Read about crime and incarceration around the world in The Prison Index

February 29, 2004

The Western Prison Project and the Prison Policy Initiative have posted the Global Comparisons -- Crime and incarceration around the world section of The Prison Index on the web. The section compares the frequency of crime and incarceration around the world and then tells the story of Finland's very successful attempt to protect public safety and public morality by lowering its incarceration rate. Check it out and then purchase the entire report.

New book on re-entry

February 27, 2004

Jennifer Gonnerman has a new book: Life on the Outside : The Prison Odyssey of Elaine Bartlett

Life on the Outside is the first major work of journalism on the subject of re-entry: the challenge of leaving prison and re-entering the free world.

This journey will be taken by millions of Americans in the coming years and will undoubtedly have a significant impact on the economics, safety, and soul of our nation.

Life on the Outside chronicles one woman's homecoming.

There is also an interactive website about the book. Check it out.

Most disturbing criminal justice stories of 2003

February 11, 2004

Here are our 8 picks for 2003:

Prison Union Seeks Ouster of the Chief of Corrections By Laura Mansnerus, New York Times, December 31, 2003

"TRENTON, Dec. 30 - The union representing sergeants at New Jersey prisons is asking Gov. James E. McGreevey to dismiss Corrections Commissioner Devon Brown, saying he made racially charged comments in a speech about the inequitable treatment of blacks and Hispanics in the criminal justice system....

"Mr. Brown, who is black, said at the Nov. 8 conference at Rutgers that he was distressed by huge racial disparities in the prison population. 'This state and nation has lost a generation of young African-Americans and Hispanics, both male and female, to the criminal justice juggernaut.'

"The union also expressed dismay over comments drawing parallels to slave-era plantations."

Dip in inmate population worries officials By Miles Jackson, The Daily Journal (NJ)

"Prison inmates mean different things to different communities.

"To some, an inmate is one more dangerous criminal taken off the street.

"To others, a person behind bars represents the failure of society to keep that person on the straight and narrow.

"In Cumberland County, prison inmates translate to dollars and cents."

Dying to Get Out by Geri L. Dreiling, River Front Times (St. Louis, Missouri) October 15, 2003.

"Some inmates tell horror stories about healthcare at the women's prison in Vandalia. Some didn't live to tell their tales."

Hard Time in the Heartland by Ian Urbina, Middle East Report, September 30, 2003.

Great article about the Pentagon's reliance on prisoner labor to equip the war machine.

Federal prison a racial issue for poor county, By Jeffrey Collins, Associated Press in The Post and Courier (Charleston, SC)

TV's Whodunit Effect by Carlene Hempel, The Boston Globe Magazine, February 9, 2003.

"Police dramas are having an unexpected impact in the real world: The public thinks every crime can be solved, and solved now - just like on television."

November inspection slated for ex-Castle weapons site By Stacey Wiebe, Merced Sun-Star (CA), August 27, 2003.

"Air Force officials announced Tuesday night that a site inspection of the region above Castle Air Force Base's former weapons storage area will take place in November, in light of the possibility that radioactive waste remains buried in the storage facility.

"The former weapons storage area lies buried beneath a portion of the United States Penitentiary, Atwater, which houses more than 1,500 inmates."

A Nation Behind Bars Editorial, Washington Post, April 13, 2003.

"IMAGINE THAT the United States locked up the populations of Wyoming, Vermont and North Dakota and then threw in the nation of Iceland for good measure. The result would be an inmate population of approximately the same size as the one currently behind bars in the United States. Last year, for the first time in American history, the states and the federal government -- in jails and in prisons around the country -- had more than 2 million people behind bars, according to Justice Department statistics. Those locked up included 1.3 percent of all males in this country, 4.8 percent of all black males -- and a shocking 11.8 percent of black men between the ages of 20 and 34. The dramatic rise in the prison population has created a nation of prisoners within American society. While hidden from the view, and even the consciousness, of most Americans, the existence of this nation forces those on the outside to ask, in turn, what kind of nation they want to live in.

"There is no magic 'right' number of people to have in prison; that will properly vary with crime rates and popular attitudes toward criminals. But there is something breathtaking about the current figure. The U.S. rate of incarceration is the highest in the world; according to data from the British Home Office, the only countries with rates close to it are the Cayman Islands and Russia. It is nearly seven times the rate in Canada and more than four time the rate in the United Kingdom, which leads Europe. It also represents an enormous rise by the standards of even recent American history. According to criminologist Alfred Blumstein, the rate of imprisonment stayed stable between the 1920s and the 1970s. Since the 1970s, however, it has increased several times over.

"The logic of tougher sentencing regimes and extended prison terms for drug offenders has long since become circular. When crime persists in the face of tougher sentences, many policymakers conclude that the sentences need to be tougher still. The cycle has proven enormously difficult to break, in large measure because popular sentiment makes the tough-on-crime posture politically irresistible. But keeping an ever-growing number of people locked up has huge costs: the financial costs associated with maintaining a nation of inmates, the human costs in the wrecked lives of those who could have been rehabilitated under different policies, the costs to society when people are finally released after years of prison socialization. There are also moral costs -- hard to define yet real nonetheless. For the incarceration rate reflects on some level the rate at which a society gives up on its members. And 2 million is a huge number to give up on."

LCD Projector needed

February 5, 2004

Do you have an old LCD projector you can contribute to our sponsor, the Prison Policy Initiative? Assistant Director Peter Wagner does a lot of speaking on crime and corrections policy as well as for the Prisoners of the Census project, but frequently the venue does not have a projector available. Given that our work is becoming more and more graph and map-based, we need a way to display and discuss our work.

If you can contribute an old one, or if you can help us buy a new one, please contact us via the address at the bottom of the page.

(For folks that would like to make a much smaller contribution to support our work, we've created a list of books you can buy us from our Amazon.com wishlist. But a projector would really help move our work forward a ton.)