In PrisonAbout 2.4 million people are locked up in the United States. Many people are in prisons and jails because of mental health issues or substance abuse problems, problems that are only made worse by being locked up and especially by solitary confinement - also known as administrative segregation, etc.
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I saw a lot of mentally ill people that should have been in psychiatric care instead of a prison" |
Actual Statistics about US Prison System
Sentencing project: "There are 2.2 million people in the nation’s prisons and jails—a 500% increase over the last 40 years. Changes in law and policy, not changes in crime rates, explain most of this increase. The results are overcrowding in prisons and fiscal burdens on states, despite increasing evidence that large-scale incarceration is not an effective means of achieving public safety."
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Sentencing project: "There are 2.2 million people in the nation’s prisons and jails—a 500% increase over the last 40 years. Changes in law and policy, not changes in crime rates, explain most of this increase. The results are overcrowding in prisons and fiscal burdens on states, despite increasing evidence that large-scale incarceration is not an effective means of achieving public safety."
Click here for more facts
ResourcesFast and furious
Horrific deaths, brutal treatment: Mental illness in America's jails (Article) The Virginia-Pilot: "Examining how people with mental illness die in jail is key to understanding how the criminal justice system treats them in the United States, said Elizabeth Sinclair, director of research and public affairs for the Treatment Advocacy Center, a mental health advocacy group based in Arlington." In US Prisons, Women Disciplined More than Men for Minor Offenses (Article) WTTW: "Women in prison are disciplined more frequently for minor offenses than their male counterparts in some state prison systems, including those in Illinois, according to an investigation published by NPR and the Chicago Reporter." More In-Depth United States Still Has Highest Incarceration Rate in the World: Equal Justice Initiative (Report) New prison and jail population data released this week by the United States Department of Justice shows the United States still incarcerates its citizens at a rate 5 to 10 times higher than other industrialized countries. Some 2.27 million people were incarcerated in jails and prisons across the country in 2017 —a 500% increase over the last 40 years. The Long Term: Resisting Life Sentences, Working Toward Freedom (Book) Long Term Offenders, or LTOs, is the state’s term for those it condemns to effective death by imprisonment. ... The Long Term brings these often silenced voices to light, offering a powerful indictment of the prison-industrial complex from activists, scholars, and those directly surviving and resisting these sentences. Locked Down, Locked Out: Why Prison Doesn’t Work and How We Can Do Better (Book) Locked Down, Locked Out draws from hundreds of texts, research studies and interviews to support Schenwar’s position about the dysfunctional state of our nation’s criminal justice system. But it’s her first-hand knowledge of her sister’s time spent locked up that makes this one of the most intriguing books about the prison experience you will ever read. Multimedia RIKERS: An American Jail (Video) A riveting documentary from Bill Moyers brings you face to face with men and women who have endured being locked up at Rikers Island. Written Inside: Stories About Prison Cells (Podcast) Written Inside is a podcast about life inside a maximum-security prison cell. Adapted from essays written at Stateville Correctional Center near Chicago, these intimate stories speak to the everyday experience of being incarcerated. Each inmate's story is voiced by a Chicago actor. Created by journalist Alex Kotlowitz and produced by WBEZ Chicago. |