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(BLM convo begins at about 11min.)

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Ice Cube Talks 2016, the Clintons and Black Lives Matter

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Audio: PBS Private prisons versus Public prisons

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Audio: PBS Private prisons versus Public prisons

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Taft is one of the 11 low-security federal prisons run by MTC or two larger private prison companies, CoreCivic and the GEO Group. Saving money was one reason the government initially turned to private prisons. The Bureau of Prisons says they cost, on average, 17 dollars a day less per prisoner to operate, suggesting those 11 facilities save taxpayers 144 million dollars a year.

A 2016 study by the Brookings Institution found those savings are achieved primarily by hiring fewer correctional officers and paying them less.

Another reason for turning to private prisons was overcrowding. Between 1980 to 2013, with the advent of harsher sentencing laws like mandatory minimums for drug crimes the federal prison population increased eight-fold. A big part of that increase was a massive spike in prosecutions of immigrants accused of coming back to the U-S after deportation, or "illegal re-entry". The BOP relies on those 11 private prisons, like Taft, to house non-citizen offenders.

At two of those prisons, in Texas and in Mississippi, there were riots in 2009 and 2012 following the deaths of several inmates in custody.

The incidents sparked investigations by Justice Department's Inspector General, Michael Horowitz.

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Private prisons help with overcrowding, but at what cost?

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The Obama administration last year announced it would phase out privately-run prisons, citing little benefits to public safety and higher rates of assault and violence on the inside. The Trump administration reversed that decision while pointing to potential increases in crime and issues of overcrowding, resurfacing a debate about which strategy is more effective.

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American Black Journal | Mass Incarceration: Pathways to Prison | Season 45 | Episode 25

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A look at the One Detroit special that examines mass incarceration. Ep 4525/Seg 3.

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america still locks up more people than anywhere else in the world  - cnn

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The US still incarcerates more people than any other country

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The United States incarcerates more people than any other country in the world. Here are five key facts to better understand the issue.

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Beyoncé - Black Lives Matter (Freedom Video)

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MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

The awards season is upon us and soon you'll hear all kinds of interviews and talk about films all in search of that elusive Oscar buzz. Well, one film is already generating that buzz and the topic might surprise you. It's called "13TH." It's the latest offering from director Ava DuVernay. You might remember that last year her film "Selma" was nominated for two Academy Awards. Well, "13TH" is different. It is a documentary about the weighty topic of mass incarceration. It was just named to the shortlist for an Oscar in the documentary category. You can see it on Netflix now. And the film makes the case that the American criminal justice system really serves as a strategy to control black and brown people - in essence, slavery by another name.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "13TH")

KEVIN GANNON: The 13th Amendment to the Constitution makes it unconstitutional for someone to be held as a slave. In other words, it grants freedom to all Americans. There are exceptions, including criminals.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: There's a clause, a loophole.

GANNON: If you have that embedded in the structure in this Constitutional language, then it's there to be used as a tool for whichever purposes one wants to use it.

MARTIN: And Ava DuVernay is with us now from member station KQED in San Francisco. Ava DuVernay, thank you so much for speaking with us.

AVA DUVERNAY: Thank you for speaking with me.

MARTIN: You know, your film makes an argument, which will be familiar to some people, but which will be quite provocative to others, that actually the way we use the criminal justice system in this country, particularly the way we use incarceration, is really an extension of slavery, that it's a form of racialized control. And you can see where a lot of people might think, you know, wait a minute, you know, what do you mean? You commit a crime, you go to prison, it doesn't matter what color you are.

DUVERNAY: Yeah, that's why I made this film to answer people who think that. I mean, it's such a complicated answer. The film really unravels the fact that that kind of thinking is too small. That kind of statement really means that you have no context for what you're thinking. And that's not to make anyone feel bad. It's to say we can do better. You can have a more deeply rooted and nuanced knowledge of the fact that, you know, every person who is in prison is not a criminal, that all crimes are not created equal, that all sentences are not equal. And the idea behind "13TH" is to give people that context so that we don't make uninformed statements, that we can all work from a place of knowledge to try to get to a place where we just do better as Americans.

MARTIN: You know, the film really opens with one big idea, which is that 25 percent of the people in the world who are incarcerated are incarcerated in the United States. Was your basic idea here to make people think about this in a new way, or was it that people really don't know the facts and that you're trying to present the facts in a way that would - they would be able to kind of receive it if the way - in the way that perhaps they don't through just reading the paper every day or watching the evening news?

DUVERNAY: Yeah, the documentary was built for two different kinds of audiences - folks out there that know about this and folks out there that have never heard of it. For folks out there that know about it, the feedback that I've got and what my intention was was to put it all in one place because when you see everything lined up, some of the things that we know from various books and documentaries of great thinkers out there, when everything is lined up back to back, it paints a different picture. There's something that's illuminated when you put it all together as a whole. So that was one way that I constructed the documentary. The other way that my editors Spencer Averick and I went about it was to the person that has not heard nothing about this, that thinks that prison is a place where bad people go and that's that, to give them a just a primer to think more deeply about, become more educated about, just have a broader base of knowledge about the criminal justice system as it stands right now and as it has stood for many decades.

MARTIN: I just wondered if you ever felt intimidated, you know, by the subject.

DUVERNAY: Oh, yeah.

MARTIN: It's such a big subject and so many people have written about it, really, through the centuries from all perspectives. And so I just wondered if you ever felt intimidated.

DUVERNAY: I always felt intimidated - intimidated every single day, you know, up until the moment that we first showed it to anyone and still now, you know. I don't feel like it's an end-all-be-all for this topic at all. It's an entry point for a lot of people who just never have been invited to think more deeply about it. Very intimidating, but sometimes you've got to step into the gap and do it anyway.

MARTIN: But it is interesting that Te-Nehisi Coates, for example, the writer whose book "Between The World And Me" made such a splash last year with, you know, National Book Award winner, and now your film taking on issues that, really, frankly, politicians, activists have been talking about for years. But there just seems to be something about the way you've approached it that has allowed people to say, wait a minute, you know, to take a fresh look. I wonder why do you think that is?

DUVERNAY: I don't know, but I'm excited to be a part of this time with Coates, with, you know, Lin-Manuel Miranda, with just artists from all walks of life all different formats and mediums trying to say something about this current moment. And folks are leaning in and listening and maybe consuming it in a way that feels emotional to them. I think a lot of the time we talk about these things in a very unemotional, clinical way, you know, where it feels like study. And I think what some of this new work is done has kind of peeled back that layer of kind of this is mandatory and this might feel like medicine and made it kind of go down a little more comfortably for some people. The good thing is that I think they're all still saying something. And the great thing is, I think, that this artwork allows people to investigate the academic renderings of these ideas more fully with a good base of knowledge, if that makes any sense.

MARTIN: Sure.

DUVERNAY: They're all just entryways to get people more interested about these things and more passionate about them in their own heart. And that was my goal and, you know, hopefully "13TH" gets people thinking about these issues.

MARTIN: Ava DuVernay is an Oscar-nominated director and screenwriter. Her documentary "13TH," which she also co-wrote is streaming on Netflix now. Ava DuVernay, thank you so much for speaking with us.

DUVERNAY: Thank you for having me, Michel.

Copyright © 2016 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio record.

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Documentary '13TH' Argues Mass Incarceration Is An Extension Of Slavery

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MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: The awards season is upon us and soon you'll hear all kinds of interviews and talk about films all in search of that elusive Oscar buzz. Well, one film is already generating that buzz and the topic might surprise you. It's called "13TH." It's the latest offering from director Ava DuVernay.

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Video: The Health Consequences of Mass Imprisonment for (Black) Women

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Video: The Health Consequences of Mass Imprisonment for (Black) Women

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#sayhername: The Health Consequences of Mass Imprisonment for (Black) Women

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How mandatory minimums helped drive mass incarceration

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Article: King County moves forward with new Youth Jail

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Article: King County moves forward with new Youth Jail

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Nikkita Oliver speaks at a July 17 No New Youth Jail press conference in front of the construction site of the King County Youth Detention Center. Photo by Josh Kelety

As construction moves ahead on the new King County youth detention center at 12th and Alder in the Central District, anti-incarceration activists continue the fight against the controversial project.

The $210 million youth detention center-which will replace the current facility in central Seattle-will feature 112 inmate beds and additional court rooms. King County officials refer to it as the "children and family justice center," while the activists opposing its construction have dubbed it a "youth jail." Ever since funding for the project was approved by voters in 2012, it has been one of the most contentious issues in Seattle politics, generating a sustained campaign of public protests and legal actions.

Activists argue that the new facility will perpetuate the disproportionate incarceration of youth of color; that youth detention is psychologically harmful to juveniles; and that the county should invest in alternatives to detention. County officials, on the other hand, claim that the existing aging detention center-parts of which date back to 1952-needs to be replaced and that overall youth incarceration has decreased over the years. (Minority youth are still disproportionately overrepresented among incarcerated youth in the detention center, however.)

At a July 17 press conference held in front of the project construction site, No New Youth Jail Coalition members touted the growing number of local organizations that oppose the new facility and decried the county's decision to push ahead with construction.

"We've sustained a campaign for six years and we are now at a point where 120 organizations-and still counting-to date have signed on to a moratorium saying that King County must stop building this building, that we must move into a period of redesign, and we must put something in place that heals and does not do harm," activist and former mayoral candidate Nikkita Oliver said at the event. "There is a growing consensus in King County that Dow's agenda to build this jail actually reflects Trump's agenda. That it reflects the same ideas of perpetuating a racist system that is built on the backs of black and brown bodies."

Elected officials-including Seattle City Councilmember Mike O'Brien and Federal City Councilmember Jesse Johnson-and representatives from organizations such as the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, Columbia Legal Services, and environmental advocacy group Got Green also stood by anti-incarceration activists to condemn the project.

"What we have realized-and what brain science now realizes-is that every person that is institutionalized is harmed; that in and of itself, locking someone up is inhumane," said Merf Ehman, executive director of Columbia Legal Services. "I call on Dow Constantine and our organizations to stop building this facility."

Research has supported the notion that youth detention is psychologically damaging and ultimately counterproductive to public-safety goals. A 2011 study by the federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (a subdivision of the U.S. Department of Justice) found that long-term incarceration of youth does not reduce the chance that they will reoffend. Other studies have shown that detention exacerbates existing mental and behavioral health conditions in youth, and in fact increases the odds of recidivism.

Malou Chavez, deputy director of the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, said at the press conference that the public should view the new youth detention center in the same negative light as the federal government's incarceration of undocumented immigrants. "Let's extend that same outrage and support to [youths] currently incarcerated and separated from their families here, and not just [the ones] in ICE custody," she said.

Attempts by activists to halt the project through the courts have had mixed results. Following the passage of the 2012 tax levy financing the project, years of continued public protest ensued. In 2016, Ending the Prison Industrial Complex (EPIC)-an anti-prison advocacy group that has been aggressively campaigning against the project-sued King County, arguing that the the county misled voters in their description of the 2012 tax levy.

The case has gone all the way to the state Supreme Court, and could pose serious financial problems for the county if the levy is invalidated. According to emails obtained by anti-youth jail activists through a public records request, King County Budget Director Dwight Dively told county staff that if the county were to lose this case before the state Supreme Court, they would have to turn to bonds for financing, and the annual debt service payments would have a "potentially catastrophic" effect on the county's general fund, which is already spread thin. (Alex Fryer, a spokesperson for Executive Constantine, declined to comment on the emails or on potential future financing issues.)

In 2017, EPIC also filed an appeal with the Seattle Hearing Examiner's Office to revoke a master-use permit issued to King County by the City of Seattle in December 2016, which allowed them to go ahead with construction of the facility. If the permit had been invalidated, construction on the project would've ground to a halt. (The facility is currently slated to open in 2019.)

But EPIC's appeal was dismissed by the hearing examiner, who argued that they didn't have the authority to weigh in on the permit. A subsequent appeal to the King County Superior Court was also dismissed on grounds that EPIC failed to file its appeal within a mandated time frame. The group then pushed the case to the state Court of Appeals, who affirmed the lower court's verdict on May 29. Knoll Lowney, EPIC's attorney on the case, told Seattle Weekly that while the group hasn't decided if they are going to further appeal this ruling, as it likely wouldn't halt construction of the project at this point. "[The county] keeps building, so it's unlikely that a permit appeal is going to have a lot of impact given how slow the Supreme Court works," he said. "The jail is being built. So, short of a judge requiring it to be torn down, it's unlikely that the overall envelope is going to be changed."

In the face of continued activist pressure, the county has maintained that they have to continue with the project while also attempting to appease activists' intent to eliminate the incarceration of youth in the county. Early last year, Executive Constantine directed county to pursue the goal of " zero youth detention," and then placed responsibility for restructuring the juvenile-detention system with King County Public Health. Then the county commissioned a review of the new facility's design from researchers at the University of Washington's Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. The analysis, authored by Eric Trupin (departmental vice chair and professor), suggested a slew of recommended architectural and programming changes (195 in total), such as reducing the overall number of secure beds from 124 to 92 to account for the declining average daily inmate population, which has fallen from 105 in 2006 to 51 in 2016. Additionally, Trupin called on the county to eliminate truancy beds, refuse the booking of youths under age 12, and extend family visitations to five a week instead of the current three.

Immediately after the report was published, King County Executive Executive Constantine tried to tame expectations for the timeline of achieving zero youth detention. "We cannot simply decide that as of tomorrow we will have zero detention because we don't have the kinds of robust alternatives or community facilities and programs we would need to be able to take on those kids and keep them safe and keep the community safe," he said, according to KUOW.

In Constantine's response to the report, his staff noted that the county is either already pursuing or will pursue several of the recommendations, such as adding wood paneling to the facility's interior (in a move away from the traditional aesthetics of American correctional facilities) and providing mandatory training to detention center staff and judges on cultural competence, implicit bias, institutional racism, and crisis intervention. Kelli Carroll, director of special projects in the executive's office, told Seattle Weekly that the county is implementing or will implement (even if only partially) at least 75 percent of the recommendations.

But Constantine wouldn't budge on some of Trupin's most crucial recommendations. His staff argued that the secure-bed count could not be reduced since the facility is already under construction, and that the suggested number would not provide enough separated secure spaces for 19 youth convicted as adults for serious felony charges (such as rape and first-degree murder) who were recently relocated to the existing youth detention center from county adult correctional facilities. On increasing family visitation hours and truancy beds, he argued that these policy decisions are in the purview of King County Department of Adult and Juvenile Correction and the state legislature, respectively. (A bill that would have eliminated the law allowing truant kids to be placed in detention stalled over the 2018 legislative session.)

Trupin told Seattle Weekly that the executive could be much more proactive and publicly vocal in pressuring county departments and lobbying state legislators to make the changes called for by Trupin and activists. "I think that executive leadership and energy and direction around these strategies has a great impact ... he can't necessarily dictate what the court does, but he conveys a mission and a vision," Trupin told Seattle Weekly. "I don't think 'Just saying this is out of our purview' is enough, because it is the county executive who laid out zero youth detention."

Omid Bagheri, a clinical instructor in the University of Washington School of Public Health and a critic of the new youth detention center, said that "They continue to move on with the same bed count. This new jail will look nicer, it will have a nicer name, but it still stands to uphold a system that directly impacts black and brown and Native youth. That isn't fundamentally different from other jails we've seen around the country," he told Seattle Weekly. "The commitment to zero youth detention, that is calling for a fundamental change, and this jail is not a fundamental change."

The county is currently developing a "Zero Youth Detention Road Map" report due at the end of August 2018, which will reportedly inform future reforms.

But for activists, all the county's alleged attempts at reform feel hypocritical when the county is still investing in a new detention center. "It's not too late for Dow to change his mind. and it's not too late for us to change course," said Oliver. "All Dow has to do is listen to the community voices that have been reaching out to him for six years."

Correction (July 19): This post has been updated to reflect that 19 youth (not 20) charged as adults were recently transferred to the existing youth detention center from adult correctional facilities.

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King County Youth Detention Center Moves Forward Despite Opposition | Seattle Weekly

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Nikkita Oliver speaks at a July 17 No New Youth Jail press conference in front of the construction site of the King County Youth Detention Center. Photo by Josh Kelety As construction moves ahead on the new King County youth detention center at 12th and Alder in the Central District, anti-incarceration activists continue the fight against the controversial project.

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Can young criminals be reformed? A growing number of states think so, but not everyone is convinced.

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Article: Impact Incarceration has on children

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Article: Impact Incarceration has on children

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The Everyday Struggle of a Child Whose Parents Are Incarcerated

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With more American men and women in prison than ever before in our history, millions of children are struggling with the effects of a fractured family life

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Article: Incarceration's Toll on Families

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Article: Incarceration's Toll on Families

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New studies add to the growing body of research on the toll U.S. mass incarceration is taking on prisoner's children and families. Three recent articles in the journal Demography document the spillover effects of the prison boom on family poverty, couples' relationship stability, and child well-being.

Researchers suggest that the collateral damage related to incarceration may exacerbate social inequality through its negative impact on disadvantaged children and families.

In 2015, the United States had more than 2.17 million people behind bars in state and federal prisons and local jails, representing one of the world's highest incarceration rates. ¹ In late 2015, the U.S. incarceration rate (698 per 100,000 population) was second only to the East African island nation of Seychelles (799 per 100,000). ² By contrast, rates for all European countries were under 200 per 100,000 and for Canada stood at 106 per 100,000.

Incarceration is concentrated among minorities: Black and Latino males were significantly more likely to be incarcerated in state and federal prisons in 2015 (1,745 per 100,000 and 820 per 100,000, respectively) than white males (312 per 100,000). ³ A majority of U.S. inmates have minor children and 45 percent were living with their children before they were imprisoned, the Bureau of Justice Statistics reported in 2010. ⁴

Recently incarcerated fathers and the mothers of their children are much less likely to own key assets linked to economic security and social mobility-a bank account, a car, or a home-compared with their similar peers, report Kristin Turney, University of California-Irvine, and Daniel Schneider, University of California-Berkeley in an article in the journal Demography. ⁵

The researchers use data from the Fragile Families and Wellbeing Study, which tracked parents in 20 large U.S. cities over nine years, to examine the before-and-after impact of incarceration on asset ownership. Because some characteristics are associated with both incarceration and reduced asset ownership (such as substance abuse, domestic violence, low cognitive ability, impulsivity, and prior incarceration), their analysis matched recently incarcerated fathers with other fathers who shared their socioeconomic, demographic, neighborhood, health, and behavioral characteristics, but had no recent incarceration experience. Below are their findings:

Among men, recent incarceration reduced the likelihood of owning a bank account and vehicle.

For the mothers of their children, fathers' incarceration affected joint assets such as vehicles and homes, but not bank accounts, which women sometimes held individually.

Women who were living with men before they were incarcerated were most likely to lose assets.

For men, incarceration tended to lead to both asset loss and barriers to reacquiring assets in the years following release, while their female partners tended to mainly lose assets.

Relational factors (ending the relationship with the mother of their child) explained a larger share of the asset loss than the ex-prisoner's lack of earnings or living in a disadvantaged neighborhood (measured by rates of poverty, unemployment, public assistance receipt, and share over age 25 without a college degree).

The researchers suggest that assistance programs for ex-prisons could bolster economic security by facilitating access to reestablishing credit, low-cost mainstream banking products, and affordable vehicle ownership. Couples counseling and education services (both during incarceration and after) might help preserve weak relationships, they say.

Another recent study shows that among unwed mothers, the incarceration of the child's father increases her chances of having a child with a different partner and decreases her chances of having another child with the same father, according to Maria Cancian and Daniel R. Meyer of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Yiyoon Chung, Konkuk University, South Korea. ⁶

They used records from the Wisconsin child support and corrections systems-which are more complete than self-reported data and accurately reflect the dates of incarceration and release-to explore the impact of incarceration on having children with different partners (multipartner fertility). While limited to unwed Wisconsin parents, the comprehensive sample includes both urban and rural couples. Findings show:

Roughly one in eight unwed mothers in the sample of 6,000 experienced the incarceration of their child's father soon after their child's birth, reflecting how common paternal incarceration is among Wisconsin's unmarried recent parents.

Twice as many unwed mothers who experienced the incarceration of their child's father had another baby with a different partner rather than with the same father (14 percent versus 7 percent) within a five-year period.

A father's current incarceration increased the likelihood the mother would have a child with another partner.

The researchers point to widespread and growing evidence of the negative consequences for children of both a father's incarceration and a mother's childbearing with another partner-including a greater likelihood of reduced parental time and monetary support, increased family conflict and stress, and more household instability.

A third study finds that children whose fathers are incarcerated between their first and ninth birthday display more behavioral problems (acting out, depression) and early juvenile delinquency than their similar peers whose fathers are not jailed. ⁷ However, a father's incarceration takes the greatest toll on the most advantaged children-those living with both parents, in nonpoor households, not living in high-poverty neighborhoods. This study by Turney is based on Fragile Families Study data.

Family disruption following a father's incarceration may be more dramatic for relatively more advantaged children, she suggests. "These families are likely to experience the biggest loss, to suffer the greatest changes in family routines, to be unprepared for the resultant hardship, and to be unable to mobilize social support networks." For disadvantaged children, "parental incarceration occurs among a saturation of disadvantages."
This article was produced under a grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). NICHD supports the Fragile Families and Wellbeing Study; the Berkeley Population Center at the University of California, Berkeley; and the Center for Demography and Ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
References

1. Bureau of Justice Statistics, "U.S. Correctional Population at Lowest Level Since 2002," press release, Dec. 29, 2016, based on Danielle Kaeble and Lauren Glaze, Correctional Populations in the United States, 2015 (Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2016), Todd D. Minton and Zhen Zeng, Jail Inmates in 2015 (Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2016), and E. Ann Carson and Elizabeth Anderson, Prisoners in 2015 (Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2016), accessed at www.bjs.gov/content/pub/press/cpus15pr.cfm, on Feb. 6, 2017.

2. Roy Walmsley, "World Prison Population List, 11th Edition," Institute for Criminal Policy Research, University of London (Feb. 2016), accessed at prisonstudies.org/sites/default/files/resources/downloads/world_prison_population_list_11th_edition_0.pdf, on March 1, 2017.

3. E. Ann Carson and Elizabeth Anderson, Prisoners in 2015 (Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2016).

4. Lauren Glaze and Laura Maruschak, Parents in Prison and Their Minor Children (Revised) (Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2010).

5. Kristin Turney and Daniel Schneider, "Incarceration and Household Asset Ownership," Demography 53, vol. 6 (2016): 2075-103.

6. Maria Cancian, Yiyoon Chung, and Daniel R. Meyer, "Fathers' Imprisonment and Mothers' Multiple-Partner Fertility," Demography 53, vol. 6 (2016): 2045-74.

7. Kristin Turney, "The Unequal Consequence of Mass Incarceration for Children," Demography (2017): DOI 10.1007/s15324-0160543-1.

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Studies Document Mass Incarceration's Toll on Families

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New studies add to the growing body of research on the toll U.S. mass incarceration is taking on prisoner's children and families. Three recent articles in the journal Demography document the spillover effects of the prison boom on family poverty, couples' relationship stability, and child well-being.

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People with convictions are saddled with copious fees, fines, and debt at the same time that their economic opportunities are diminished, resulting in a lack of economic stability and mobility.
Forty-eight percent of families in our survey overall were unable to afford the costs associated with a conviction, while among poor families (making less than $15,000 per year), 58% were unable to afford these costs. Sixty-seven percent of respondents remained either unemployed or underemployed five years after release.

Women bear the brunt of the costs-both financial and emotional-of their loved one's incarceration. In 63% of cases, family members on the outside were primarily responsible for court-related costs associated with conviction. Of the family members primarily responsible for these costs, 83% were women.

In addition, families incur large sums of debt due to their experience with incarceration. Across respondents of all income brackets, the average debt incurred for court-related fines and fees alone was $13,607, almost one year's entire annual income for respondents who earn less than $15,000 per year.

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The costs of incarceration run deeper than budget line items and sentences served.

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Whether behind bars or returning home, people who have experienced incarceration are a part of families - whether chosen or blood related - to whom them contribute and by whom they are supported. Families pay both the apparent and hidden costs while their loved ones serve out sentences and for a long time after.

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The United States puts more people behind bars than any other country, five times as many per capita compared with Britain or Spain.

It wasn't always like this. Half a century ago, relatively few people were locked up, and those inmates generally served short sentences. But 40 years ago, New York passed strict sentencing guidelines known as the "Rockefeller drug laws" - after their champion, Gov. Nelson Rockefeller - that put even low-level criminals behind bars for decades.

Those tough-on-crime policies became the new normal across the country. But a new debate is under way over the effectiveness of tough sentencing laws.
'Life Sentence, No Parole'
In a little town in northern New York called Ray Brook, an old hospital and a complex for athletes who competed in the Winter Olympics in nearby Lake Placid now house inmates. One is a state prison, the other a federal correctional facility.

They're part of a massive infrastructure that sprang up in America over the past 40 years, a prison network that now houses more than 2 million people. The thing that sparked the prison boom was a new set of ideas about how communities and neighborhoods could be made safer.

Rewind to the 1970s. New York City was battling a heroin epidemic; there were junkies on street corners. The homicide rate was four times as high as it is today.

Rockefeller, New York's Republican governor, had backed drug rehabilitation, job training and housing. He saw drugs as a social problem, not a criminal one.

But the political mood was hardening. President Richard Nixon declared a national war on drugs, and movies like The French Connection and Panic in Needle Park helped spread the sense that America's cities were unraveling.

Late in 1972, one of Rockefeller's closest aides, Joseph Persico, was in a meeting with the governor. He says Rockefeller suddenly did a dramatic about-face.

"Finally he turned and said, 'For drug pushing, life sentence, no parole, no probation," says Persico.

That was the moment when one of the seeds of the modern prison system was planted.

Persico says Rockefeller decided that more progressive approaches to drug addiction had simply failed. The governor had heard about this new, zero-tolerance approach to crime while studying Japan's war on drugs.

I have one goal and one objective, and that is to stop the pushing of drugs and to protect the innocent victim.

"And we all looked a little bit shocked, and one of the staff said, 'Sounds a little bit severe.' And he said, 'That's because you don't understand the problem.' And then we realized he was very serious," Persico says.

Rockefeller launched his campaign to toughen New York's laws at a press conference in January 1973 - almost exactly 40 years ago. He called for something unheard of: mandatory prison sentences of 15 years to life for drug dealers and addicts - even those caught with small amounts of marijuana, cocaine or heroin.

"I have one goal and one objective, and that is to stop the pushing of drugs and to protect the innocent victim," Rockefeller said.
Getting Tough Catches On
From the start, Rockefeller's policy drew sharp criticism from drug treatment experts and some politicians, who called the sentences draconian.

But no one really understood what the laws would mean or how many millions of people they would touch.

Albert Rosenblatt was a prosecutor at the time and wrote the first book detailing how district attorneys would implement the new rules.

"I don't remember thinking or believing, nor did my colleague DAs at the time, that this was going to somehow revolutionize and change everything," Rosenblatt says.

The Rockefeller drug laws sailed through New York's Legislature. And pretty quickly this idea of getting tough, even on petty criminals, went viral, spreading across the U.S. Other states started adopting mandatory minimum and three-strikes laws - and so did the federal government.

But Rosenblatt says prosecutors in New York realized that the laws were doing unexpected and troubling things. White people were using a lot of drugs in the 1970s and committing a lot of crimes, yet the people being arrested and sent to prison under the Rockefeller laws came almost entirely from poor black and Hispanic neighborhoods.

"We were aware of it. I mean, it's hard not to be aware of it when you see a courtroom and when you see a cadre of defendants - many of whom or most of whom were people of color," Rosenblatt says.

Due in part to Rockefeller-style laws, the nation's prison population exploded from 330,000 in 1973 to a peak of 2.3 million. That meant building hundreds of new state and federal prisons. By 2010, more than 490,000 people were working as prison guards.
The House That Rockefeller Built
Journalist and historian Scott Christianson has written for decades about drug crime and America's prison system. He says we're just coming to terms with the impact of these policies - on poor neighborhoods, on race relations and on taxpayers.

"I think that this state and our society really has to do some hard thinking and to reflect on the impact of this long-term war on drugs - what it has meant for our society and what it has cost," Christianson says.

Cost is one thing driving this re-examination. Studies put the price tag of America's vast prison system at between $63 billion and $75 billion a year.

New York's sentencing rules were partially reformed in 2009, contributing to the closure of nine state prisons so far. Politicians in other cash-strapped states like California have also moved to slash the number of people behind bars. But most of the country still lives in the house that Rockefeller built.

Half a million Americans are serving long sentences for nonviolent drug offenses. Those inmates make up 48 percent of the inmate population in federal prisons.

Persico, the aide who helped push through Rockefeller's drug laws, says new scrutiny for the policy is overdue.

"I concluded very early that this was a failure. It's filling up the prisons, first-time offenders," Persico says. "This was obviously unjust - and not just unjust, it was unwise; it was ineffective."

This debate is far from over. Supporters of mandatory minimums say the policy has helped reduce crime in some cities, including New York, and they point to modest declines in the use of some drugs, particularly cocaine. Persico says Rockefeller himself never expressed any second thoughts or reservations about the policy that carries his name.
This story is produced by NPR in cooperation with North Country Public Radio's Prison Time Media Project, a year-long investigative series looking at the national impact of Rockefeller-style laws.

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The Drug Laws That Changed How We Punish

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Forty years ago, New York enacted tough laws in response to a wave of drug-related crime. They became known as the Rockefeller drug laws, and they set the standard for states looking to get tough on crime. But a new debate is under way over the effectiveness of such strict sentencing laws.

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Rachel Martin talks to Georgetown University Law professor Paul Butler about the ongoing and new challenges facing the nation regarding the criminal justice system.

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Attorney General Jeff Sessions reignited a debate over criminal justice this month. He directed prosecutors to seek so-called mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug convictions. The attorney general's order overturned guidance from the Obama administration.

Sessions wants prosecutors to bring the most serious charges possible, ones with potentially long sentences. This week, we will be exploring this disagreement over how best to prosecute drug offenses, and we'll hear voices making the case both for and against mandatory minimums. To begin, our colleague Rachel Martin sat down with Georgetown University law professor Paul Butler.

RACHEL MARTIN, BYLINE: People talk a lot about how the criminal justice system is broken, and that can mean a lot of different things. How would you define that brokenness?

PAUL BUTLER: I think of the system being broken in three areas. One has to do with mass incarceration. We lock up more people than any country in the history of the world. The area that's gotten the most attention recently is policing, the idea that especially in communities of color, the police are more violent, they're more likely to arrest African-Americans and Latinos when they don't arrest white people.

And the third area where the system needs major reform has to do with the way that we treat people who are incarcerated, issues like solitary confinement which the scientific evidence tells us has a devastating impact on people who are subject to it.

MARTIN: Why? Why did we get to this point? I mean, you talk about the underlying discrimination that's embedded in these policies. Is it just explicit racism? I mean, how did we get here?

BUTLER: In the 1970s and '80s as African-Americans gain more political power, the police started to focus more of their resources on those communities. They used tactics like broken windows policing and stop and frisk.

MARTIN: Broken windows was when you prosecuted people for small petty crimes in hopes that it would deter bigger crimes.

BUTLER: And the result was people got locked up for things like spitting in the street, drinking in public, jumping the subway turnstile.

MARTIN: What do you say to someone out there who hears that and says, well, I'm sorry, even if it was a low-level crime, you jumped a turnstile. You broke a law. There is a punishment to be paid.

BUTLER: The reality is that for these low-level offenses, white people commit them just as much as African-Americans, but they don't face the same consequences. The idea is when it comes to law enforcement, what's good enough for white people is good enough for African-Americans.

MARTIN: What's working in our criminal justice system?

BUTLER: There's a new approach is called smart on crime which uses evidence-based approaches to making communities safer and reducing the prison population using treatment for people who have addiction problems, thinking of it as a health issue as much as a criminal justice issue. And in states like New York, Texas and California that have reduced their prison population by letting out some of these nonviolent offenders, the crime rate has gone down.

MARTIN: Are you seeing any encouraging signs from your point of view in the Justice Department as led by Jeff Sessions?

BUTLER: There are points of light here and there. For example, the Sessions Justice Department has focused on homicides against transgender people. Transgender women of color especially are extremely likely to be victims of crime. And it's great that the federal government under Attorney General Sessions is showing some support for that community.

MARTIN: If you were to articulate three concrete changes that would improve the criminal justice system for in particular minority communities who have been disproportionately affected by it, what would those changes be?

BUTLER: We have to think of public safety in a more holistic way, and so when we increase the number of jobs, when we raise the minimum wage, when we help young people graduate from high school, that reduces the prison population. That makes families whole, and it makes neighborhoods safer.

MARTIN: Paul Butler is a law professor at Georgetown University. Thank you so much for your time.

BUTLER: It's great to be here.

Copyright © 2017 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

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Mass Incarceration Is A Major U.S. Issue, Georgetown Law Professor Says

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Rachel Martin talks to Georgetown University Law professor Paul Butler about the ongoing and new challenges facing the nation regarding the criminal justice system. DAVID GREENE, HOST: Attorney General Jeff Sessions reignited a debate over criminal justice this month. He directed prosecutors to seek so-called mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug convictions.

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Mass incarceration in America, explained in 22 maps and charts: VOX

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Mass incarceration in America, explained in 22 maps and charts: VOX

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America is number one - in incarceration. Over the past several decades, the country has built the largest prison population in the entire world, with the second-highest prison population per capita behind the tiny African country of Seychelles. But how did it get this way? Although it may be easy to blame one specific event, the US's path to mass incarceration was decades in the making.

I. America is now the world's leader in incarceration

The US leads the world in incarceration

Although the US makes up about 4 percent of the world's population, it accounts for 22 percent of the world's prison population. The US is out of line not only with its developed peers but also with authoritarian nations like Cuba, Russia, and China.

Part of the reason for America's high levels of incarceration is that the country has way more lethal crime than its developed peers. And unlike regimes like China, it makes less use of punitive punishments like the death sentence and forced evictions. But that doesn't explain the whole difference; studies have shown that US prison sentences are simply much longer than other nations'.

Map credit: German Lopez/Vox

II. The racism of America's criminal justice system

Black Americans are much more likely to be incarcerated

Mass incarceration is, predominantly, black incarceration. Black people are nearly six times as likely to be incarcerated as white people, and nearly three times as likely to be incarcerated as their Latino counterparts.

Why? A review of the research by the Sentencing Project concluded that higher crime rates in black communities explained about 61 to 80 percent of black overrepresentation in prisons. This means that other factors, such as racial bias or past criminal records influencing prison sentences, were behind as much as 39 percent of the disparate rates of imprisonment for black people.

Chart credit: German Lopez/Vox

Black defendants get longer sentences for the same crimes

Black defendants generally receive longer sentences than their white counterparts for the same crime. As the chart above demonstrates, this has been consistently true for drug trafficking. And a 2012 report from US Sentencing Commission found it to be true for other types of crimes, as well.

Chart credit: German Lopez/Vox

In three states, more than one-fifth of the black electorate will be disenfranchised in 2016

Most states don't let people in prison, on parole, or on probation vote, and 10 limit at least some felons from voting after they've completed their sentences, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.

As a result, more than 6.1 million Americans won't be legally allowed to vote due to their criminal records in 2016. Several states prohibited 5 to 11 percent of their electorate from voting. And since black Americans are likelier to go to prison, this had a disproportionate impact on the African-American electorate - leaving more than 20 percent of black voters in Florida, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia legally banned from voting.

This is one of the various collateral effects of prison. Other examples include restrictions on employment and bans on receiving welfare benefits, accessing public housing, or qualifying for student loans for higher education.

Map credit: German Lopez/Vox

III. Mass incarceration is mostly a state and violent crime problem

States, not the federal government, hold most prisoners - and usually for violent offenses

A lot of mainstream media attention goes to the federal prison system and war on drugs. But most people in prison are held at the state level, and they're usually in for violent offenses. This poses a very tricky situation for US policymakers: If they want to undo mass incarceration, they're going to have to cut back on the number of violent offenders in prison - but lawmakers have to figure out how to do that without endangering public safety.

Chart credit: German Lopez/Vox

To really end mass incarceration, the US will need to cut back on some violent prisoners

IV. High crime and drug use led to "tough on crime" policies

Crime was very high in the 1970s through early 1990s, leading to an overreaction from policymakers

It's easy to look back with scorn at the "tough on crime" policies that fed mass incarceration: How could politicians really think that locking up millions of Americans would be a good idea?

But the chart above shows the vastly different circumstances lawmakers were working under at the time. America's murder and non-negligent manslaughter rate was historically very high, along with all violent and property crimes. As horror stories of gun violence and gang wars permeated the news, the public demanded that US leaders do something - leading to the "tough on crime" policies that are still with us today.

Chart credit: German Lopez/Vox

The South led the way in mass incarceration

V. The policies behind mass incarceration

Prosecutors put more people in prison

The problem isn't just longer prison sentences. As a result of "tough on crime" policies, more people are also being admitted to prison.

Since at least the 1990s, prosecutors have increasingly filed more charges for each arrest. So when someone was arrested by police, the prosecutor was generally more likely to file charges against that person in the 2000s than he or she was in the 1990s. This is one of the reasons - if not the reason - that admissions into prisons increased in the past few decades.

Criminologist John Pfaff cited several possible explanations for the trend, including political incentives to appear "tough on crime" and punitive policies strengthening prosecutors' ability to file charges. Whatever the cause, prosecutors now play a big role in driving mass incarceration.

Read more in Vox's explainer.

Chart credit: German Lopez/Vox

VI. Mass incarceration isn't effective

Mass incarceration has consumed state budgets

Even though incarceration is believed to have a small effect on crime rates, it's had a big effect on state budgets. All levels of government - but mostly state and local - spent more than $80 billion on corrections expenditures in 2010, according to the Hamilton Project.

Map credit: German Lopez/Vox

VIII. Federal and state lawmakers are moving to reform

We're here to shed some clarity
One of our core beliefs here at Vox is that everyone needs and deserves access to the information that helps them understand the world, regardless of whether they can pay for a subscription. With the 2024 election on the horizon, more people are turning to us for clear and balanced explanations of the issues and policies at stake. We're so grateful that we're on track to hit 85,000 contributions to the Vox Contributions program before the end of the year, which in turn helps us keep this work free. We need to add 2,500 contributions this month to hit that goal. Will you make a contribution today to help us hit this goal and support our policy coverage? Any amount helps.

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How America became the world's leader in incarceration, in 22 maps and charts

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America is number one - in incarceration.