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Long prison terms drive #MassIncarceration
We need a CHANGE in public safety strategies that strengthen communities, improve health outcomes & prevent community violence
Join Justice Policy Institute, Open Society Foundations, and Brave New Films in the #Decarceration movement- share this video today!
This documentary on prisons is intended to bring awareness around the issue of long prison terms and how half-measure reforms aren’t enough to end mass incarceration.
Transcript provided by YouTube:
00:06
the u.s
00:06
now realizes it faces an incarceration
00:09
crisis
00:10
once seen as a marginal issue americans
00:13
of all stripes are now raising concerns
00:14
about our country’s inclination toward
00:16
punishment
00:17
that drives over-criminalization and
00:19
mass incarceration
00:21
pressure by impacted communities and
00:23
advocates has emboldened elected
00:25
officials and candidates to
00:26
question public policies that lead to
00:28
excessive incarceration
00:30
since the early 2000s states and more
00:32
recently the federal government have
00:34
made policy choices that have safely
00:36
reduced their prison populations
00:38
reformers have set a goal to cut
00:40
incarceration in half
00:42
and calls for prison abolition coming
00:43
from directly impacted communities
00:45
are gaining acceptance however most
00:48
reforms have been limited to
00:50
non-violent offenses but
00:53
we will lose the modest progress made
00:55
and fail to end mass incarceration if we
00:57
cling to long prison terms
00:59
and the outmoded approach to serious and
01:01
violent crime they represent
01:03
to understand why let’s look at what
01:05
makes the u.s prison population
01:06
so large the size of any population is a
01:10
function of how many people enter
01:12
and leave it in a given year this is
01:14
true of a planet
01:16
a hospital and even the number of people
01:19
in prison
01:21
each year some number of people enter
01:23
our nation’s prison system
01:25
experts refer to this number as
01:27
admissions
01:28
policy decisions such as laws that
01:30
criminalize drugs or
01:32
lock someone up for stealing a cell
01:34
phone result in increased admissions
01:36
and grow the prison population policies
01:40
that reduce or eliminate the reliance on
01:42
incarceration like
01:43
laws that legalize drugs or that
01:46
prohibits sending a person to prison for
01:47
failing to pay fines and court fees
01:50
reduce admissions
01:51
and lead to a reduction of the prison
01:53
population
01:54
each year at the same time as some
01:56
number of people enter the prison system
01:58
some number of people exit every person
02:02
who enters prison remains there for a
02:03
period of time required by their
02:05
sentence and other considerations
02:08
experts refer to this as length of stay
02:12
policy decisions that require people to
02:14
spend more time in prison
02:15
mandatory minimum three strikes and life
02:18
without parole sentences
02:19
reduce the number of exits and increase
02:21
the prison population
02:24
at any given time the prison population
02:26
includes a mix of individuals
02:28
admitted for a range of offenses and
02:30
with various associated lengths of stay
02:33
although it is easy to grasp how the
02:35
number of admissions might impact the
02:37
prison population
02:38
the significant impact length of stay
02:40
has is less apparent
02:43
to simplify let’s imagine length of stay
02:46
in terms of its impact on the speed at
02:48
which three different groups
02:50
exit prison under current trends and
02:53
policies
02:54
each year roughly 55 of prison
02:56
admissions
02:57
are for low-level offenses 39 percent
03:00
are for more serious crimes
03:02
and only 6 percent are for very serious
03:04
and violent crimes
03:06
people from these three groups exit
03:08
prison at different speeds because of
03:10
the lengths of stay
03:11
associated with them by sentencing and
03:13
release policies
03:15
our first group includes people in
03:17
prison for terms of fewer than three
03:19
years
03:20
generally for drug and property offenses
03:23
it also typically includes people
03:24
entering for technical violations of
03:26
community supervision
03:29
our second group includes people serving
03:31
prison terms of 3 to 10 years
03:34
generally for more serious crimes like
03:36
assault and robbery
03:38
and our third group includes people who
03:40
serve 10 or more years in prison
03:43
mostly for repeat offenses or for very
03:45
serious crimes involving violence
03:48
although every year a smaller number of
03:50
people enter for serious and violent
03:52
crime
03:53
over time their numbers stack up because
03:55
they move out of the population more
03:57
slowly
03:58
this stacking effect explains how it can
04:01
be simultaneously true
04:03
that while fewer people enter prison
04:05
each year for serious and violent crime
04:07
the majority of people in prison are
04:09
there for such crimes
04:11
although every year the majority of
04:13
people who enter prison do so for
04:15
non-violent offenses
04:16
more than half of the prison population
04:18
is composed of people convicted of a
04:20
violent offense
04:21
this is a result of harsh sentencing
04:24
policies and extremely restrictive
04:25
release policies that lead to a longer
04:28
length of stay
04:29
this explains why we will fail to end
04:30
mass incarceration without confronting
04:33
our reliance on long prison terms that
04:35
gain favor in the
04:36
get tough 1980s and 90s and have since
04:39
gotten longer and harsher
04:40
driving america’s prison population to
04:43
its peak in 2009 and keeping it large
04:45
today
04:48
in addition to swelling the prison
04:49
population long prison terms are
04:51
disproportionately imposed on people of
04:53
color
04:54
and have resulted in a rapidly growing
04:56
number of elderly people
04:57
in prison the experience of the state of
05:00
alabama illustrates how focusing solely
05:03
on sending fewer people to prison
05:05
and reducing the amount of time they
05:06
must remain there for less serious
05:08
offenses
05:09
is not enough to reduce mass
05:11
incarceration
05:13
in recent years the state has reduced
05:15
the number of people serving shorter
05:16
prison terms
05:18
but while the share of its prison
05:19
population serving shorter terms has
05:21
dropped
05:22
the share serving long terms has
05:24
steadily climbed
05:25
those serving long prison terms in
05:27
alabama have cancelled out the benefits
05:29
of
05:29
reforms that have reduced admissions
05:33
yes policymakers from both sides of the
05:36
aisle have begun to acknowledge that the
05:37
nation’s over-reliance on incarceration
05:40
is a costly and critical issue
05:44
reducing incarceration should not stop
05:46
at reforms related to less serious
05:48
offenses
05:50
ignoring long prison terms threatens to
05:52
undermine the criminal justice reform
05:54
successes of the last
05:55
decade ending mass incarceration will
05:59
require addressing the stacking effect
06:01
of long prison terms
06:02
which calls for an ambitious effort to
06:04
change how our country responds
06:06
to violence and how we treat people who
06:08
commit serious crime
06:24
[Music]
06:42
[Music]
06:48
[Music]
06:52
you
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This post was previously published on YouTube and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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Photo credit: Screenshot from video
