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As Prison Population Sinks, Jails Are a Steal

Posted by samzenpus on from the looking-for-the-key dept.

HughPickens.com writes After rising rapidly for decades, the number of people behind bars peaked at 1.62 Million in 2009, has been mostly falling ever since down, and many justice experts believe the incarceration rate will continue on a downward trajectory for many years. New York, for example, saw an 8.8% decline in federal and state inmates, and California, saw a 20.6% drop. Now the WSJ reports on an awkward byproduct of the declining U.S. inmate population: empty or under-utilized prisons and jails that must be cared for but can't be easily sold or repurposed. New York state has closed 17 prisons and juvenile-justice facilities since 2011, following the rollback of the 1970s-era Rockefeller drug laws, which mandated lengthy sentences for low-level offenders. So far, the state has found buyers for 10 of them, at prices that range from less than $250,000 to about $8 million for a facility in Staten Island, often a fraction of what they cost to build. "There's a prisoner shortage," says Mike Arismendez, city manager for Littlefield, Texas, home of an empty five-building complex that sleeps 383 inmates and comes with a gym, maintenence shed, armory, and parking lot . "Everybody finds it hard to believe."

The incarceration rate is declining largely because crime has fallen significantly in the past generation. In addition, many states have relaxed harsh sentencing laws passed during the tough-on-crime 1980s and 1990s, and have backed rehabilitation programs, resulting in fewer low-level offenders being locked up. States from Michigan to New Jersey have changed parole processes, leading more prisoners to leave earlier. On a federal level, the Justice Department under Attorney General Eric Holder has pushed to reduce sentences for nonviolent drug offenders. Before 2010, the U.S. prison population increased every year for 30 years, from 307,276 in 1978 to a high of 1,615,487 in 2009. "This is the beginning of the end of mass incarceration," says Natasha Frost. "People don't care so much about crime, and it's less of a political focus."

17 of 407 comments (clear)

  1. Prison population by galgon · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Am I the only one who thought the prison population was at an all time high?

    1. Re:Prison population by jabuzz · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The rise in crime since WWII is a historical blip in a long term (on the scale of centuries) downward trend.

      Why it is dropping is the million dollar question and nobody knows for sure. It is commonly known as the "Crime Conundrum" and it is unlikely that prison has anything to do with it because the same drop in crime is being seen across the developed world with countries that have wildly different incarceration policies.

    2. Re:Prison population by CanHasDIY · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Indeed, it sounds like "Oh no, economic crisis! Not enough prisoners! We need to do something to reverse this trend and get the prisoner counts growing again!"

      If you read the prospectus for one of those for-profit jails, it basically says just that - we need more laws so we can incarcerate more people so our shareholders can turn a quick, tidy profit.

      --
      An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
    3. Re:Prison population by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      There is always the gold mine of incarcerating kids in schools. A kid speaks up, draws a picture of a gun, or maybe isn't into football are good enough charges to have them arrested.

      To boot, juvi, there are no set sentences. Kids "earn" their way out, or they sit in the clink until age 23 (was 18, but in California, the prison lobby bumped it to 23.)

    4. Re:Prison population by MatthiasF · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Mod parent up.

      Obligatory link to Atlantic article exposing the link between leaded gasoline and crime rates.

      http://www.theatlantic.com/nat...

    5. Re:Prison population by joss · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Leaded petrol has a high correlation with crime rate too.

      The nice thing about the abortion correlation theory is that it pissed off both the left and the right.

      Saying that we should reduce the number of children born by unmarried mothers and this will bring the crime rates down is something that excites the right and pisses off politically correct lefties.

      Saying that a good way of doing that is legalising abortion excites the left and pisses off the right

      --
      http://rareformnewmedia.com/
    6. Re:Prison population by jafac · · Score: 5, Interesting

      When a black-mark can remain on your record forever, there's huge consequences.

      I know a guy who was an engineer, FPGA specialist. Has 4 patents. Worked for 15 years, and his company imploded. I tried to get him a job where I work, but because he had a dishonorable discharge from the navy, no dice. (apparently, when he was 19, before he went to college, he failed to return from shore-leave for 24-hours, because he went on a bender, passed-out, and was basically kept incognito by a bunch of "bad people" with whom he had been drinking. Got in trouble for that, and it resulted in the dishonorable.) Bad judgement, for sure, but it was a small mistake. He went on to college, and go in at his first job through a professor. But now he's been unemployed basically since 2004.

      --

      These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
    7. Re:Prison population by schlachter · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I read that in until the late 1800's in the USA, people didn't go to prison to serve time. They went there to await their trail and if found guilty, to await their punishment, such as hard labor or hanging. Jail time itself was not the punishment until the Eastern State Penitentiary was founded in the late 1800's with the Puritan notion of rehabilitation through time spent in isolation and introspection.

      --
      My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
    8. Re:Prison population by lgw · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Insightful list, but you forgot 5. "Crack cocaine". That's a huge factor. The death toll from that drug was vast, much of the peak in crime was due to it, and many people who were otherwise using criminal activities to make ends meet were killed by it. I saw a lot of that first-hand in the 80s, when I delivered pizza for a living. Pizza drivers were a good target for supporting one's drug habit in the early stages.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    9. Re:Prison population by Ichijo · · Score: 4, Interesting
      e

      Felonies are also ridiculously easy to get. In the '80s, if two people were caught racing in their cars, it would be a $111 fine. Now, here in Texas, that is a felony.

      Rather than a prison sentence followed by automatic eligibility to be re-licensed to be a hazard on the streets again, I think a far more appropriate punishment would be to permanently revoke the person's license until he or she can prove, through a battery of physical and psychological tests, that he or she is no longer a hazard on the road. (This is what they do in Germany.)

      But in the USA, for some reason it seems to be considered more humane to make someone a felon and lock them away than to ban them from driving.

      Great for private prison profit margins... all paid for on the US taxpayers nickel.

      This is why the goals of prisons need to be aligned better with the goals of society. Instead of putting someone away for x years, if private prisons bid against each other on a fixed price to rehabilitate each prisoner, coupled with penalties each time a released prisoner re-offends, private prisons would do their best to rehabilitate each prisoner as quickly, completely, and inexpensively as possible. Isn't this what we all really want?

      --
      Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
    10. Re:Prison population by hey! · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Check out this graph.

      The nuimbers of prisoners has not declined significantly since 2009. This doesn't mean the bubble hasn't burst, the nature of the bubble resists bursting. People can leave the housing market, but prisoners can't leave the prison market.

      Still, anyone who invested big-time in prisons back in 2008 or so on the basis of 30 years of exponential prison population growth was just stupid. We were approaching 1% of the Amercian population incarcerated, how much higher did they expect that to go?

      I have no sympathy with a town that bet its financial future on prisons while its schools rate minimally acceptable.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  2. Data centers? by swb · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Since everything from office buildings to warehouses to shopping malls have been converted to data centers, why not prisons? They already offer a ton of security and the cells would be kind of perfect for those customers that buy those little fenced off spaces of multiple racks. The water lines for the sinks might be repurposable for some knd of cooling loop.

    The other conversion option is a secure place for containing Ebola, or perhaps as safe havens FROM Ebola..

  3. Prisons are now in your hand by gatkinso · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Sold by Apple and Samsung.

    Who cares where the body is if they have captured the mind?

    --
    I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
  4. States from Michigan to New Jersey by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Is that geographical or alphabetical?

  5. Re:Won't anyone think of the corporations? by JackieBrown · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Part of capitalism is letting businesses fail as well as succeed.

    This is part of the circle along with all the unemployment that this will bring (based on my anecdotal experiences, guards will have a harder time trying to be rehabilitated to work well with people and "customers" - particularly the kind of customer that can report them without having to risk getting beaten to a pulp for being a snitch.)

  6. "There's a prisoner shortage," by koan · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Wow and really bad and a really scary way to put it, I envision authorities dreaming up ways to fill jails.

    --
    "If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
  7. Re:great news. by adam525 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Actually, a lot of people don't get what they "should get" when dealing with the courts. If he didn't have legal counsel (that he paid for) I could see him doing a couple of years on a first time drug charge. I went to school with a guy that got sentenced to a LONG time in federal prison for selling cocaine. He got out "early" after spending about 5 years behind bars.

    If you ever have the misfortune of getting mixed up in the system, good luck to you. Maybe you have been in trouble and have gotten lucky. I went to court on two VERY ridiculous charges. I paid for a lawyer. He kept putting the case off until the DA finally agreed to drop the charges. It all depends on what mood you catch them in. It was proven to me when my charges were dropped. My lawyer didn't tell me what he was doing, but I figured it out. I wound up showing up to court about 6 or 7 times on the same charge. The first several times, the DA didn't agree to drop the charges. Finally, one random day, he said "OK" and the charges were dropped. Before that he had offered something dumb like community service. My lawyer just kept saying "I wouldn't take it". So I kept going back to court and one day the DA just agreed to drop the charges. The first charge cost me $250.00. The second one cost me $1500.00.

    If I would have walked in there with a public defender, I would have gotten (probably) 80 hours of community service and a charge on my record that would have kept me from EVER getting a decent job. I have a family. My son is GOING TO EAT whether I get his food through legitimate means or not. If that would have been put on my record, I would probably be in prison or headed there today for some BS charge (and it was BS, trust me on that) that I shouldn't have been charged with in the first place.

    Some people deserve to be in jail for the things they do. A lot of people are sitting in prison right now who don't deserve to be there by a long stretch.