AN INFOGRAPHIC BOOK ON THE MOST CORRUPT PRISON SYSTEM Sabrina Hosler CAPTIVITY IN THE UNITED STATES The United States has 5% of the world’s population but 25% of its prisoners, and currently, 2.2 million people are locked up across the country. While crime has been decreasing since the 1990s, rates of imprisonment are at historic highs, increasing almost 500%. Our prison system has many problems, such as inhumane living conditions, racial bias, and unfair sentences, and is in desperate need of reform. Decades of research have shown that prison is the least effective place to rehabilitate offenders. Prisons in the United States have three main, glaring issues: sentencing is disproportionate, imprisonment almost always does more harm than good, and similar crimes are not always sentenced in the same way. Upon release, these people will face many practical and social challenges to rejoin their pre-imprisonment communities, often due to a lack of education, lack of practical skills, or from being in such a different environment for so long. The current strategies used by our justice system for prisoners to achieve rehabilitation is very ineffective, with more than 80% of these individuals being rearrested again in the future. Something must change about our current prison system, it is harmful to everyone and is ineffective from preventing crime. Something must change, because our current system does not respect human dignity. United States Incarceration between the years of 2010-2020. The United States has an approximate population of 328 million people, and approximately 216 million are affected by the prison system in some way, so more than half of the entire population is or has been incarcerated, or has or had an immediate family member imprisoned. MASS INCARCERATION AFFECTS MILLIONS OF PEOPLE 113 MILLION have an immediate family member who has been (or currently is) incarcerated 77 MILLION have a criminal record 19 MILLION convicted of a felony 4.9 MILLION formerly incarcerated 2.3 MILLION incarcerated today = about 5 million 6 NEARLY 1 IN 100 people in the United States are in prison or jail About 0.7% of the United States is currently incarcerated. In other words, this is a rate of about 698 per 100,000 people. As of March 24th, 2020, the U.S. criminal justice system holds almost 2.3 million people in 1,833 state prisons, 110 federal prisons, 1,772 juvenile correctional facilities, 3,134 local jails, 218immigration detention facilities, and 80 Indian Country jails as well as in military prisons, civil commitment centers, state psychiatric hospitals, etc. 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 mental health physical health physical health food 12 13 14 15 18 19 20 24 25 28 29 32 33 36 37 racial disparity lifetime likelihood racial disparity youth incarceration juvenile life without parole general public formerly incarcerated HEALTH & SAFETY ETHNICITY & RACE SEXUALITY & GENDER YOUTH EDUCATION VIOLENCE the gender gap lgbtq+ representation violence against inmates lasting effects CONTENTS immigration drug offenses 7 8 9 10 11 40 42 44 45 48 49 52 56 57 58 NONVIOLENT OFFENSES HOW YOU CAN HELP SOLUTIONS SOURCES JOBS & LABOR INJUSTICE jobs & wages commissary items & prices pretrial detention solitary confinement helping individuals helping on a national level incarceration alternatives & HEALTH SAFETY mental health physical health physical health food 12 13 14 15 1 HOW CAN I TAKE CARE OF MY MENTAL HEALTH WHILE INCARCERATED? CAN I... 12 ...take medication? Yes, you can take medication in prison. There are many complications, though. First, many jails and prisons have a general policy against giving anti-anxiety medications and stimulants to inmates. It is not impossible to get these, since there can be exceptions to the policy, but it is rare and a difficult process. There are also many security precautions for medications, so sometimes inmates cannot get the medication they need. Second, prisons have pretty steep copays for medication. Sure, it’s only typically $5 or less, but many people in prison do not have a lot of money and prison jobs typically only pay less than $1 a day. Lastly, there are sometimes long waits to getting medicaiton shipped into prisons and all the medication is approved by a prison doctor, who can sometimes deem medications “medically unnecessary” even though the patient may absolutely need those medications (and may have been approved before by non-prison doctors). ...talk with friends/family? You can place up to 300 minutes of phone calls, but it does cost anywhere from $0.15 to $25 for 15 minute phone calls, depending on the state. These phone calls can also only last 15 minutes at a time, and it will automatically be disconnected when the time is up. The prison Warden is also technically allowed to give you more time for a family emergency, but it’s very rare. ...keep a journal? Yes, you can, but you have to buy paper and pencils from commissary. You don’t have a lot of privacy though, and sometimes other inmates and guards go through your things. ...walk outside? It depends on the prison and its security level. Typically, inmates only get around two hours outside, and it’s typically not everyday, but you can occasionally get fresh air outside! % OF PEOPLE EXPERIENCING IN THE PAST 30 DAYS 24% JAIL PRISON PROBATION OR PAROLE GENERAL POPULATION 14% 11% 4% general population includes only adults with no criminal involvement in the past year * SERIOUS PSYCHOLOGICAL DISTRESS 13 PHYSICAL HEALTH NERVOUS SYSTEM DIGESTIVE SYSTEM RESPIRATORY CONDITIONS MUSCULOSKELETAL DISORDERS prisoners 5% 15% 20% 14.3% 8% 5% 3% 3% general population HEALTH CONDITIONS OF THE GENERAL PUBLIC VS. OF PRISONERS 14 WHAT DOES PRISON FOOD CONSIST OF? 15 MAGGOTS and other bugs live and copulate here. FOOD PULLED FROM THE TRASH... who knows where it’s been or for how long. BAD MEAT that is old, expired, and rotten. UNAPPETIZING, CHEAP, UNHEALTHY, AND EXPIRED concoctions similar to the taste and consistency of cat food. FOOD NIBBLED ON BY RATS, other rodents, and insects. YOUTH racial disparity youth incarceration juvenile life without parole (jlwop) 18 19 20 18 YOUTH INCA Unfortunately, Black and American Indian youth are much more likely to be incarcerated than white youth. In 2015, over 412,000 Black youth and 255,000 Native American youth were incarcerated, compared to only 83,000 white youth, even though white youth make up over half of the youth population. Black youth are about five times more likely to be incarcerated, and American Indian youth are three times more likely to be incarcerated than white youth. Latino/Latina youth are also more likely to be incarcerated than white youth, but fortunately at a smaller fraction, about half as likely. RACIAL DISPARITY 19 In 2020, there were 1,465 people serving life-without-parole sentences for crimes committed as juveniles, which is fortunately a 38% decrease from 2016, but this is still a large number of people spending their entire lives in prison for crimes they committed as children. 24 states have banned life sentences without the possibility of parole (even though some people in these states are still serving their sentences) and 13 states do not have anyone serving JLWOP, but that still leaves 13 states that still enforce this sentence. So why do children not deserve to spend their lives in prison despite whatever crime it may be? Looking at data from organizations such as the American Academy of Child Adolescent Psychiatry and the American Psychological Association, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Elena Kagan says that adolescence is marked by “immaturity, impetuosity, and failure to appreciate risks and consequences.”Justice Kagan also noted that juvenile defendants are at a great disadvantage in criminal proceedings since they are less able than adults to assist in their own defenses, and are more likely to crack under high pressure of interrogation. Almost every state does not allow juveniles to vote, buy cigarettes/alcohol, to drive without restrictions, or get married without parental consent, so why do they deserve to spend their entire lives in prison for crimes they committed as children? Youth in the juvenile justice system have a high need for education, since more than half of all incarcerated youth possess math and reading skills below their grade level, and many of them have been suspended or expelled from traditional public schools. Unfortunately, once incarcerated, education is even harder to achieve. Incarcerated youth do not have equal access to quality education (that coincides with state curricular standards) compared to non- incarcerated youth, and in 2015, 30% of states do not require juvenile detention facilities to participate in state education accountability systems, and 39% had juvenile detention facilities that did not meet national education accreditation standards. Data from the US Department of Education Office of Civil Rights (OCR) shows that incarcerated students received about 25 hours of instructional time per week, which is 8 fewer hours than non-incarcerated youth spent at traditional public schools. JUVENILE LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE EDUCATION JUVENILE LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE states that have banned JLWOP = juvenile life without parole JLWOP 22 1 56 0 33 4 4 4 288 0 2 states that have not banned the sentence states that haven’t banned it, but do not currently have anyone serving the amount of juveniles serving life sentences in that state (as of 2016) # 0 0 20