at yearend 2010 to 660 per 100,000 at yearend 2020.

US Sentencing Commission publishes 2021 Annual Report and Sourcebook of Federal Sentencing Statistics

I received news via email today that the US Sentencing Commission has now published its 2021 Annual Report and Sourcebook of Federal Sentencing Statistics. Here are the links and highlights that appeared in the USSC email:

FY21 Fast Facts

The Sourcebook presents information on the 57,287 federal offenders sentenced in FY21 (October 1, 2020 through September 30, 2021)—a sentencing caseload that decreased by more than 7,000 from the previous fiscal year.

• Drug trafficking, immigration, firearms, and fraud crimes together comprised 83% of the federal sentencing caseload in FY21.  
  
  
• Drug trafficking was the most common federal crime type sentenced, accounting for 31% of the caseload. 
  
  
• Immigration cases accounted for the next largest group (30%) but decreased by more than one-third from the number of those cases in FY20. 
  
  
• Methamphetamine continued to be the most common drug type in the federal system, and a steadily growing portion of the drug caseload (up from 31% of drug cases in FY16 to 48% in FY21).
  
  • In FY21, Fentanyl moved into the top five drug types in the federal caseload. The Commission has added it to the Drug Offenses section of the Sourcebook. 
• Methamphetamine trafficking continued to be the most severely punished federal drug crime (90 months).
  
  
• Two-thirds (67%) of drug offenders were convicted of an offense carrying a mandatory minimum penalty, holding steady from the previous year.
  
  
• 69% of federal offenders were sentenced under the Guidelines Manual (either within range or outside the range for departure reasons in the manual). 
  
  

Agency Highlights

The Annual Report presents an overview of the Commission's work in FY21.

• Beginning in FY21 and continuing into FY22, the Commission has operated with only one voting commissioner, lacking the quorum required to promulgate guideline amendments. The Commission’s other statutory duties are unaffected by the lack of four voting commissioners.
  
  
• The Commission published new findings from its largest recidivism study yet—combining Commission and FBI data to study more than 32,000 federal offenders over an 8-year follow-up period.
  • The Commission has now released reports on firearms, drug trafficking, and violent offenders with more reports forthcoming.
    
    
• The Commission also continued to research specific issues of ongoing congressional concern and deliberation—releasing a report on the emerging problem of fentanyl and fentanyl analogues, and two reports updating its 2012 report to Congress on child pornography offenses.
  
  
• In late September 2021, the Commission released the Judiciary Sentencing INformation (JSIN) tool—an online sentencing data resource developed for judges but made available to the public at large. The platform provides quick and easy online access to sentencing data for similarly-situated defendants, including the types of sentences imposed and average and median sentences.
  
  
• In FY21, the Commission conducted 115 virtual training sessions and more than 13,000 individuals attended live, online, or on-demand prerecorded training sessions—a three-fold increase over the number of trainees in a typical year.