Sentencing Law and Policy

"Cheap on Punishment: Examining the Impact of Prison Population Racial Demographics on State-Level Corrections Spending"

The title of this post is the title of this new article authored by Joshua Williams and Paige Vaughn recently published online at Justice Quarterly.  Here is its abstract:

Research has explored the effects of various state-level characteristics, such as racial composition and economic conditions, on correctional budgetary decisions.  However, researchers have yet to consider how the racial makeup of state prison populations themselves may impact subsequent corrections spending decisions.  Drawing on work suggesting that people of color are simultaneously over-punished and neglected by criminal justice systems, and utilizing a time-series cross-section analysis of 50 states from 1979 through 2017, we explore differences in state budgetary allocations for correctional expenditures based on the racial demographics of prison populations.  We find that the relationship between the Black-to-White incarceration ratio and spending on corrections is curvilinear: once a tipping point of Black-to-White incarceration is reached, spending on corrections decreases.  This finding is especially pronounced in Southern and Midwestern states.  Overall, our results provide a strong starting point for understanding the ways in which Black Americans are neglected in the incarceration setting.

Prison Policy Initiative provide updated data on "incarceration stats by race, ethnicity, and gender" in all states

Prison Policy Initiative has this new briefing by Leah Wang fully titled "Updated data and charts: Incarceration stats by race, ethnicity, and gender for all 50 states and D.C.: New data visualizations and updated tables show the national landscape of persistent racial disparity in state prisons and local jails."  here is how the briefing begins (with links from the original):

The best and latest criminal legal system data are often scattered across different government agencies, in incompatible formats, and difficult to compare.  To make the most useful information more accessible, we make the underlying data for our timely reports and briefings available in our Data Toolbox, and create state-specific graphics on our comprehensive State Profiles pages.  Today, we’ve added a rich new series of resources for our users of our work:

First, we now have a downloadable spreadsheet of the most recently available incarceration data for people in state prisons and in local jails, by race and ethnicity and by sex, for all 50 states and D.C.  Unlike other datasets, ours provides apples-to-apples state comparisons in three formats (counts, rates, and percentages): We’ve done the math to standardize incompatible measurements found in the various original data sources.

Second, we’ve updated over 100 of the key graphics on our State Profiles pages showing prison and jail incarceration rates by race and ethnicity, and how the racial composition of each state’s prisons and jails compare to the total state population.

"Moral Judgments and Knowledge about Felony Murder in Colorado: An Empirical Study"

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

With funds provided by a Hughes Pilot grant, I conducted a survey of 523 Colorado residents to determine their knowledge of and moral attitudes towards the felony murder rule.  The survey showed that only a very small fraction of the participants knew that unintended killings in the course of predicate felonies was murder punishable at the time by life without the possibility of parole.  Similarly, only a very small fraction of survey participants believed that persons who committed unintended killings in the course of predicate felonies deserved a murder conviction or sentence of mandatory life without the possibility of parole.  Rather, the mean sentence that survey participants considered just for felony murder was just over six years in prison.  These results substantially undercut the two main justifications given for felony murder, namely deterrence and retribution.

"The COVID-19 Pandemic, Prison Downsizing, and Crime Trends"

The title of this post is the title of this article recently published in the Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice and authored by Charis Kubrin and Bradley Bartos.  Here is its abstract:

California has fundamentally reformed its criminal justice system.  Since 2011, the state passed several reforms which reduced its massive prison population. Importantly, this decarceration has not harmed public safety as research finds these measures had no impact on violent crime and only marginal impacts on property crime statewide.  The COVID-19 pandemic furthered the state’s trend in decarceration, as California reduced prison and jail populations to slow the spread of the virus.  In fact, in terms of month-to-month proportionate changes in the state correctional population, California’s efforts to reduce overcrowding as a means to limit the spread of COVID-19 reduced the correctional population more severely and abruptly than any of the state’s decarceration reforms.  Although research suggests the criminal justice reforms did not threaten public safety, there is reason to suspect COVID-mitigation releases did.  How are COVID-19 jail downsizing measures and crime trends related in California, if at all?  We address this question in the current study.  We employ a synthetic control group design to estimate the impact of jail decarceration intended to mitigate COVID-19 spread on crime in California’s 58 counties.  Adapting the traditional method to account for the “fuzzy-ness” of the intervention, we utilize natural variation among counties to isolate decarceration’s impact on crime from various other shocks affecting California as a whole.  Findings do not suggest a consistent relationship between COVID-19 jail decarceration and violent or property crime at the county level.

Notable data from BOP Director on FIRST STEP, compassionate release and home confinement

The US Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing today on “Oversight of the Federal Bureau of Prisons,” and BOP Director Colette Peters submitted written testimony that is available here.  Much is worth reading from that document, and I thought some of the data on "First Step Act Implementation" and on "Compassionate Release and Home Confinement" was worth blogging:

Since January 2020, more than 104,000 incarcerated individuals have actively participated in approximately 110 evidence-based recidivism-reducing (EBRR) programs and productive activities (PAs) within the Bureau. In that same timeframe, those individuals have completed more than 370,000 EBRRs and PAs.

In 2019, we adopted the new Good Conduct Time calculation required by the FSA and implemented FSA time credit provisions. Initially, implementing the FSA time credit provisions meant interim procedures with manual calculation of credits from the time the language of the final rule was approved until an automated system could be developed and tested. Then, in 2022, we transitioned from manual to automated FSA time credit calculations, streamlining and accelerating the process. In November 2022, we published the policy on FSA time credits to formalize implementation of the earned time credits rule, with subsequent revisions in February and March of 2023. This new policy was designed to streamline the calculation of credits and maximize an individual’s ability to earn and apply these credits when engaging in programming. We have also implemented revisions to our time credit calculation procedures in response to concerns of Congress and stakeholders and applied those changes for eligible individuals....

Additionally, we fine-tuned our PATTERN recidivism reduction tool worksheet by including program completion factors and sanitizing sensitive information, such as Walsh Act criteria. We made functional and technical improvements, including improving auditing capabilities and error reduction by implementing distinct ineligibility codes. We made these important changes to ensure that those in our care who are earning credits get their credits. From January 2022 through August 31, 2023, we released approximately 22,940 individuals through FSA, and approximately 16,125 were released from Residential Reentry Centers.

We support the Department’s development of the PATTERN tool (through the National Institute of Justice), including its evolution to address concerns around racial and ethnic disparities in the tool. In March 2023, the Department conducted its second annual revalidation of the PATTERN risk assessment tool. Following this, the Bureau began utilizing PATTERN version 1.3 with revised risk level categorizations. This addressed previous racial and ethnic disparities in the tool and increased opportunities for eligible individuals to apply earned time credits.

Compassionate Release. The Bureau continues in its efforts to support compassionate release, wherein the sentencing court is able to reduce a sentence due to extraordinary and compelling reasons or for certain individuals.  The FSA went into effect on December 21, 2018, and since that time, we have released a total of around 4,606 individuals who were under our care through compassionate release.  Of that group of individuals, 129 were released through compassionate release on a motion initiated by the Bureau, and 4,477 received compassionate release after a defense motion.  So far in the calendar year 2023 (CY23), approximately 216 individuals under our care have been released through compassionate release.  Of those, we initiated the motions for compassionate release for 9 of those individuals, while 207 received a compassionate release after a defense motion.  Requests for compassionate release receive close and individualized review based on extraordinary and compelling circumstances.

As part of the compassionate release review process, we collaborate closely with U.S. Attorneys’ Offices to determine if petitioning the sentencing court for compassionate release on behalf of an individual is warranted.  While we work to review and handle compassionate release requests accurately and efficiently, ultimately, compassionate release decisions rest with the sentencing courts.  We have considered and will be prepared to comply with the U.S. Sentencing Commission’s proposed amendments to compassionate release as they relate to individuals who are victims of sexual assault while in our custody, which will take effect in November 2023.

Home Confinement. To ensure public safety and effective reentry with the home confinement provision authorized under the FSA, we rely on our Residential Reentry Centers.  Those contractors work diligently to create a personalized reentry process, including individual-specific employment guidance, financial management advice, and more. This approach equips individuals with tools for a responsible and successful transition back into their communities.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act enabled many individuals in Bureau facilities to be placed in home confinement for health and safety. We tracked the individuals under our care whom we moved into home confinement.  From March 2020 through June 24, 2023, we transferred approximately 13,666 individuals into home confinement through the CARES Act, with the vast majority of those individuals completing their sentence in home confinement without returning to an institution.  Although the specific authority for new CARES Act home confinement placements has ended, those already placed remain in their placements.  As of August 31, 2023, approximately 3,374 individuals remain in home confinement in accordance with applicable rules.  The vast majority 9  of those placed on home confinement have complied with program rules, and less than 0.05% have been returned to custody for committing new crimes.

UPDATE: This AP article reporting on the hearing is headlined "Senators clash with US prisons chief over transparency, seek fixes for problem-plagued agency."

CCJ publishes big new data resource, "The Footprint," which seeks to track the size of America's criminal justice system

The Council of Criminal Justice (CCJ) today published this notable new data resource titled "The Footprint: Tracking the Size of America's Criminal Justice System."  Here is how the resource introduces the data it covers on its landing page:

The overall size, or “footprint,” of the American criminal justice system remains well above historical levels, but it has shrunk substantially in recent years.  This series of interactive charts summarizes trends in crime, arrests, and correctional control (incarceration and community supervision), comparing current levels with their most recent peaks or valleys.  Time periods vary due to data availability, and where reliable data are available, trends in race and sex are also presented.

COVID-19 resulted in significant changes in crime patterns and the operations of law enforcement agencies, courts, correctional agencies, and paroling authorities.  Because of the unique influence of the pandemic across the system, analyses also examine the early effects of the pandemic on crime, arrests, and correctional control.

The first section provides a high-level overview of crime, arrest, and incarceration trends in recent decades. The following sections take a closer look at trends in each area, broken down by age, crime type, race, and sex.

The data assembled here, which provides historical national data trends based on already reported public data, are great to have in one place. Sentencing fans may be especially interested in the data trends regarding probation, parole, jails, state prisons and federal prisons, but all the data is really fascinating in all sorts of particulars.

New PPI briefing argues housing "is one of our best tools for ending mass incarceration"

Brian Nam-Sonenstein writing for the Prison Policy Initiative has this new briefing developing the case for the claim that ending homelessness can help reduce incarceration.  The briefing has this full title: "Seeking shelter from mass incarceration: Fighting criminalization with Housing First; Providing unconditional housing with embedded services can reduce chronic homelessness, reduce incarceration, and improve quality of life – especially for people experiencing substance use disorder and mental illness."  And here is how the briefing gets started (with links from the original): 

Housing is one of our best tools for ending mass incarceration. It does more than put a roof over people’s heads; housing gives people the space and stability necessary to receive care, escape crises, and improve their quality of life. For this reason, giving people housing can help interrupt a major pathway to prison created by the criminalization of mental illness, substance use disorder, and homelessness.

For this briefing, we examined over 50 studies and reports, covering decades of research on housing, health, and incarceration, to pull together the best evidence that ending housing insecurity is foundational to reducing jail and prison populations. Building on our work detailing how jails are (mis)used to manage medical and economic problems and homelessness among formerly incarcerated people, we show that taking care of this most basic need can have significant positive downstream effects for public health and safety.

Severe federal sentences for Proud Boys and other Jan 6 defendants generating notable commentary

The lengthy federal prison sentences recently given to Proud Boy leaders and others — eg, 22 years for Enrique Tarrio, 18 years for Ethan Nordean, 17 years for Joe Biggs — has generated a lot of intriguing commentary from a lot of intriguing sources.  Here are some pieces reporting on notable comments and some pieces that are the notable comments:

From Florida Politics, "Ron DeSantis floats ‘pardons and commutations’ after Proud Boy sentenced to 22 years"

From The Messenger, "Proud Boys to Argue ‘Trial Tax’ Was Imposed on Them After Rejecting Plea Deals"

From the National Post, "J.D. Tuccille: The injustice of jailing Jan. 6 rioters for 20 years"

From the New York Times, "DeSantis and Ramaswamy Call Proud Boys’ Sentences ‘Excessive’ and ‘Wrong’"

From Northeastern Global News, "Leaders in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol were sentenced to about 20 years in prison. Was that fair?"

From USA Today, "'Trial tax': Proud Boys members complain their long prison sentences punish them for demanding a trial"

From the Washington Post, "They confronted Proud Boys but don’t celebrate their prison sentences"

From WLRN, "Enrique Tarrio's mother says her son was a 'political pawn'"

"Extraordinary Punishment: Conditions of Confinement and Compassionate Release"

The title of of this post is the title of this notable new article authored by Meredith Esser and now available via SSRN.  Here is its abstract:

People experience severe forms of harm while incarcerated including medical neglect, prolonged solitary confinement, sexual and physical violence, and a host of other ills.  But civil rights litigation under the Eighth Amendment — the most common vehicle through which people seek to redress these harms — presents significant practical and doctrinal barriers to incarcerated plaintiffs.  Most notably, the Eighth Amendment’s “deliberate indifference” standard asks not whether a person has been harmed, but instead requires plaintiffs to demonstrate a criminally reckless mental state on the part of prison officials.  Further, Eighth Amendment remedies are limited to damages or injunctions, which may not adequately redress a specific harm that a person is suffering.  For these reasons, the Eighth Amendment has often fallen far short of providing litigants adequate relief.

At the same time, once a person is sentenced, the original sentencing judge generally has no control over whether a harm suffered in prison is remedied.  However, since the passage of the First Step Act of 2018, people incarcerated in the federal system have a new vehicle for getting these kinds of claims into court: federal compassionate release. Compassionate release motions are heard by the original sentencing judge, who has the authority to reduce a person’s sentence if they can demonstrate, among other things, “extraordinary and compelling” reasons (ECRs) that warrant relief.

In April of 2023, the Federal Sentencing Commission adopted amendments to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines that drastically expanded the ECR definition to include claims based on the types of harms have been traditionally litigated under the Eighth Amendment.  These changes represent a radical and potentially paradigm-shifting reform to federal sentencing law and give district courts enormous discretion to reexamine federal sentences.  Given the challenge of redressing harms under the Eighth Amendment, this Article argues that the expansion of compassionate release ECRs to encompass harmful conditions of confinement makes doctrinal sense and allows for a more appropriate remedy to harms done in prison than traditional civil remedies.

Recapping some recent notable reports on prison realities and more from the Prison Policy Initiative

I recently received a helpful review of just some of the remarkable materials and data assembled by the Prison Policy Initiative on an array of prison- and punishment-related topics.  I am pretty sure I have blogged about some or even most of these reports, but I thought it still helpful to reprint here links to the reports and the brief summaries sent my way:

• Punishment Beyond Prisons: Incarceration and supervision by state -- The criminal punishment system is much bigger than jails and prisons. Our report shows that all states -- even those that consider themselves progressive leaders -- put significant numbers of their citizens on probation and parole, systems that often replicate prison conditions in the community. Two 50-state charts comparing states' rates of supervision and incarceration show that when probation and parole are taken into account, progressive states like Rhode Island don't appear too different than famously "tough" states like Louisiana.
• The aging prison population: Causes, costs, and consequences -- The share of people in prison aged 55 and older has skyrocketed over the last 30 years, from 3% in 1991 to 15% in 2021. What caused this huge shift in the prison population and what can be done about it? In a new briefing, we explain what has caused the national "greying" of prisons, highlight the harmful consequences of locking up so many older people, and point to solutions. (Includes 50-state data.)
• New data on HIV in prisons during the COVID-19 pandemic underscore links between HIV and incarceration -- Recent data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics show that the rate of HIV among people in prisons is three times higher than the general U.S. population. We break down the rates of HIV in all 50 state prison systems, exploring the root causes of this health disparity. We also discuss the criminalization of HIV across the U.S.: 35 states still have laws on the books criminalizing actions that can potentially expose another person to HIV, even if no transmission occurs.
• SMH: The rapid and unregulated growth of e-messaging in prisons -- With a growing number of incarcerated people and their families able to use e-messaging services to keep in touch, we examined how much these services cost in all 50 states and the federal Bureau of Prisons, finding that the cost per message ranges from being free (or just a few cents) in some states to a high of 50c in states like Arkansas. We also explore other concerns with electronic messaging, including privacy issues and "bulk pricing" schemes, and lay out our recommendations for how to make this service work for incarcerated people, their families, and even prisons.
• Heat, floods, pests, disease, and death: What climate change means for people in prison -- The summer of 2023 may be the mildest summer of the rest of our lives if governments do not take action to halt climate change. In this briefing, we discuss new research that proves the connection between extreme heat in prisons and higher mortality rates, with one surprising finding: During heat waves, incarcerated people in Northeast and Western states fare the worst. We also dive into how other aspects of climate change -- such as mosquito infestations and infectious diseases -- stand to impact people in prison.

"Prison Abolition Without the Ethic"

The title of this post is the title of this new article available via SSRN authored by Jacob Gordon. Here is its abstract:

Prison abolitionists stand for an “ethic.”   The ethic rejects punishment of all kinds, as well as capitalism broadly understood.  By focusing on their ethic, abolitionists mask strong arguments for prison abolition -- or at least something like it -- from within more common commitments.  The ethic therefore undermines actual abolition in the name of a distinct and contestable set of theories.

Intriguing accounting of Texas punishment numbers

The latest issues of Texas Monthly includes "a roundup of the many categories — both good and bad — in which Texas ranks number one. "  One notable part of the roundup is titled "When It Comes to People Behind Bars, Texas Is Way Ahead," and here is part of the discussion (with links from the original:  

For years our elected officials — sheriffs, district attorneys, judges, and governors — have won office by promising to be tough on crime.  The most infamous metric for this is that we’re the number one state in executions.  Since 1976, when the Supreme Court declared the death penalty was once again constitutional, we’ve killed nearly five times more convicts than Oklahoma, our nearest competitor.  (Our northern neighbor, however, executes more prisoners per capita than we do; we’re number two by that measure.) 

But we’re also the leader when it comes to living, breathing subjects of the criminal justice system: no state has more inmates than Texas.  (Though, again, on a per capita basis we don’t come out on top; we’re number ten, behind some much smaller states.) We weren’t always number one; California, with a far bigger population, used to outdo us.  Then in the nineties, Governor Ann Richards led an expansion of prisons and a tightening of parole rules that pushed us into the top spot.  Between 1993 and 1998 the population of our state prisons, state jails, and private facilities more than doubled, to 143,889 — more than the entire population of Waco.  Ten years later we reached 156,126 inmates.  Yet, as crime rates fell, so did those numbers, aided, to the surprise of many, by conservative politicians affiliated with the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Right on Crime initiative, which framed prison issues as economic issues.  Texas began sending nonviolent inmates to community-based programs designed to divert them from future crimes, and it started closing prisons, not building new ones.  Then, during the pandemic, law enforcement curtailed arrests, the court system slowed down its processing, and TDCJ took fewer transfers from county lockups.  By April 2021 Texas had 116,926 inmates in its prisons.

But now, as society is getting back to normal, our numbers are climbing once again.  As of January, Texas had 124,893 inmates. California, with 10 million more residents, had about 29,300 fewer inmates.  And this is all part of a much larger web. Texas has more inmates in “administrative segregation” — solitary confinement in all but name — than any other state, more than 3,000.  And our numbers are shockingly high when it comes to prisons without air-conditioning, incidents of prison rape, and unpaid inmate labor.

None of these changes take into account our 252 county jails, where, by some accounts, on average more than 60,000 men and women await a trial, a plea bargain, or a transfer to state prison.

Deep dive into stores of juvenile LWOP sentences and their review

The New York Times has this lengthy new feature on extreme sentencing of juvenile offenders, with a focus particularly on happenings in Philadelphia.  I recommend the full article, which is headlined "Sentenced to Life as Boys, They Made Their Case for Release."  Here are some excerpts that highlight some of the data reported within broader story-telling:

Philadelphia lawyer named Bradley Bridge ... began the enormous undertaking of compiling a list of all the prisoners in Pennsylvania who were sentenced to life as minors. No one in the state had ever kept track of this group, who came to be called “juvenile lifers” in the courts and “child lifers” by some of the inmates themselves.

He expected the list to be long. He didn’t expect it to eventually include more than 500 names, nearly one-fifth of the more than 2,800 child lifers in the country. More than 300 of them had come through Philadelphia’s system, making a city with less than 1 percent of the country’s population responsible for more than 10 percent of all children sentenced to life in prison without parole in the United States. No other city compared.  Even more glaring: More than 80 percent of Philadelphia’s child lifers were Black. Nationally, that figure was roughly 60 percent....

In 2008, the Equal Justice Initiative found 73 children who had been given sentences of life without parole when they were 13 and 14 years old.  And all of the people who received those sentences for crimes other than homicide were children of color. “It just said something about the way in which race was a proxy for a presumption of dangerousness, this presumption of irredeemability,”[Bryan] Stevenson said....

The Supreme Court’s rulings in Miller and Montgomery marked an important rethinking of culpability when it comes to children who commit the most serious crimes.  But the practical implications of the rulings were limited: the court hadn’t abolished all life without parole sentences for children — only ones where state laws made the sentences mandatory. And while child lifers now had a chance to make a case for their release, prosecutors could still seek new life sentences.  In other states with high numbers of child lifers, including Michigan and Louisiana, as well as some parts of Pennsylvania, that’s just what they did.

Of the more than 300 child lifers who became eligible for resentencing in Philadelphia in 2016, all but about a dozen have been resentenced, and more than 220 have been released, the majority of them on lifetime parole.  That’s nearly a quarter of the roughly 1,000 total child lifers who have been released across the country.  These numbers make Philadelphia, once an outlier in imprisoning minors for life, now an outlier in letting them go.  By 2020, the city had resentenced more child lifers than Michigan and Louisiana combined. What set the city apart, said Mr. Stevenson, of the Equal Justice Initiative, was not just the buy-in from local officials and public defenders, but also the community of child lifers who became their own best argument for release....

Since the Supreme Court decisions, more than half of all states have outlawed life without parole sentences for children altogether, reducing the number of child lifers left in the country to fewer than 600, according to the Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth, a national nonprofit.  Mr. Stevenson’s organization is now working to raise the minimum age at which children can be tried as adults in 11 states, including Pennsylvania, where there is no age floor.  Other states are considering abolishing mandatory life without parole sentences for people under 21.

"Beyond Bars: A Path Forward from 50 Years of Mass Incarceration in the United States"

The title of this post is the title of this new (open access) book editted by Kristen Budd, David Lane, Glenn Muschert and Jason Smith. Here is how it is described:  

The year 2023 marks 50 years of mass incarceration in the United States.  This timely volume highlights and addresses pressing social problems associated with the U.S.’s heavy reliance on mass imprisonment.  In an atmosphere of charged political debate, including “tough on crime” rhetoric, the editors bring together scholars and experts in the criminal justice field to provide the most up-to-date science on mass incarceration and its ramifications on justice-impacted people and our communities.

This book offers practical solutions for advocates, policy and lawmakers, and the wider public for addressing mass incarceration and its effects to create a more just, fair and safer society.

The Table of Contents lists 10 substantive chapters in this text, and here are just a few of the many chapters that may be of particular interest to sentencing fans:

Mass incarceration’s lifetime guarantee by Ashley Nellis

Mass incarceration and the collateral problems of parole by Kimberly D. Richman

The end of mass incarceration: opportunities for reform by Francis T. Cullen, Justin T. Pickett, and Cheryl Lero Jonson

The final chapter of this book, authored by Cullen et al., develops the thesis that the "era of mass incarceration has ended," and it concludes with this paragraph:

In closing, historical turning points are not always apparent to those in their midst but become evident only in retrospect some years later.  Thus, we trust we have been convincing in showing that mass incarceration has ended — both in terms of the growth of prison populations and the punitive logic that fueled the movement.  This good news, however, will be squandered if a collateral movement to transform American corrections lays dormant.  However, a shortcut may be possible.  It is insufficient to identify past mistakes; future choices must occur.  The opportunity for change is palpable.  Are we up to creating a new era of reform — a humanitarian revolution in corrections?

Prison Policy Initiative spotlights the "aging prison population"

The Prison Policy Initiative's by Emily Widra has produces this notable new briefing titled "The aging prison population: Causes, costs, and consequences." Here are some excerpts (click through for lots of helpful links and graphics):

New data from the Census Bureau reveals that the U.S. median age rose to a high of 38.9 years: an increase of three and half years in the last 23 years. The U.S. prison population is aging, too, and at a much faster rate than the nation as a whole — and older adults represent a growing portion of people who are arrested and incarcerated each year. The aging of the prison population is the result of a series of disastrous policy decisions in policing, sentencing, and reentry over roughly the last half-century. And while prisons and jails are unhealthy for people of all ages, older adults’ interactions with these systems are particularly dangerous, if not outright deadly....

According to the most recent available data on local jails across the U.S., from 2020 to 2021 — during the COVID-19 pandemic, which was particularly dangerous for older adults — the segment of the jail population aged 55 and older expanded by a greater proportion than any other age group, growing 24% compared to an average increase of 15% across all other age groups.

Meanwhile, older people make up five times as much of the prison population as they did three decades ago. From 1991 to 2021, the percentage of the state and federal prison population nationwide aged 55 or older swelled from 3% to a whopping 15%. This growth is seen even more acutely when looking at people serving life sentences: by 2020, 30% of people serving life sentences were at least 55 years old, with more than 61,400 older adults sentenced to die in prison....

State and federal sentencing policies from the 1970s to the 2000s resulted in what researchers have called “a prescription for an increase in older inmates: more prisoners, more prison beds, more lifers, and less parole.” State and federal laws enacted in this time period resulted in more incarcerated people serving longer sentences via policies that:

• Increased sentence lengths and established mandatory minimums,
• Mandated extremely long sentences for individuals convicted of three felony offenses (“three strikes” laws),
• Required people to serve upwards of 85% of their sentence in prison (“truth in sentencing” laws) before becoming parole eligible,
• Abolished parole,
• Reduced the allowed time earned for good conduct, and
• Instituted other “tough on crime” sentencing laws.

Longer and harsher sentences top the list of the most obvious mechanisms by which the national prison population exploded in the 1990s and 2000s, but they also created the problem of today’s aging prison population: many of the people who received these sentences are still behind bars now that they are twenty or thirty years older.

New Prison Policy Initiative briefing on "Heat, floods, pests, disease, and death: What climate change means for people in prison"

Leah Wang has this new briefing for the Prison Policy Initiative titled "Heat, floods, pests, disease, and death: What climate change means for people in prison."  The piece's subheading summarizes its themes: "Without consistent access to relief or safer environments, incarcerated people are punished with deadly heat, increased biological threats, and flimsy emergency protocols. We explain new epidemiological evidence confirming that heat and death are linked in prisons nationwide, and explain why the climate-change-induced plight of people in prisons deserves swift action."

Here is how this timely new report gets started (links left out, head to PPI to see all the graphics and links):

Heatwaves and extreme weather events are now commonplace.  States across the South and Southwest are experiencing record high temperatures (during the day and at night, which is a big deal).  Meanwhile, the Northeast has been drenched in more frequent, torrential rainfall and flash flooding.  Prisons and jails nationwide aren’t insulated from these events, yet we rarely see how correctional staff ensure the safety of the millions of people locked within them.

Hopefully, readers have seen our prior work — or any of several other powerful essays — explaining the ways in which extreme heat, combined with a lack of air-conditioned spaces and cooling measures, is especially harmful to people behind bars.  Some have described the experience as being trapped in heat-retaining “convection ovens.”  We’ve also highlighted some of the environmentally disastrous ways prisons are sited and operated.

In this briefing, we present new findings from a nationwide, epidemiological study showing a strong relationship between extreme heat and deaths in prisons — especially in the Northeast.  We also explain why extreme heat isn’t an isolated danger — it’s wrapped up in other hazards like pests and diseases guaranteed to make prison life miserable, if not fatal.

Highlighting new research with encouraging news about incarceration trends

Writing in the Washington Post, Charles Lane has this great new opinion piece headlined "New data show a dire forecast about incarceration rates didn’t come true." I recommend the whole piece, and here are a few highlights:

Few data points have more dramatically illustrated the disparate racial impact of incarceration in the United States than this statistic, first calculated in a 2003 Justice Department-sponsored study: If imprisonment rates remained the same as they were in 2001, then 1 out of every 3 Black men born that year could expect to be put behind bars during his lifetime. The figure for White men, by contrast, was 1 of every 17.  Hammered home in political speeches, media coverage and activist websites, that projection did much to galvanize public opinion in favor of criminal justice reform.

And yet it did not actually materialize.  The overall U.S. incarceration rate peaked in the three-year period of 2006 to 2008, according to Pew Research, and it has been declining since then.  What’s more, the rate for Black men fell faster during the past two decades than that for White men (and other groups), contrary to expectations in 2003 — and to much conventional wisdom today.

Therefore, since the 2003 Justice Department study appeared, chances that Black men would not go to prison improved so much that the actual lifetime “incarceration risk” for those born in 2001 turned out to be fewer than 1 in 5 — about 40 percent lower than the oft-cited 1 in 3 figure.  This outcome connotes a modest, but real, reduction in racial inequality generally.  Amid a national criminal justice debate that often understandably focuses on the problems and injustices that still need to be solved, encouraging data deserve attention, too.

The hopeful findings about racially disparate incarceration rates emerge from a study to be published this week in the peer-reviewed journal Demography.  It includes such remarkable data as the fact that, whereas 5,159 out of every 100,000 Black men were imprisoned in 1999, the rate had fallen to 2,881 per 100,000 by 2019 — a 44 percent decrease. In that period, almost every state saw a decline in its incarceration rate for Black men....

The news gets better.  Partly as a result of these positive trends, Black men are now more likely to have earned a bachelor’s degree by age 25 than to have been in prison: The respective population shares, as of 2019, are 17.7 percent and 12 percent.  As recently as 2009, the opposite was the case, with 17.4 percent of 25-year-old Black men having gone to prison but only 12.8 percent having finished college. ...

Optimistically, but plausibly, the study argues that the generation of Black men — and, indeed, of all U.S. residents — born after 2001 “is facing a distinctly reduced risk of imprisonment.”  This is because rates of criminal behavior and arrest fell over the past two decades, relative to the 1980s and 1990s; the effects of this trend “will likely compound into even lower rates of incarceration as they age.”

The study acknowledges that U.S. crime and incarceration rates are still well above those of peer nations.  Although the Black-White ratio in male incarceration rates fell from 9.3 to 1 in 1999 to 6.1 to 1 in 2019, that unacceptable disparity “remains quite large,” the study notes.  “There is plenty more progress to be made,” the study’s lead author, sociologist Jason P. Robey of the University at Albany’s School of Criminal Justice, told me.

It might help to achieve that progress if the new Demography study, co-authored by sociologists Michael Massoglia and Michael T. Light, both of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, had provided an account of exactly why incarceration generally, and Black male incarceration in particular, has declined, but such explanations lie beyond the scope of their research.  Less punitive enforcement policies on nonviolent drug offenses, as well as other recent reforms intended to limit racially disparate incarceration, are undoubtedly part of the story.  And of course continued downward trends in imprisonment depend on preventing crime itself from spiraling upward.  The Demography study warns, appropriately, that positive trends are “reversible.”...

Alarming data on what the study labels the “incarceration boom” supplied one necessary ingredient to the criminal justice reform movement: urgency.  Statistical evidence of progress can provide another: hope.

The research article referenced in this opinion piece is authored by Jason P. Robey, Michael Massoglia & Michael T. Light and is titled "A Generational Shift: Race and the Declining Lifetime Risk of Imprisonment."

Notable data on Washington state trends impacted by the pandemic and a felony drug possession law declared unconstitutional

Given robust debates over the impacts of the "war on drugs" on incarceration rates and other aspects of criminal justice systems, I found fascinating this recent press piece titled "WA felony prison and jail sentences fell by 47% in 5 years. Here’s why."  I encourage folks to check out the full article which includes and array of graphics that report on an array of data developments in The Evergreen State.  Here are some excerpts:

With the number of Washington residents headed to jail or prison at a modern low, one might expect Christie Hedman to be declaring victory.  As executive director of the Washington Defender Association, Hedman’s organization has been at the forefront of a justice reform effort keenly interested in slashing incarceration rates in the state.  Instead of celebrating the drop as a sign that reform is succeeding, though, Hedman sees it as more evidence that the system remains highly dysfunctional....

By the time the pandemic began, efforts were well underway to move Washington away from incarceration as the primary response to crime.  The calls for changes following George Floyd’s 2020 murder by a Minneapolis police officer and a 2021 state Supreme Court decision invalidating laws against drug possession fueled that shift....

The number of adults Washington courts sentenced to prison and jail on felony charges has nearly halved in the past five years.  State Caseload Forecast Council records on felony sentences provide insight into how that reduction has played out.

The drop in sentences involving incarceration stems directly from a state Supreme Court ruling that Washington’s felony drug possession law was unconstitutional.  Legislation passed earlier this year recriminalized drug possession as misdemeanor rather than a felony, but it’s unclear whether local governments, including Seattle’s, will enforce the new law.  In 2022, about 800 people were sentenced for felony drug crimes — a 66% drop compared with the previous year, and an 86% drop compared with 2020....

Nearly 95% of these sentences were for dealing, compared with 2018, before the Supreme Court decision, when 84% were for non-dealing offenses.  Last year also saw a drop in jail and prison sentences for felony property, assault and sex crimes.  Experts attribute the overall decline in incarceration to the strains on the system since the pandemic.

During the pandemic, local jails and Department of Corrections-run prisons limited their populations by restricting who was taken into custody, said Russell Brown, executive director of the Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys....

The average daily population of incarcerated people in Washington prisons was down 30% in 2022 compared with 2018, according to Department of Corrections data.  “So much of what you’ve seen has been a response to the system itself constricting and shutting down during this period of time,” said Hedman of the Washington Defender Association. “There are huge shortages of people wanting to be police officers, correctional officers, lawyers, whether it’s prosecutors or defense attorneys.”

The lingering effects of the pandemic will be evident across all criminal justice data for the next few years, said Lauren Peterson-Knoth, a senior researcher at the Washington Institute for Public Policy.  These constraints led prosecutors and courts to prioritize certain cases.  “The types of cases that were most likely to be processed were the crimes that were serious enough or repetitive enough that they finally had to put someone in custody,” said Brown of the prosecutor’s association.

In 2022, sentences for crimes that involved a deadly weapon, specifically firearms, increased the most in five years. This tracks with the reported increase in crimes involving firearms, said Brown, citing a King County report for 2022 showing reported shootings more than doubled compared with 2018.

New report from Human Rights Watch highlights people released from LWOP sentences in California

This press release from Human Rights Watch notes a new report that focuses on individuals who have been released from prison in California after having once been given a life without parole sentence. The press release starts this way:

People formerly sentenced to life without parole (LWOP) in the state of California have flourished since they have had an opportunity to return home, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. As changes in legislation and executive power have allowed new pathways for release, the vast majority of people who have been released after serving these sentences are volunteering in their communities, caring for family members, and mentoring youth.

The 53-page report, “‘I Just Want to Give Back’: The Reintegration of People Sentenced to Life Without Parole,” details what people who were once sentenced to die in California prisons have done with their second chances.  Human Rights Watch surveyed more than three-quarters of those released since 2013 and found that 94 percent reported volunteering regularly, 84 percent said they financially assisted others, and 90 percent worked full or part-time, with 43 percent working in the nonprofit sector.  Based on these findings, the report recommends that California government officials take steps toward eliminating the use of LWOP sentences.

Here is a snippet from the report's summary:

In recent years, less than 4 percent of people sentenced to life without parole in California have been released due to changes in state law and executive power.  At the time research began, there were only 143 people who fit this description.  This report focuses on the historic release of these individuals and examines the positive contributions they have made with their second chances.

Using statistical data from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and qualitative data from a series of interviews conducted with individuals formerly sentenced to LWOP in the state of California, this report sheds light on the positive impact these people can have on society.  Notably, the interviews were conducted with 110 out of the 143 individuals who had been released, representing approximately 77 percent of the total population.  This comprehensive sample reinforces empirical research suggesting that LWOP sentences are unnecessary when it comes to promoting public safety.  Moreover, it contends that LWOP sentences are counterproductive to public safety because they deprive communities of the unique and valuable contributions individuals with the sentence can make.

"For Health Equity, We Must End Mass Incarceration"

The title of this post is the title of this recent "Viewpoint" piece published in the Journal of the American Medical Association and authored by Emily A. Wang and Shira Shavit. Here is an excerpt:

As primary care physicians, we have seen the harms of mass incarceration extend across 3 generations of a family (grandparents, parents, and children) and how the harms may be transmitted biologically.  There is increasing evidence that psychosocial stress from the conditions of confinement; the challenges obtaining housing, food, and employment for individuals with criminal records; and the increased caregiving duties, costs of visitation, and stigma for family members are drivers of worse health outcomes.  Individuals with histories of incarceration and their family members have altered physiological stress responses, including increased levels of C-reactive protein, cortisol, and epigenetic age acceleration that are associated with developing and accelerating chronic health conditions, even after adjusting for neighborhood environment.8 Mass incarceration is now encoded into the DNA of the US.  And yet, when health policy analysts decry structural racism, mass incarceration is rarely if ever mentioned.

Undoing the health harms of mass incarceration should not only be the concern of frontline clinicians, but that of the whole medical community (including health systems and payers).  Recognizing this in 2006, we created the Transitions Clinic Network model that transforms primary care systems to better care for patients who have been incarcerated and for their families by employing community health workers with the lived experience of incarceration.  Today, the Transitions Clinic Network is the largest example of the medical community’s capacity to address mass incarceration, with a consortium of 44 primary care programs in 14 states and Puerto Rico that provide health and social service support for individuals returning from incarceration.

Vera Institute of Justice reports on "People in Jail and Prison in 2022"

The Vera Institute of Justice is continuing to do terrific work on the challenging task of collecting (near-real-time) data on the number of people in state and federal jails and prisons. Vera's latest effort is this 30-page report titled simply "People in Jail and Prison in 2022," and here is some of text from the document's summary:

In the first years of the coronavirus pandemic, federal, state, and local governments reduced the number of people incarcerated in U.S. prisons and local jails from 2.1 million in 2019 to 1.8 million at midyear 2020.  By 2021, however, this decarceration trend appeared to have stalled, as further drops in prison populations were countered by large increases in jail numbers.  From mid-2021 to fall 2022, incarceration rose slightly, up by 4 percent.  Nonetheless, the number of people incarcerated is still near its 2020 level of 1.8 million.

The national increase seen during 2022 is the result of a patchwork of different state and local trends.  Between mid-2021 and fall 2022, a total of 34 states increased the number of people in prison, and some saw substantial growth: Mississippi and Montana both increased the number of people incarcerated in their prisons by about 9 percent. Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, and North Dakota saw prison population increases of 8 percent.

Nationally, jail populations have not fully rebounded to pre-pandemic levels and are still down 8.3 percent from 2019. (This is not universal: in 2022, Texas jail populations surpassed their 2019 level by more than 6 percent.)

Still, jail populations in many regions increased during the past year. Between mid-2021 and fall 2022, the fastest growth in jail populations was in the suburban counties of large metropolitan areas, followed by small and midsize metro counties.  Rural counties — which for some time have jailed people at rates double those of urban areas — had already come close to refilling their jails by mid-2021.

By fall 2022, jail incarceration rates in rural counties were 343 people per 100,000 working-age residents, compared to 159 per 100,000 in urban counties.  This growth brought rural jail incarceration rates to just 5 percent below mid-2019 levels in fall 2022, while urban counties’ jail incarceration rates were down 12 percent.

New Sentencing Project fact sheet with latest data on "Private Prisons in the United States"

The Sentencing project analyzes the latest data from Bureau of Justice Statistics on private prisons in this new fact sheet.  The full report should be reviewed for all the data, but here are snippets:

Twenty-seven states and the federal government incarcerated 96,370 people in private prisons in 2021, representing 8% of the total state and federal prison population.

Private for-profit prisons incarcerated 96,370 American residents in 2021, representing 8% of the total state and federal prison population. Since 2000, the number of people housed in private prisons has increased 10%....

States show significant variation in the use of private prisons. At one end of the spectrum, Montana incarcerates almost half of its prison population in privately run facilities, but in another 23 states, private prisons are not used at all. A total of 27 states and the federal government use private corporations like GEO Group, Core Civic, LaSalle Corrections, and Management and Training Corporation to run some of their corrections facilities.

Montana is not alone in its heavy reliance on private prisons. Arizona, Hawaii, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Tennessee rely considerably on private prisons for housing imprisoned people. In these states, between 21% and 45% of the prison population resides in a for-profit prison...

The proportion of imprisoned people in private facilities compared to public facilities has not changed considerably in the past 20 years. In 2000, 8% of the imprisoned population was also in private facilities; but fluctuations in the total number of people imprisoned over 20 years translated to a 10% rise in the number of people in private prisons. Since 2012, however, the population in private prisons has decreased significantly.

"Plea Bargaining Abolitionism: A History"

The title of this post is the title of this new piece authored by William Ortman now available via SSRN. Here is its abstract:

How does a tragedy on the scale of mass incarceration happen?  Scholarship has focused on the carceral appetite of politicians, criminal justice practitioners, and the public. R ightly so, but mass incarceration took more.  On paper, American law has a built-in check on carceral appetites: a labor-intensive system of criminal adjudication via trials. Yet as mass incarceration wreaked havoc in the 1980s and beyond, that system barely registered.  It had been supplanted, over the previous century, by a form of adjudication far better suited to punitive fervor.  Plea bargaining enabled mass incarceration.  If only Americans had been warned about plea bargaining before it was too late, maybe the catastrophe could have been avoided.

Except that they — we — were warned.  In the 1970s, an unlikely assortment of academics, prosecutors, judges, and even a Nixon-administration crime commission sought to rally the country to abolish plea bargaining.  While they did not speak in unison, they were united by a conviction that the system of plea bargaining that had matured in mid-century American courts was fundamentally unjust.

Plea bargaining abolitionists in the 1970s tried to tell us that something basic had gone wrong with the criminal process.  Perhaps predictably, the broader legal profession didn’t heed the warning.  When prosecutors and judges attempted to formally ban plea bargaining — as they did in Alaska, El Paso, and elsewhere — other prosecutors and judges, joined by defense lawyers, found ways to circumvent them.  And when scholars and politicians decried the injustice of plea bargaining, they were told to be more realistic.

Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth reporting that "1,000 individuals who were sentenced to life in prison as children are now free"

I received an email this morning from The Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth (CFSY) reporting in this way on what seems like a notable resentencing milestone:

As of June 6, 2023, we’ve reached an incredible milestone: 1,000 individuals who were sentenced to life in prison as children are now FREE! Since 2009, we have been fighting alongside family members, formerly incarcerated individuals, survivors of violence, lawyers, legislators, and advocates to reach this landmark. Today, we celebrate alongside each of you and affirm once again that “No Child Is Born Bad.”

The CFSY website also provides these notable particulars on the freed group:

What do you know about these 1000 individuals who were told as children they would die in prison serving life without parole and are now free? Their recidivism rates are exceedingly low, while the time they served is exceedingly high....

RECIDIVISM RATES OF FORMER JUVENILE LIFERS ARE EXTREMELY LOW: BETWEEN 0 AND 2%.  A study in Louisiana found the recidivism rate of those who were sentenced to juvenile life without parole to be 0% while a study in Pennsylvania found it to be 1.14%. the national recidivism rate is reported to be between 40% and 68%.

THE AVERAGE NUMBER OF YEARS THESE 1000 FORMER JUVENILE LIFERS SERVED IS EXTREMELY HIGH: 30 YEARS. The median time served for homicide in the U.S. is 17 years according to statistics from the federal bureau of justice – up from less than six years before the year 2000.

THE AVERAGE AGE UPON RELEASE: 47 YEARS OLD.  While teenagers are more prone to break the law, most who commit serious crimes mature out of a tendency to break laws around 25 years old, according to criminologists, biological brain researchers, and decades of experience.

AMERICANS OVERWHELMINGLY BELIEVE THESE 1000 HAVE A CAPACITY FOR POSITIVE CHANGE: 70%. Over two-thirds of Americans agree that children who receive lengthy sentences should have their sentences reviewed by a judge or parole board after no more than 15 years, with the opportunity for release. This majority holds across race, age, gender, political affiliation, and education.

THE LONGEST SERVING AND OLDEST TO BE FREED: JOE LIGON. Locked up at age 15, Joe Ligon became the nation’s longest-serving juvenile ‘lifer.’ at 83, he became the oldest to be freed.

"Calculating Torture: Analysis of Federal, State, and Local Data Showing More Than 122,000 People in Solitary Confinement in U.S. Prisons and Jails"

The title of this post is the title of this notable new report from the group Solitary Watch.  Here is the report's introduction (with cites removed):

Solitary confinement is a torturous and deadly practice.  Prisons, jails, and detention centers inflict solitary confinement disproportionately on Black people, Latino/a/x people, Native people, and other people of color.  Decades of research have attested to the lived experience of people who have been incarcerated and their loved ones, corroborating that solitary causes devastating harm to physical, mental, and behavioral health and is counterproductive to any goals of safety.  Any length of time in solitary confinement — days, or even hours at a time —can have severe consequences.

While there has been a growing recognition of the need to end solitary confinement, and some groundbreaking policy changes have shown movement in that direction, the use of solitary confinement in prisons, jails, and detention centers across the United States remains common and widespread.

This report provides the first ever comprehensive accounting of the total use of solitary confinement in both prisons and jails across the United States.  Analysis of data recently released by the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) and by two state prison systems that did not report to BJS, as well as data from a survey of local jails conducted by the Vera Institute of Justice, reveals that state and federal prisons and local and federal jails in the U.S. have reported on a given day locking a combined total of more than 122,000 people in solitary confinement for 22 or more hours.

These newly available numbers come closer than have any previously published figures in accounting for the number of people in solitary confinement. Yet they still undoubtedly undercount the number of individuals who experience solitary and the number impacted by it.

To begin with, the numbers are self-reported by correctional systems.  Further, they cover only solitary confinement that involves being locked in a cell 22 or more hours a day.  They do not include various informal or transient forms of solitary confinement such as group lockdowns or quarantines, nor do they include so-called alternatives that amount to solitary by another name.

In addition, the figures represent a snapshot of the number of people in solitary confinement at a given moment in time, while many times that number are locked in solitary during the course of a year.

Moreover, the numbers include only people in prisons and jails. Immigration detention facilities lock people in solitary confinement nearly 9,000 times a year, and children and other young people in youth facilities continue to be subjected to solitary. 

Even given all these excluded factors, the numbers far exceed those of other recent counts, which, in the absence of more comprehensive figures, have been widely quoted by media outlets and even scholars and advocates. 

Solitary Watch has been investigating and documenting the widespread use of solitary confinement for more than a dozen years to increase awareness of and accountability for this humanitarian crisis.  The Unlock the Box Campaign and activists across the country have been urging policy makers at the local, state, and federal levels to build on recent efforts to end or limit the use of solitary and to take much more substantial action to significantly reduce or eliminate its use.  Together, we believe that accurate information — including the most comprehensive possible count of the numbers of people in solitary confinement — is critical to creating change.

"Risk Averse and Disinclined: What COVID Prison Releases Demonstrate About the Availability of the United States to Reduce Mass Incarceration"

The title of this post is the title of this notable new report authored by Julia Laskorunsky, Kelly Lyn Mitchell and Sandy Felkey Mullins released today by the Robina Institute of Criminal Law and Criminal Justice. Here is the Executive Summary from the 70+ page report:

This report examines the challenges and opportunities that states faced in deciding whether to release people from prison during the COVID-19 pandemic.  It focuses on the legal mechanisms available to jurisdictions and the factors that influenced whether they were willing or able to use those mechanisms to release people from prison.

Our goal is to illuminate whether back-end release mechanisms can be used to reduce prison populations that have been bloated by the policies of the mass-incarceration era or whether relief from mass incarceration must take some other form.

The report presents case studies of six states — Alabama, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Washington — to gain a more in-depth view of how events unfolded during the pandemic.  Overall, our study found that the number of individuals released early from prisons during the pandemic was limited due to a variety of factors, including politics, risk-averse decision-making, shifting external pressures, the limited scope of compassionate and medical release statutes and the use of discretion to deny release.  In addition, few changes to policy or practice that occurred during the pandemic had a lasting impact on back-end release practices.

We conclude that the back-end release mechanisms offer only a modest opportunity to reduce mass incarceration, and the current system is unlikely to make a substantial difference in addressing mass incarceration due primarily to risk aversion.  Instead, state-level carceral policies that focus on diffusing responsibility for back-end release and that reduce incarceration in the first place have the greatest chance of achieving long-term reductions in prison populations.

Minnesota through new legislation becomes 28th state to prohibit juve LWOP

Via email from The Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth, I learned this afternoon that "Minnesota has officially become the 28th state to ban juvenile life without parole as an omnibus public safety bill (SF 2909) was signed by Minnesota Governor Walz after passing through the Minnesota Senate and House of Representatives." This Equal Justice Initiative piece provides some details and context:

Minnesota lawmakers this week abolished life imprisonment without parole for children. The reform is part of a public safety bill designed to transform the state’s approach to children accused of criminal offenses.

The bill not only retroactively eliminates juvenile life-without-parole sentences but also provides that children sentenced in adult court will be eligible for supervised release after at least 15 years in prison.

A newly created Supervised Release Board will be required to consider an expert assessment of the individual’s cognitive, emotional, and social maturity as well as relevant science on children’s neurological development.

Approximately 40 people will be eligible for review, University of Minnesota law professor Perry Moriearty told the Star Tribune.

The new law also creates a statewide Office of Restorative Practices to promote alternative, community-based approaches to hold children accountable, respond to victims’ needs, and address the issues underlying children’s behavior.

State grants will be provided to counties to develop local restorative justice initiatives, such as victim-offender dialogues and family group conferences, with input from parents, youths, school administrators, county prosecutors, and local law enforcement.

LawProf Mark Osler has this Twitter thread about the public safety bill that was just signed into law in Minnesota, and it highlights some other interesting sentencing features (among many others):

The bill restructures clemency. Among other features, the Pardon Board (the Gov, AG & Chief Justice) can grant clemency by a 2-1 vote with the gov in the majority. Previously, it required a unanimous vote. It also establishes a clemency commission to evaluate cases....

Adds members to the board of public defense and to the sentencing commission (including a formerly incarcerated member)....

Creates an avenue for prosecutor-initiated re-sentencing.

Caps probation at 5 years, and makes that cap retroactive for those already sentenced....

Establishes good-time credits for those in prison who pursue programming and education (up to 17% of a sentence can be earned), on top of the 1/3 of sentences that already are presumptively on supervised release.

The Sentencing Project releases new report covering “Youth Justice By The Numbers”

The Sentencing Project released today this notable new report titled, “Youth Justice By The Numbers.”  The very first page of this nine-page report spotlights that from "2000 (the peak year) and 2020, the number of youth held in juvenile justice facilities on a typical day fell from 108,800 to 25,000, a 77% decline." Here is how the start of this report contextualizes this finding and others presented in this report:

Youth arrests and incarceration increased in the closing decades of the 20th century but have fallen sharply since that time. Public opinion often lags behind these realities, wrongly assuming both that crime is perpetually increasing and that youth offending is routinely violent.  In fact, youth offending is predominantly low-level, and the 21st century has seen significant declines in youth arrests and incarceration.  Between 2000 and 2020, the number of youth held in juvenile justice facilities fell from 109,000 to 25,000 — a 77% decline.

As The Sentencing Project marks 50 years since the era of mass incarceration began, states working to end this overly punitive era can learn important lessons from both the rise and then the sustained fall in youth arrests and placements.

Prison Policy Initiative details "Punishment Beyond Prisons 2023: Incarceration and supervision by state"

Prison Policy Initiative has produced this intricate new report detailing how many folks are under correctional control in every state and throughout the entire US.  The report is titled "Punishment Beyond Prisons 2023: Incarceration and supervision by state," and here is how it gets started:

The U.S. has a staggering 1.9 million people behind bars, but even this number doesn’t capture the true reach of the criminal legal system.  It’s more accurate to look at the 5.5 million people under all of the nation’s mass punishment systems, which include not only incarceration but also probation and parole.

Altogether, an estimated 3.7 million adults are under community supervision (sometimes called community corrections) — nearly twice the number of people who are incarcerated in jails and prisons combined.  The vast majority of people under supervision are on probation (2.9 million people), and over 800,000 people are on parole.  Yet despite the massive number of people under supervision, parole and probation do not receive nearly as much attention as incarceration.  Policymakers and the public must understand how deeply linked these systems are to mass incarceration to ensure that these “alternatives” to incarceration aren’t simply expanding it.

We’ve designed this report specifically to allow state policymakers and residents to assess the scale and scope of their entire correctional systems.  Our findings raise the question of whether community supervision systems are working as intended or whether they simply funnel people into prisons and jails — or are even replicating prison conditions in the community.  The report encourages policymakers and advocates to consider how many people under correctional control don’t need to be locked up or monitored at all, and whether high-need individuals are receiving necessary services or only sanctions.

In this update to our 2018 report, we compile data for all 50 states and D.C. on federal and state prisons, local jails, jails in Indian Country, probation, and parole.  We also include data on punishment systems that are adjacent to the criminal legal system: youth confinement and involuntary commitment.  Because these systems often mirror and even work in tandem with the criminal legal system, we include them in this broader view of mass punishment. We make the data accessible in one nationwide chart, 100+ state-specific pie charts and a data appendix, and discuss how the scale and harms of these systems can be minimized.

New Human Rights for Kids report documents those imprisoned for crimes committed as children

The group Human Rights for Kids has released this big new report titled "Crimes Against Humanity: The Mass Incarceration of Children in the US." Here is part of the report's executive summary:

The extensive negative impact on children from our practice of transferring them into the adult criminal justice system and treating them as if they were adults has been well-documented by state and federal government agencies, researchers, advocates and the press. What has not been documented to date, is the extent of the impact of these policies. This report provides the first ever snapshot and national estimate of the number of people in our prisons who have been there since they were children.

We gathered data from 45 states on every individual currently incarcerated who was under the age of 18 at the time of their offense. Our findings revealed that U.S. prisons are filled with at least 32,359 individuals whose crimes were committed as children....

Beginning in the summer of 2021, we requested data from departments of corrections in all 50 states and the District of Columbia on individuals who are currently incarcerated in adult prisons who committed their offense when they were under the age of 18. We received data from 45 states. Our analysis surfaced trends and findings across sentence length, decade of incarceration, gender, race and ethnicity. In addition to aggregating the data, we also conducted a comparative analysis to highlight which state practices constituted the worst human rights violations across categories.

We are currently incarcerating approximately 32,359 individuals in ourprisons for crimes they committed as children.  Some were so young they were still subject to truancy laws, and an astonishing number weren’t even teenagers.  They comprise a full 3.1% of the United States’ overall state prison population –- the equivalent of an entire prison full of children in every state in the country.  Notably, this is close to the total number of children in youth prisons of 36,469.  We incarcerate more children as adults in our prison system than the total combined prison populations of Denmark, Iceland, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Norway, Sweden and Scotland.  In fact,there are more people in our prisons for crimes they committed as children than people in prison who committed their crimes as adults in 76.68% of the countries and independent territories in the world.

Longest sentence yet in Jan 6 case, 14+ years in federal prison, given to man with 38 priors

As reported in this Fox News piece, a "Kentucky man with a long criminal record was sentenced Friday to a record-setting 14 years in prison for attacking police officers with pepper spray and a chair as he stormed the U.S. Capitol with his wife." Here is more:

Peter Schwartz’s prison sentence is the longest so far among hundreds of Capitol riot cases.  The judge who sentenced Schwartz also handed down the previous longest sentence — 10 years — to a retired New York Police Department officer who assaulted a police officer outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.  Prosecutors had recommended a prison sentence of 24 years and 6 months for Schwartz, a welder.

U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta sentenced Schwartz to 14 years and two months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release.  Mehta said Schwartz was a "soldier against democracy" who participated in "the kind of mayhem, chaos that had never been seen in the country's history."

"You are not a political prisoner," the judge told him. "You're not somebody who is standing up against injustice or fighting against an autocratic regime."

Schwartz briefly addressed the judge before learning his sentence, saying, "I do sincerely regret the damage that Jan. 6 has caused to so many people and their lives."  The judge said he didn't believe Schwartz's statement, noting his lack of remorse. "You took it upon yourself to try and injure multiple police officers that day," Mehta said.

Schwartz was armed with a wooden tire knocker when he and his then-wife, Shelly Stallings, joined other rioters in overwhelming a line of police officers on the Capitol’s Lower West Terrace, where he threw a folding chair at officers. "By throwing that chair, Schwartz directly contributed to the fall of the police line that enabled rioters to flood forward and take over the entire terrace," prosecutor Jocelyn Bond wrote in a court filing.

Schwartz, 49, also armed himself with a police-issued "super soaker" canister of pepper spray and sprayed it at retreating officers.  to a tunnel entrance, Schwartz coordinated with two other rioters, Markus Maly and Jeffrey Brown, to spray an orange liquid toward officers clashing with the mob.  "While the stream of liquid did not directly hit any officer, its effect was to heighten the danger to the officers in that tunnel," Bond wrote....

Stallings pleaded guilty last year to riot-related charges and was sentenced last month to two years of incarceration.

Schwartz was tried with co-defendants Maly and Brown.  In December, a jury convicted all three of assault charges and other felony offenses.  Mehta sentenced Brown last Friday to four years and six months in prison.  Maly is scheduled to be sentenced June 9.

Schwartz’s attorneys requested a prison sentence of four years and six months.  They said his actions on Jan. 6 were motivated by a "misunderstanding" about the 2020 presidential election.  Then-President Donald Trump and his allies spread baseless conspiracy theories that Democrats stole the election from the Republican incumbent....

Schwartz was on probation when he joined the Jan. 6 riot. His criminal record includes a "jaw-dropping" 38 prior convictions since 1991, "several of which involved assaulting or threatening officers or other authority figures," Bond wrote....

The 10-year prison sentence that Mehta handed down in September to retired NYPD officer Thomas Webster had remained the longest until Friday.  Webster had used a metal flagpole to assault an officer and then tackled the same officer as the mob advanced toward the Capitol.

Sentencing Project releases new fact sheet on "Incarcerated Women and Girls"

The Sentencing Project this morning released this new six-page fact sheet titled simply "Incarcerated Women and Girls."  The document is full of data and graphics highlighting aspects of the reality that "the rate of growth for female imprisonment has been twice as high as that of men since 1980."  I recommend the full document, and here is some of its text:

Between 1980 and 2021, the number of incarcerated women increased by more than 525%, rising from a total of 26,326 in 1980 to 168,449 in 2021. While 2020 saw a substantial downsizing due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this trend reversed with a 10% increase in 2021.

Though many more men are in prison than women, the rate of growth for female imprisonment has been twice as high as that of men since 1980. There are approximately 976,000 women under the supervision of the criminal justice system....

In 2021, the imprisonment rate for Black women (62 per 100,000) was 1.6 times the rate of imprisonment for white women (38 per 100,000). Latinx women were imprisoned at 1.3 times the rate of white women (49 vs. 38 per 100,000).... Between 2000 and 2021, the rate of imprisonment in state and federal prisons declined by 70% for Black women, while the rate of imprisonment for white women rose by 12%....

The rate at which women are incarcerated varies greatly from state to state. At the national level, 47 out of every 100,000 women were in prison in 2021. The state with the highest rate of female imprisonment is Idaho (127) and the state with the lowest incarceration rate of women is Massachusetts (6).

Women in state prisons are more likely than men to be incarcerated for a drug or property offense. Twenty-five percent of women in prison have been convicted of a drug offense, compared to 12% of men in prison; 19% of incarcerated women have been convicted of a property crime, compared to 13% among incarcerated men. The proportion of imprisoned women convicted of a drug offense has increased from 12% in 1986 to 25% in 2020.

CCJ releases "How long is long enough?: Task force on long sentences final report"

I have repeatedly noted this post from last year discussing the Council of Criminal Justice's impressive Task Force on Long Sentences, in part because that Task Force for the better part of a year has been producing all sorts of important research and analysis concerning long sentences (see prior posts linked below).  And today I am excited to see that the Task Force's main report, titled "How long is long enough?," has been released today with 14 thoughtful recommendations.  Released along with this full report is this press release, which helps summarize the work of the Task Force and its report.  Here is how the press release starts:

As cities across the nation grapple with effective responses to increases in violent crime, a task force co-chaired by former U.S. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates and former U.S. Rep. Trey Gowdy today released a report outlining a comprehensive approach for the use of lengthy prison sentences in the United States. 

The report, How Long is Long Enough?, presents 14 recommendations to enhance judicial discretion in sentencing, promote individual and system accountability, reduce racial and ethnic disparities, better serve victims of crime, and increase public safety.  Defining long sentences as prison terms of 10 years or longer, the panel’s proposals include:

• Shifting savings from reductions in the use of long prison sentences to programs that prevent violence and address the trauma it causes individuals, families, and communities (Recommendation 1).
• Allowing judges to consider all relevant facts and circumstances when imposing a long sentence, and requiring that sentencing enhancements based on criminal history are driven by individualized assessments of risk and other factors (Recommendations 6 and 8)
• Providing selective “second look” sentence review opportunities and expanding access to sentence-reduction credits (Recommendations 11 and 12)
• Focusing penalties in drug cases on a person’s role in a trafficking organization, rather than the amount of drug involved, (Recommendation 7)
• Reducing recidivism by providing behavioral health services and other rehabilitative living conditions and opportunities in prison (Recommendations 3 and 13)
• Strengthening services for all crime victims and survivors by enforcing victims’ rights, removing barriers to services, and creating restorative justice opportunities (Recommendations 2, 4, and 9)

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" 
• CCJ releases "Long sentences, better outcomes: Opportunities to improve prison programming" 
• CCJ report explores "The Relationship Between Sentence Length, Time Served, and State Prison Population Levels" 

"The 'Cruel and Unusual' Legacy of the Star Chamber"

The title of this post is the title of this new article authored by Donald Dripps and now available via SSRN.  Here is its abstract:

Supreme Court justices have read the “cruel and unusual punishments” clause as prohibiting torturous methods of punishment, prohibiting grossly disproportionate punishments, and/or prohibiting arbitrary discretion over the infliction of the death penalty.

All three accounts face familiar and formidable historical challenges.  There is general agreement that the founders took the clause from Article 10 of the English Bill of Rights, and that Article 10 repudiated the horrific sentence passed on Titus Oates by the infamous Judge Jeffreys in 1685.  Each of the major interpretations fails to account for important pieces of the Oates puzzle.

The methods of punishment inflicted on Oates were two days of horrific flogging, recurring stands in the pillory, and life imprisonment.  These methods were not capital, were not unusual in 1685, and were all included in the Crimes Act passed by the First Congress.  Oates’s sentence was not, by contemporary standards, disproportionate. His perjuries caused the executions of numerous innocents, quite possibly by torture.  By the standards of the times, he deserved hanging.

The Eighth Amendment, however, responded to anti-federalist fears that Congress might adopt torturous methods of capital punishment.  Prevailing theories fail to account for the disconnect between what the English provision did and what the American provision meant to do.

This Article argues that prevailing accounts are breathtakingly incomplete.  The full story begins not with the flogging of Titus Oates in 1685, but with the abolition of the Star Chamber in 1641.  Sentencing Oates, Jeffreys claimed for King's Bench all the Star Chamber's lawless power to determine punishments less than capital.  The English Article 10 repudiated this attempt to resurrect the Star Chamber.  Then Congress, responding to anti-federalist fears about Congress adopting European-style executions by torture, freighted the "cruel and unusual" language with two additional meanings.  The clause now applied to capital, as well as noncapital, penalties.  It now also restricted legislative as well as judicial discretion.  Synthesizing the English original and the later concerns of the American founders, the Eighth Amendment forbids lawless discretion in both capital and noncapital cases, and torturous methods of punishment.  Proportionality was left to the legislature, subject to the powerful check provided by a constitutional requirement of even-handed enforcement.

At a time when the Court is reconsidering longstanding precedents from originalist premises, this account is not only a major advance in the academic literature.  It may also be, practically speaking, a matter of life and death.

"The Minimalist Alternative to Abolitionism: Focusing on the Non-dangerous Many"

The title of this post is the title of this new essay authored by Christopher Slobogin now available via SSRN.  Here is its abstract:

In The Dangerous Few: Taking Prison Abolition and Its Skeptics Seriously, published in the Harvard Law Review, Thomas Frampton proffers four reasons why those who want to abolish prisons should not budge from their position even for offenders who are considered dangerous.  This essay demonstrates why a criminal law minimalist approach to prisons and police is preferable to abolition, not just when dealing with the dangerous few but also as a means of protecting the nondangerous many.  A minimalist regime can radically reduce reliance on both prisons and police, without the loss in crime prevention capacity and legitimacy that is likely to come with abolition.

Prior related post:

• "The Dangerous Few: Taking Seriously Prison Abolition and Its Skeptics" 

Prison Policy Initiative releases "Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2023"

Though not all pies taste the same on March 14, so-called "Pi Day," sentencing fans and criminal justice data fans should find today especially delicious because the amazing folks at the Prison Policy Initiative have now posted the latest, greatest version of PPI's amazing incarceration "pie" graphic and associated report.  The latest report "Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2023" provides a spectacular accounting of the particulars of who and how people are incarcerated in the United States.  As I have said in the past, the extraordinary "pies" produced by PPI impart more information in a couple of effective image than just about any other single resource I know about (and this PPI press release has the main visual and other highlights).  Here is part of this latest pie report's introductory text and the concluding discussion:

Can it really be true that most people in jail are legally innocent? How much of mass incarceration is a result of the war on drugs, or the profit motives of private prisons? How has the COVID-19 pandemic changed decisions about how people are punished when they break the law? These essential questions are harder to answer than you might expect. The various government agencies involved in the criminal legal system collect a lot of data, but very little is designed to help policymakers or the public understand what’s going on. As public support for criminal justice reform continues to build — and as the pandemic raises the stakes higher — it’s more important than ever that we get the facts straight and understand the big picture.

Further complicating matters is the fact that the U.S. doesn’t have one “criminal justice system;” instead, we have thousands of federal, state, local, and tribal systems. Together, these systems hold almost 2 million people in 1,566 state prisons, 98 federal prisons, 3,116 local jails, 1,323 juvenile correctional facilities, 181 immigration detention facilities, and 80 Indian country jails, as well as in military prisons, civil commitment centers, state psychiatric hospitals, and prisons in the U.S. territories.

This report offers some much-needed clarity by piecing together the data about this country’s disparate systems of confinement. It provides a detailed look at where and why people are locked up in the U.S., and dispels some modern myths to focus attention on the real drivers of mass incarceration and overlooked issues that call for reform....

The United States has the dubious distinction of having the highest incarceration rate in the world.  Looking at the big picture of the 1.9 million people locked up in the United States on any given day, we can see that something needs to change.  Both policymakers and the public have the responsibility to carefully consider each individual slice of the carceral “pie” and ask whether legitimate social goals are served by putting each group behind bars, and whether any benefit really outweighs the social and fiscal costs.

Even narrow policy changes, like reforms to bail, can meaningfully reduce our society’s use of incarceration. At the same time, we should be wary of proposed reforms that seem promising but will have only minimal effect, because they simply transfer people from one slice of the correctional “pie” to another or needlessly exclude broad swaths of people. Keeping the big picture in mind is critical if we hope to develop strategies that actually shrink the “whole pie.”

Brennan Center publishes "A Proposal to Reduce Unnecessary Incarceration: Introducing the Public Safety and Prison Reduction Act"

The folks at the Brennan Center for Justice have a new report available here authored by Hernandez D. Stroud, Lauren-Brooke Eisen, and Ram Subramanian titled "A Proposal to Reduce Unnecessary Incarceration: Introducing the Public Safety and Prison Reduction Act."  Here is part of the report's introduction:

According to a 2016 Brennan Center for Justice report, nearly 40 percent of the U.S. prison population is incarcerated without any compelling public safety justification. Incarceration degrades people’s humanity, disrupts their social networks, and causes lifelong social and financial disadvantage through restricted access to education, jobs, and housing.  It also devastates families and communities, disproportionately affecting society’s most marginalized segments.

Reforms have reduced the population behind bars from its 2009 peak, yet an astonishing level of incarceration persists: today over 1.2 million people are confined to federal and state prisons, and just over 636,000 more are locked up in local jails.  Few states have achieved significant reductions in their prison populations, and in some places these populations have begun to grow again.

For a half century, the federal government has harnessed its grant-making power to spur states to incarcerate more people and to impose longer sentences, making the United States the most punitive country in the world.  It can now use that same funding power to reverse course.  The idea of using federal funding to reduce incarceration is not new, but recent programs have had mixed results.  For example, between 2010 and 2017, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Justice Reinvestment Initiative (JRI) provided state and local governments with technical assistance and direct funding to reduce their prison populations.  But this funding did not always produce the intended outcome....

Yet since assuming office in 2021, the Biden administration, while retaining JRI’s focus on recidivism reduction, now specifically allows grant money to support efforts to reduce incarceration for new crimes or technical violations of community supervision.  And more recently, in August 2022, as part of his 2023 budget proposal to Congress, President Biden unveiled a grant program called Accelerating Justice System Reform, which would dedicate $15 billion over 10 years for jurisdictions to implement crime prevention and public health approaches to public safety.

Building on this momentum, the Brennan Center for Justice calls on Congress to enact a new, $1 billion federal funding program, called the Public Safety and Prison Reduction Act, to channel money to states with the goal of reducing unnecessary incarceration while promoting humane and fair criminal-justice policies that preserve public safety.  The proposal, based on a previous Brennan Center policy solution — the Reverse Mass Incarceration Act — was crafted in consultation with a variety of stakeholders, including formerly incarcerated individuals.

Prison Policy Initiative reports on "Women’s Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2023"

The folks at Prison Policy Initiative has released its latest update in its incarceration pie series with this new report titled "Women’s Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2023" authored by By Aleks Kajstura and Wendy Sawyer. Everyone should click through to see all the great graphics that go with report, and here are parts of text toward the start and at the very end of the report:

With growing public attention to the problem of mass incarceration, people want to know about women’s experiences with incarceration.  How many women are held in prisons, jails, and other correctional facilities in the United States? Why are they there?  How are their experiences different from men’s?  Further, how has the COVID-19 pandemic changed the number of women behind bars?  These are important questions, but finding those answers requires not only disentangling the country’s decentralized and overlapping criminal legal systems, but also unearthing the frustratingly limited data that’s broken down by gender.

This report provides a detailed view of the 172,700 women and girls incarcerated in the United States, and how they fit into the even broader picture of correctional control.  We pull together data from a number of government agencies and break down the number of women and girls held by each correctional system by specific offense.  In this updated report, we’ve also gone beyond the numbers, using rare self-reported data from a national survey of people in prison, to offer new insights about incarcerated women’s backgrounds, families, health, and experiences in prison. This report, produced in collaboration with the ACLU’s Campaign for Smart Justice, answers the questions of why and where women are locked up....

Most notably, and in stark contrast to the total incarcerated population, where the state prison systems hold twice as many people as are held in jails, more incarcerated women are held in jails than in state prisons.  As we will explain, the outsized role of jails has serious consequences for incarcerated women and their families.

Women’s incarceration has grown at twice the pace of men’s incarceration in recent decades, and has disproportionately been located in local jails.  The data needed to explain exactly what happened, when, and why do not yet exist, not least because the data on women has long been obscured by the larger scale of men’s incarceration. Frustratingly, even as this report is updated using the same data sources from year to year, it is not a direct tool for tracking changes in women’s incarceration over time because we are forced to rely on the limited sources available, which are neither updated regularly nor always compatible across years....

The picture of women’s incarceration is far from complete, and many questions remain about mass incarceration’s unique impact on women. This report offers the critical estimate that a quarter of all incarcerated women are unconvicted. But — since the federal government hasn’t collected the key underlying data in almost 20 years — is that number growing? And how do the harms of that unnecessary incarceration intersect with women’s disproportionate caregiving to impact families? Beyond these big picture questions, there are a plethora of detailed data points that are not reported for women by any government agencies, such as the simple number of women incarcerated in U.S. territories or involuntarily committed to state psychiatric hospitals because of justice system involvement.

While more data is needed, the data in this report lends focus and perspective to the policy reforms needed to end mass incarceration without leaving women behind.

CCJ report explores "The Relationship Between Sentence Length, Time Served, and State Prison Population Levels"

I keep noting this post from last 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 important research and analysis concerning long sentences (see prior posts linked below).  The latest report, which is available here, is authored by Gerald Gaes and Julia Laskorunsky and is titled "The Relationship Between Sentence Length, Time Served, and State Prison Population Levels."  Here is the part of the report's introduction and "key takeaways": 

Previous research for the Task Force shows that in recent years the share of the total U.S. prison population with sentences of 10 or more years has increased, driven by fewer people serving shorter terms.  In 2019, 57% of people in prison were serving a long sentence, up from 46% in 2005.  Over the same period, there was a 60% increase in the average amount of time served by people with long sentences.

This work builds on research conducted as part of the Robina Institute of Criminal Law and Criminal Justice’s Prison Release: Degrees of Indeterminacy (DOI) project, which examined the statutory and administrative policy frameworks that govern prison release (and thus time served) in each state, evaluated how these policies produced sizeable changes to time served in Colorado, and explored how back-end release discretion affects prison population levels across the United States.  This brief summarizes the relevant findings from the DOI project and provides additional analysis of the relationship between sentence length and time served.

Key Takeaways

• Actual time served in prison is often quite different from the sentence length pronounced in court, and therefore sentence length alone only partially explains the individual and policy-level implications of long sentences.
• The relationship between sentence length and time served varies greatly across states and jurisdictions due to the difference in the legal and statutory framework that governs prison release.
• States that have higher than average sentence length also have higher than average time served, but the relationship between these two factors is modest.
• The average judicial maximum sentence in states with highly indeterminate systems (7 years) is twice as long as in highly determinate states (3.5 years). However, the difference in average time served in highly indeterminate and highly determinate states is much narrower, ranging between 2.1 and 2.6 years.
• Some states are much more likely to impose long prison sentences than others. The proportion of people entering prison with long sentences ranges from 2% in Colorado to 66% in Michigan.
• Individuals serving long sentences in states with highly determinate systems spend, on average, nearly three times as long in prison as individuals serving long sentences in states with highly indeterminate systems.
• Nationally, back-end factors such as the allocation of sentence credit discounts, and for paroling states, the parole release framework explain more of the variation (60%) of average time served than variation in average sentence length (40%).
• States with identical average sentence length can have different average time served based on the degree of indeterminacy and back-end factors. For example, Oregon and Texas both had an average sentence length of 4.4 years in 2016, yet the average time served in Texas (2.1 years), a state with a high degree of indeterminacy, was lower than in Oregon (3.5 years), a state with a low degree of indeterminacy.

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

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" 

New Sentencing Project report: "Counting Down: Paths to a 20-Year Maximum Prison Sentence"

The folks at the Sentencing Project have long advocated for an absolute limit on the length of prison terms, and this new 20-page report on the topic is titled "Counting Down: Paths to a 20-Year Maximum Prison Sentence."  Here is part of the report's executive summary:

In the United States, over half of people in prison are serving a decade or longer and one in seven incarcerated people are serving a life sentence.  To end mass incarceration, the United States must dramatically shorten sentences. Capping sentences for the most serious offenses at 20 years and shifting sentences for all other offenses proportionately downward, including by decriminalizing some acts, is a vital decarceration strategy to arrive at a system that values human dignity and prioritizes racial equity.

This report begins by examining the evidence in support of capping sentences at 20 years.  Countries such as Germany and Norway illustrate that sentences can be far shorter without sacrificing public safety.  A wealth of criminological evidence makes clear that unduly long sentences are unnecessary: people age out of crime, and even the general threat of long term imprisonment is an ineffective deterrent.

The Sentencing Project recommends the following seven legislative reforms to cap sentences at 20 years and right-size the sentencing structure:

1. Abolish death and life without parole (LWOP) sentences, limiting maximum sentences to 20 years.

2. Limit murder statutes to intentional killings, excluding offenses such as felony murder, and reduce homicide penalties.

3. Eliminate mandatory minimum sentences and reform sentencing guidelines to ensure that judges can use their discretion to consider mitigating circumstances.

4. Provide universal access to parole and ensure timely review.

5. Eliminate consecutive sentences and limit sentence enhancements, including repealing “truth-in-sentencing” and “habitual offender” laws.

6. Create an opportunity for judicial “second look” resentencing within a maximum of 10 years of imprisonment, regardless of an individual’s offense.

7. Shift all sentences downward, including by de-felonizing many offenses and decriminalizing many misdemeanors.

Finally, this report offers ideas for how stakeholders can take steps toward shrinking sentences today.  Prosecuting attorneys can use their discretion to limit sentences to 20 years when charging and plea bargaining, as well as engage in sentence review.  Judges can impose lower sentences where possible.  And communities can invest in interventions that prevent long sentences by keeping people from entering or reentering the criminal legal system altogether. Limiting maximum terms to 20 years need not be the end goal of criminal legal reform — 20 years is still an extraordinary length of time in prison — but it is an essential step toward a fair and proportionate justice system.

Vera Institute of Justice presents "A New Paradigm for Sentencing in the United States"

I am very pleased to see the official publication of this very interesting new report authored by Marta Nelson, Samuel Feineh and Maris Mapolski of the Vera Institute of Justice. I had the good fortune to see an early draft of this provocative document, and I hope it gets widely read and generates considerable discussion and debate. Here is a small portion of the lengthy report's executive summary:

This report posits that maintaining our system of mass incarceration will not bring people in the United States the safety and justice they deserve, while dismantling it in favor of a narrowly tailored sentencing response to unlawful behavior can produce more safety, repair harm, and reduce incarceration by close to 80 percent, according to modeling on the federal system.  In this report, the Vera Institute of Justice (Vera) addresses a main driver of mass incarceration: our sentencing system, or what happens to people after they have gone through the criminal legal system and are convicted of a crime.  The report

› provides a review of the history of sentencing in this country;

› summarizes the research and evidence surrounding sentencing’s impact on individual and community safety;

› offers new guiding principles that legislators should consider in place of the current primary reliance on deterrence, retribution, and excessive use of incapacitation;

› outlines seven key sentencing reforms in line with these guiding principles;

› models the impact of these reforms on both public safety and mass incarceration; and

› suggests a “North Star” for sentencing policy with a legal presumption toward community-based sentences except in limited circumstances....

Our current sentencing system defaults to putting most people convicted of crimes behind bars.  In 2006 in the United States — the last year in which national sentencing data was gathered — 70 percent of people convicted of state felonies ended up in prison; in the federal system, 90 percent of people convicted in 2019 did....

This default to incarceration does not build safety.  A 2021 meta-analysis of 116 studies found that custodial sentences not only do not prevent reoffending, but they can also actually increase it.  Explanations include that stripping neighborhoods of so many vital residents, including parents and breadwinners, can destabilize neighborhoods, and that the brutality of U.S. prisons, as well as the lack of opportunities after release, can negatively affect people’s behavior toward others while incarcerated — and afterward.

So how do we significantly change course? As a starting place, we must move away from retribution, deterrence, heavy reliance on incapacitation, and rehabilitation as the cornerstones of sentencing theory, policy, and practice.  These justifications for sentencing have been in currency for more than 200 years but are seldom scrutinized.  It is time to do so.

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.

"We Can Ensure Public Safety And Still Reduce Incarceration"

The title of this post is the title of this new Law360 piece authored by Jeffrey Bellin.  The full piece is worth a full read (in part to see citations for various claims), and here are excerpts:

Between 1982 and 2010, the total amount spent by states on incarceration, including parole and probation, rose from $15 billion a year to $48.5 billion annually.  Between 1980 and 2013, annual federal corrections spending grew from under $1 billion to almost $7 billion.

That's why reducing jail and prison populations shouldn't be controversial.  It is mass incarceration that is the radical, expensive and unproven government policy.  And it is a policy that the country chose largely by accident.  In the early 1970s, this country's incarceration and crime rates were low and unremarkable. Then, a temporary crime spike spurred a new age of bipartisan penal severity....

There is, in fact, little correlation between violent crime and harsh or lenient criminal justice policies.  Understanding the past — and the unnecessary choices that this country made in response to the 1970s crime spike — is the best hope for a different future.

Sexual violence, armed robberies and murders were all serious crimes prior to the 1970s and were vigorously prosecuted.  But that's where the similarities between past and present end.  We didn't use to arrest, much less prosecute, so many drug offenders. We didn't use to hold so many people in jail prior to trial.  We used to sentence people to shorter prison terms.  And we relied on parole boards to let people out of prison, ensuring that prisons did not, as now, fill with the sick and elderly....

We used to be better at preventing violence and better at solving serious crimes, probably because that is where law enforcement focused its resources.  The people who suffer the brunt of violent crime typically embrace that focus — and their cooperation is a key factor in reducing crime.

When the police are viewed as working to solve and prevent serious violent crimes, the community turns out to support those efforts.  But if officers are viewed as arbitrary, incompetent and worse, the witnesses they rely on to help solve serious crimes become less likely to volunteer information.

While it is important to focus on reducing violent crime, there is no evidence that reembracing the policies that fueled mass incarceration will do that.  Those policies may even prove counterproductive.  For example, a December 2021 study from the Cato Institute found that certain prosecutions actually increased, rather than decreased, the likelihood of future crime.

We should put aside tough-on-crime rhetoric and focus on preventing violence in more promising ways, like those offered by the Council on Criminal Justice's Violent Crime Working Group to prevent gun violence before it happens.

The emerging resistance to criminal justice reforms illustrate not the merit of tough-on-crime policies, but the stubborn rhetorical appeal of the policies that fuel mass incarceration.  These policies are everywhere, the result of countless changes to local, state and federal laws and processes that emerged over decades.  A few of those changes targeted the violent crimes that grab the headlines, but most did not.

This complexity means that while there is no silver-bullet solution to our overreliance on incarceration, we can continue to reduce prison and jail populations without threatening public safety.

Our current incarceration rate — over 500 incarcerated per 100,000 people — still far exceeds our long-standing historical rate of around 100 per 100,000, as well as the incarceration rates of other, lower-crime countries, including England, France, Germany and Japan.  As our own history and the much lower incarceration rates around the world reveal, we do not need to choose between less violence and less incarceration.  We can have both.

UPDATE: Thanks to social media, I just saw that Keith Humphries authored a similar commentary just published in the Washington Monthly.  The full title of this new piece highlights its themes: "Violent Crime and Mass Incarceration Must be Tackled Together: Conservatives and liberals need to hear each other for us to become a low-crime, low-incarceration society. There are policies that can help." Here is the commentary's closing paragraph:

At the risk of sounding like I’m to break out into the chorus of Kumbaya, there is a rational way forward for both sides to move America into the low-crime, low-incarceration quadrant populated by most other developed nations.  This would require the tough-on-crime camp to give up on the idea that more incarceration will reduce violence and the anti-incarceration camp to stop minimizing violent crime in America.  (“It was worse in the 1980s,” a familiar refrain, is of no comfort to today’s grieving families of murder victims.)  Instead, both sides could rally around the range of health (e.g., expanding Medicaid), law enforcement (e.g., focused deterrence), and tax policies (e.g., raising the price of alcohol) that have good evidence of reducing violent crime, which in turn will reduce incarceration.  This policy agenda will require a broad coalition.  The first step towards that is for everyone in the debate to recognize that the people they’ve been yelling at have a good point, too.

"Joe Biden Hasn’t Kept His Promise to Reduce the Prison Population"

The title of this post is the title of this new opinion piece in the Daily Beast authored by Nazgol Ghandnoosh and Bill Underwood.  Here are excerpts:

For thousands of people in federal prisons and their loved ones, the last session of Congress ended on a heartbreaking note.  Despite high hopes and bipartisan support for several sentencing bills, Congress failed to pass any meaningful reform during 2022.

That repeated failure — coupled with the Bureau of Prisons’ refusal to make adequate use of compassionate release, and President Joe Biden’s limited use of executive clemency — has translated into the federal prison population increasing for the past two years (after nearly a decade in decline), despite the president’s promise to cut it by half.

This year, Congress must do better.  It’s time to pass the EQUAL Act, the First Step Implementation Act, and the COVID-19 Safer Detention Act.

We know firsthand the profound need for sentencing reform.  One of us served 33 years of a life sentence in federal prison before receiving compassionate release.  The other is a sentencing researcher who has documented the growth and harms of lengthy prison sentences. We’ve lived and studied the dramatic rise in the federal prison population and we know the urgency of finding solutions.

Federal prisons imprisoned 25,000 people in 1980.  Today, they imprison more than six times that — nearly 160,000 people. (Fortunately, today’s count does represent a 27 percent reduction from 2013, when the population was at its peak of 219,000 people.)

The past decade of legislative reforms and policy changes, amplified during the early pandemic, have downsized federal prisons. But in the absence of new reforms by Congress and bold action by the administration, the federal prison population has grown again for the past two years.

VERA Institute provides first-person accounts of "The Human Toll of Jail"

Via email today I learned that the Vera Institute of Justice has launched another round of first-person essays about jail experienced under the titled "The Human Toll of Jail."  Here is how the project is introduced on the site's main webpage (with links from the original):

Every year, people cycle through the revolving doors of the more than 3,000 jails operating in the United States — too often invisible to the public.  But the truth of this hidden population is that the roughly 10.3 million annual U.S. jail admissions cause immense harm and disruption to people’s lives, families, and communities.

In 2016, the Vera Institute of Justice launched the Human Toll of Jail project to humanize the costs of incarceration and uplift true stories about people whose lives are affected by jail, in their own words.  The project featured essays by people who had spent time in jail, their families and communities, and people who work in the system.

In 2023, mass incarceration continues to be the default setting of the U.S. “justice” system, and the conversation about the misuse of jails isn’t over.  Vera has now partnered with PEN America’s Prison and Justice Writing program to embark on a second round of stories from people living the harsh realities of life behind bars.

Together, Vera and PEN invited submissions from currently incarcerated people, who give an up-close and honest view of life within U.S. jails today.  From a wide-ranging pool of submissions, a selection committee chose eight winners, whose work appears here with custom illustrations inspired by each essay.  With these personal and eye-opening essays, Vera and PEN America seek to amplify the voices of incarcerated writers, further conversations about the horrors and trauma of jail, and ultimately, ensure that people in the system are treated with dignity.

"Where people in prison come from: The geography of mass incarceration"

The title of this post is the title of this new report from the Prison Policy Initiative authored by Emily Widra. Here is how the data-heavy report gets started:

One of the most important criminal legal system disparities in the United States has long been difficult to decipher: Which communities and neighborhoods throughout the state do incarcerated people come from?  Anyone who lives in or works within heavily policed and incarcerated communities intuitively knows that certain neighborhoods disproportionately experience incarceration.  But data have rarely been available to quantify how many people from each community are imprisoned with any real precision.

But now, thanks to redistricting reforms that ensure incarcerated people are counted correctly in the legislative districts they come from, we can understand the geography of incarceration in twelve states with up-to-date data. These twelve states — California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Washington — are among the states that have ended prison gerrymandering, and now count incarcerated people where they legally reside — at their home address — rather than in remote prison cells.  This type of reform, as we often discuss, is crucial for ending the siphoning of political power from disproportionately Black and Latino communities to pad out the mostly rural, predominantly white regions where prisons are located.  And when reforms like these are implemented, they bring along a convenient side effect: In order to correctly represent each community’s population counts, states must collect detailed state-wide data on where imprisoned people call home, which is otherwise impossible to access.

These data also allow us to better understand how incarceration rates correlate with other community problems related to poverty, employment, education, and health.  While the data is not comparable between states, it does show us meaningful patterns in incarceration and researchers, scholars, advocates, and politicians can use the data in this report to advocate for programs and services housed outside the criminal legal system in the communities that need them most.

"A World Without Prosecutors"

The title of this post is the title of this new essay now on SSRN authored by Jeffrey Bellin.  Here is its abstract:

This Essay is part of a Symposium of responses to Bennett Capers’ provocative article, Against Prosecutors.  Capers proposes to (largely) abolish public prosecutors, a reform he suggests would slash the number of people incarcerated, particularly for drug crimes, and return the power of prosecution to the people.

Using data from my new book, Mass Incarceration Nation, this Essay suggests that Capers' proposal is unlikely to have the promised benefits because it targets only one of the many drivers of American criminal law.  Prosecutors matter. But they are one piece of a large and complex puzzle.  And most importantly, prosecutors are primarily reactive, responding to the laws enacted by legislators and the arrests made by police.  Capers’ proposal makes perfect sense if prosecutors are truly the one thing responsible for mass incarceration and the primary driver of drug enforcement.  If, however, politicians and police are also (or even primarily) pushing the “tough on crime” agenda, jettisoning public prosecutors becomes a murky policy prescription and may prove counterproductive.

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.