ACE

Category: Criminal Justice

  • The Pros and Cons of Plea Bargaining: An Overview Analysis

    The Pros and Cons of Plea Bargaining: An Overview Analysis

    Plea bargains have become the primary resolution for many criminal cases in the court system, with 95% of federal criminal cases currently resulting in a plea deal. These agreements are made between the prosecutor and the defendant, where the defendant agrees to plead guilty to the charges, thus avoiding a trial. In return, defendants typically receive reduced charges or a lesser sentence. Proponents of plea bargains argue that they help alleviate the burden of overloaded caseloads for prosecutors and judges, while also allowing defendants to avoid lengthy and costly trials or harsher penalties. However, critics of plea bargains argue that they violate defendants’ constitutional right to a trial and can lead to abuse of power within the system.

    What has caused this drastic increase in plea bargains? 

    1. Caseload pressure: The more criminal cases the court takes on, the more plea bargains are made to alleviate the burden of these cases having to go to trial.
    2. Trial complexity: Over the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, trial procedures have become more developed and procedural. Therefore, trials now take significantly more time and resources to complete, resulting in the current backlog of cases and the need for plea bargains.
    3. Professionalization: With the decline in part-time prosecutors and amateur police forces, these professions became “full-time crime handlers” in which they were trained in modern investigative techniques that cause courtroom trials to be seen as unnecessary. The reasoning being that if prosecutors had gathered enough evidence to charge the defendant, then the defendant was “obviously” guilty of the crime.

    Arguments against Plea Bargains

    Those opposed to plea bargains argue that the practice is unethical because it violates defendants’ constitutional right to a trial. They point to the 6th Amendment in the Bill of Rights, which guarantees the right to a speedy and public trial, as evidence of this contention. Critics contend that plea deals circumvent due process, which includes the civil procedures the government must follow to deprive someone of their legal rights. This perspective highlights concerns about potential abuses of power and the importance of upholding defendants’ rights within the criminal justice system.

    Opponents of plea bargains argue that the system incentivizes prosecutors to offer plea deals to “save time and money” and improve case closure records. Prosecutors may use the threat of a trial penalty, which involves a harsher sentence if the defendant chooses to go to trial, to pressure defendants into accepting plea bargains. This coercive tactic is seen as obstructing the defendant’s right to a fair trial and may lead innocent defendants to plead guilty, sometimes based on advice from their lawyers. Public defenders, often overloaded with cases, may struggle to provide adequate defense, further incentivizing plea bargains for defendants who cannot afford private representation.

    Furthermore, without a trial, prosecutors are not required to meet a high burden of proof to obtain a conviction. This could incentivize them to only charge those they initially suspect without fully investigating the case. The lesser burden of proof necessary for plea bargains allows prosecutors to quickly close cases without needing to convince a unanimous jury of guilt. Additionally, the lack of transparency in plea bargain negotiations and delayed access to evidence for defense attorneys can lead to unchecked misconduct and coercion of defendants into pleading guilty without fully understanding the facts of their case.

    Arguments for Plea Bargains

    The most common argument supporting plea bargains is their essential role in the court system. Judges and prosecutors argue that without plea bargains, courts would struggle to handle every case, leading to a backlog of caseloads. Many within the system believe that plea bargains are the most efficient practice to keep the system functioning, with 90% of judges surveyed by the National Judicial College stating that plea bargains contribute to advancing justice.

    Furthermore, plea bargains allow defendants to avoid the financial burden and lengthy duration of a trial. Trials can take years to reach a resolution, and defendants who cannot afford bail may remain in prison awaiting trial. Accepting a plea deal enables defendants to receive sentencing promptly, often without serving jail time. Additionally, trials involve court fees and costly defense attorney fees, making plea bargains a more feasible option for defendants who cannot afford the expenses associated with a trial.

    Supporters of plea bargains recognize the imperfections in the system and propose reforms to address criticisms. One key reform is to establish greater transparency in plea bargain negotiations through oversight and monitoring at every stage of the criminal process. The American Bar Association’s proposed reform includes creating guidelines to minimize discrepancies between plea deal sentences and trial sentences, thereby preventing prosecutors from using harsher sentences as leverage. Another proposed reform involves granting defendants access to all materials and evidence before accepting a plea deal, allowing for an independent review of the case. These reforms aim to ensure fairness and prevent coercion in plea bargain proceedings.

    Conclusion 

    Those who believe in the use of plea bargains would argue that it is an alternative route to justice that allows defendants to seek lesser sentences. Those who do not approve believe that plea bargains are an abuse of power that only serves to benefit the criminal court system without regard for the accused. The essential debate surrounding plea bargains revolves around deciding whether or not the practice is a necessary process of the criminal justice system that only requires some reforms, or if the practice is an unethical obstruction to justice as it denies defendants their constitutional right to a trial.

  • California Senate Bill 10: Ending Cash Bail

    California Senate Bill 10: Ending Cash Bail

    What is Cash Bail? 

    When a person is arrested, cash bail is the amount of money arrestees must pay in order to leave custody before their trial. Bail is used as collateral to incentivize arrestees to attend their trial, and this amount of money is assigned by a judge. When assigning bail, judges take into account the severity of the alleged crime, the risk of the defendant fleeing, and the potential danger the defendant poses. Despite monetary bail’s longevity in the American criminal justice system, there is a recent movement to end cash bail, as some claim that it leads to inequity. States like Kentucky, New Mexico, and New Jersey passed reforms to their cash bail system, but California’s Money Bail Reform Act was the first to propose completely eliminating monetary bail. While the policy ultimately failed to pass a referendum, other states like New York have adopted similar policies.

    What Would CA Senate Bill 10 do? 

    Under the California Money Bail Reform Act, or Senate Bill 10, cash bail does not determine pretrial release. Rather, release decisions are determined by orders issued by judges. Judges base these release decisions on their reasoning of the arrestee’s public safety threat and their likelihood of attending their trial. To assist in these judgements, the policy establishes Pretrial Assessment Services in each court system, which provide the judge a recommendation for release based on predictive algorithms. While this recommendation is shared with a judge, they are not restricted by this suggestion and ultimately have final discretion in issuing a release order. SB 10 did not pass a ​​2020 referendum, and efforts to pass a scaled down version of the bill in the state legislature this year have failed as well. However, in 2021, the California Supreme Court ruled that setting bail at an amount a person cannot pay is unconstitutional. 

    Arguments for SB 10 

    Proponents of SB 10 assert the change in policy decriminalizes poverty as the cash bail system meant those who could not afford bail were imprisoned without due process. Following this logic, cash bail unequally burdens impoverished arrestees in a way it does not for wealthier arrestees. According to a study analyzing Bureau of Justice statistics by the Prison Policy Initiative, those in jail (arrestees awaiting trial) had a median income of $15,000. Additionally, cash bail means that large numbers of arrestees are incarcerated before their trial, which incurs a cost that falls on taxpayers. In a survey conducted by the Vera Institute of Justice in 2015, approximately 53% of the jail population in the state of California consisted of individuals incarcerated before their trial. Additionally, according to a brief from the Pretrial Justice Institute, nationally taxpayers spend $38 million per day to incarcerate individuals who are awaiting trial. 

    Furthermore, because cash bail means release is dependent on monetary value and not risk assessments, it cannot not take into account the potential danger that an arrestee poses to society. There is little societal value for imprisoning individuals who are not likely to pose a public safety threat and individuals who do present a public safety threat may be released because they can afford bail. Proponents point to research suggesting that the majority of those held pretrial were not charged with a serious crime following their trial. For example, a survey of Connecticut prisons by the Office of Policy Management found that only approximately ⅓ of the arrestees faced incarceration post-trial. Additionally, a study from the Prison Policy Institute found that 75% of arrestees held in jails are legally innocent.

    Arguments Against S.B. 10 

    One argument against SB 10 is that cash bail is a necessary screening measure that prevents dangerous arrestees from committing further crimes as they await their trials. Opponents point out that those who are imprisoned likely committed a crime, and a monetary barrier based on a judge’s discretion is likely to prevent further danger to society. Additionally, opponents argue that cash bail disincentivizes crime, as the threat of jail time before a trial could mean people are less likely to offend. 

    Additionally, opponents also had concerns about the equity of pretrial release assessments, as there is evidence that these algorithms show racial bias. For example, a 2016 study done by ProPublica analyzed the effectiveness of a commonly used criminal assessment tool called Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions (COMPAS) by comparing the program’s predictions of arrestees’ recidivism and actual criminal records in a Florida county. The study found that COMPAS incorrectly predicted black defendants would reoffend at a rate of 44.9%, and only a rate of 23.5% for white defendants. Criminal justice experts theorize that because algorithms rely on criminal records within a system that often overpolices communities of color, as well as markers of poverty, the results of many algorithms are subject to some of the same inequities as cash bail. 

  • Preventing Crime Through Rehabilitation

    Preventing Crime Through Rehabilitation

    What is Rehabilitation Theory and how does it relate to crime prevention?

    Rehabilitation Theory is a forward-looking theory, similarly to Deterrence Theory and Incapacitation Theory, where punishment through rehabilitation is justified through its ability to control crime. In contrast to Deterrence Theory and Incapacitation Theory, however, Rehabilitation Theory positions punishment as a mechanism to improve an individual’s character or behavior, which would then reduce the likelihood of recidivism. The word “punishment” often has a negative connotation, but Rehabilitation Theory gained traction in the United States through a concept known as the Rehabilitative Ideal, which positions punishment as a way for corrections to serve higher social purposes, notably the reduction of recidivism. 

    The Rehabilitative Ideal follows a positivist school of thought where participation in crime is the outcome of processes such as environmental factors, including family upbringing and social conditioning, or genetic factors. Throughout the early 20th century, the Medical Model of Intervention became the baseline rehabilitative treatment for individuals who commit crimes. People who commit crimes were seen as products of socio-economic or psychological forces beyond their control. Crime became a “sickness,” where the goal of rehabilitative treatment was to “cure” individuals, which would in turn reduce recidivism. Proponents of the Medical Model point to the subsequent introduction of psychiatrists, psychologists, and clinical social workers into prison settings. However, advocates for individuals in prison ultimately brought the Medical Model’s failures to light, pointing to the invasive and illegal procedures taking place in correctional institutions such as psychosurgery, electroconvulsive therapy, and chemical castration performed under the guise of “rehabilitation.” 

    Rehabilitation Policy in the US Before Martinson

    The use of rehabilitation as a form of punishment and crime prevention emerged in the late 19th century in penitentiaries at a time when people in prison were responsible for their own rehabilitation. The primary rationale behind crime was thought to stem from an individual’s inability to “to lead orderly and God-fearing lives.” However, penitentiaries soon became reformatories, which aimed to rehabilitate offenders through educational and vocational training, though they still utilized physical punishment. 

    The 1936 Cambridge-Somerville Youth Study was one of the first experiments that operated under the guidance of the Rehabilitative Ideal. The program aimed to prevent delinquency, and targeted under-priveleged boys by offering individual counseling through activities and home visits. Such attempts to utilize rehabilitation as a form of crime prevention would inform the intensive use of the Rehabilitative Ideal throughout the 1950s and 1960s in public policy. 

    The Prisoner Rehabilitation Act of 1965 authorized furloughs, a system of work release, and standardized the use of community residential treatment centers for adult federal prisoners. The act emphasized the importance of reforming correctional work to create improved educational and vocational training programs for people in prison. Attorney General Nicholas deB. Katzenbach verbalized his support of the Prisoner Rehabilitation Act of 1965 by stating that the policies would amplify “the growing trend in the correctional field to augment inherently limited institutional resources with potentially greater community resources.” The law contained three major provisions:

    1. The Attorney General would have the authority to transfer individuals who were in prison to residential community treatment centers (more commonly known as Halfway Houses);
    2. The Attorney General can give individuals in prison brief periods to leave for emergencies or purposes relating to release preparations; and,
    3. The Attorney General can allow people in prison to work in private employment or participate in community training programs while remaining in prison.

    The aim of the Prisoner Rehabilitation Act of 1965 was to codify the federal government’s dedication toward creating rehabilitative programs for people in prison in order to reduce crime in the United States. 

    The Martinson Report: “Nothing Works”

    While the United States gravitated toward rehabilitation as a form of crime prevention throughout the 1950s and 1960s, everything changed in 1974 when Robert Martinson released his paper titled, “What Works? – Questions and answers about Prison Reform,” more commonly referred to as “The Martinson Report.” Between the years of 1960 and 1975, reported rates of robbery, aggravated assault, rape, and homicide increased by 263%, and property crime rates, specifically burglaries, increased by 200%. Crime was at an all time high in the United States, which led sociologists like Martinson to explore the effectiveness of rehabilitation as a form of crime prevention in America. 

    In Martinson’s research involving over two-hundred studies, he concluded that there was little reason to believe that rehabilitation reduces recidivism. Martinson addressed forms of rehabilitation such as education and vocational training, individual counseling, transforming the institutional environment of rehabilitation, medical treatment, and decarcerating individuals in prison, providing evidence for why he believed such measures do not work to prevent crime. Criminological reports leading up to the 1970s that found no significant treatment effects for prison rehabilitation programs coupled with Martinson’s Report ultimately coined the phrase and conclusion that “nothing works” in rehabilitating people in prison and that prison sentences should not include opportunities for rehabilitation. 

    Because Martinson’s Report arrived during a period of intensified rates of crime and recidivism in the United States, policymakers from all political backgrounds began to lean into the “get tough on crime” era. Martinson’s message was attractive to liberals, since it could be used to argue against incarceration and indeterminate sentencing, as well as conservatives, who demanded tougher handling of people who commit crimes. The political right and left, in addition to academics, found common ground through Martinson’s “nothing works” mentality, ultimately leading to the decimation of rehabilitative prison programming as a form of crime prevention in US public policy. 

    Rehabilitation Policy in the US After Martinson

    The Martinson Report, along with the overall agreement of policymakers and academics, culminated in the decline of the Rehabilitative Ideal and the rise of “new punitiveness.” As a result, the United State’s current criminal justice system is more punitive, where incapacitation is the most common form of crime prevention in US policy, rather than rehabilitation. 

    The 1989 Mistretta v. United States case ultimately reversed the Prisoner Rehabilitation Act of 1965, as well as any efforts by the federal government to implement rehabilitation as a way to prevent crime. Under the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, Congress eliminated indeterminate sentencing at the federal level and created the United States Sentencing Commission. The Commission was intended to address the discrepancies in sentencing by federal court judges by creating sentencing guidelines for all federal offenses. Mistretta argued that the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 violated the delegation-of-powers principle in US constitutional law by giving the Commission “excessive legislative powers.” However, the Supreme Court upheld the federal sentencing guidelines implemented by the Commission, which removed rehabilitation from serious consideration when sentencing people who committed a crime. In other words, the guidelines established by the commission were to be applied in all scenarios, ignoring factors such as responsiveness to treatment, person and family history, previous efforts to rehabilitate oneself, or alternatives to incapacitation.

    In 2008, Congress passed the Second Chance Act, which sanctioned federal investment in strategies to reduce recidivism and increase public safety using Rehabilitation Theory. Allegheny County, PA established reentry programs for people who were in prison that connected individuals with education, job readiness, treatment, and other services. Iowa also established pre-release planning for individuals nearing the end of their prison sentences. Overall, there have been few efforts from the federal government over the past few decades to implement reforms rooted in rehabilitation to reduce recidivism. A 2017 Department of Justice report on the Federal Bureau of Prison points to several policy goals focusing on rehabilitation as a form of crime prevention such as identifying individual’s criminogenic needs, developing standardized, evidence-based programs to reduce recidivism, ensuring that people who are in prison receive substance abuse treatment, and helping people in prison maintain family ties. 

    Effectiveness of Rehabilitation on Crime Prevention and the Impact on People of Color 

    Although Martinson later retracted many of his conclusions regarding rehabilitation programs, and his original report was found to include major methodological flaws, the academic community and policymakers embraced his views on rehabilitation as a form of crime prevention. Contemporary research demonstrates that rehabilitation programs reduce recidivism by about 10%. The risk-need-responsivity (RNR) model uses risk assessment tools to provide rehabilitative treatment to individuals with the highest risk of committing another crime. In a study focusing on the effects of RNR efforts on Ohio’s halfway house programs, the recidivism rate of high-risk individuals lowered by 20%. The Boston Reentry Initiative (BRI) serves as an example of how community partnerships can also reduce recidivism. The BRI provides a family member or mentor to meet each released person when they leave prison, and researchers found that participants had a rearrest rate 30% lower than the control group. Rehabilitation has the capacity to lower recidivism rates when policymakers invest in mental health care, personalized education plans for individuals in prison, and ensuring that individuals leaving prison have job opportunities. People in prison who participate in education programs have a 43% lower chance of returning to prison than those who do not, and individuals who have a job when they are in prison are 24% less likely to recidivate. 

    More than 600,000 individuals are released from state and federal prisons every year, but within three years of their release, two out of three individuals are rearrested. Because one in three African-American men are imprisoned throughout their lifetime, compared to one in six Latino men and one in seventeen White men, rehabilitative measures, rather than deterrence or incapacitation, have the greatest potential to reduce the mass incarceration of people of color in the United States. However, rehabilitation programs, specifically during the peak of US Rehabilitative Ideal policymaking, were reserved for individuals deemed capable of reform by policymakers who mostly prioritize white people. As a result, any early sociological studies of prisons do not include people of color in prison, which means the impact of rehabilitation as a form of crime prevention on people of color was, and still is, largely unexamined.

  • Preventing Crime Through Deterrence

    Preventing Crime Through Deterrence

    Deterrence is one of the several goals of punishment alongside incapacitation, rehabilitation, and retribution. Deterrence emphasizes that an individual will feel reluctant to commit a crime if the consequences of that punishment are too great. Legislators have utilized deterrence measures to create policies intended to reduce recidivism, sometimes at the cost of reinforcing racial disparities throughout the United States’ criminal justice system. 

    What is Deterrence Theory, and how does it relate to crime prevention?

    Deterrence Theory has three components: certainty, celerity, and severity of punishment, all of which aim to prevent both individuals who may commit a crime as well as other members of society from participating in unwanted behavior. 

    • Deterrence Theory implies that there is a certainty that the person who commits a crime will be caught. If a person believes that they will not be caught, then the threat of any punishment will not be effective;
    • Celerity is the idea that punishment imposed immediately after an offense will likely be more effective than one that is imposed years later;
    • Finally, if the benefit of carrying out a criminal offense outweighs the consequence, then committing a crime may seem like the more advantageous option, even to a rational person. As such, the severity of punishment is perhaps the most important component of Deterrence Theory, demonstrating that the punishment must not only deter individuals who may commit a crime, but also other members of society by positioning criminal behavior as unacceptable. 

    Contemporary deterrence theories are rooted in classical criminological theory. Cesare Becarria’s 1784 “Essay on Crimes and Punishments” and Jeremy Bentham’s 1781 “An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation” formed the foundation for the revival of Deterrence Theory in the 1970s. Rather than utilizing Deterrence Theory to explain why people commit crime, as was initially intended by founding philosophers such as Becarria and Bentham, economists and criminologists began to view the theory as a solution to crime. Principle assumptions of deterrence theory include:

    1. A target group receives a message, such as “it is wrong to murder, and taking someone’s life may result in a life-term prison sentence;”
    2. The target group perceives the message as a threat;
    3. The target group makes a rational decision as to whether or not they partake in criminal behavior based on the message they received.

    The “Get Tough Approach” to Crime

    After violent crime rates increased by 126% between 1960 and 1970, Congress adopted deterrence theories from classical criminological theory in the 1984 Sentencing Reform Act, which was signed by President Ronald Reagan and served as the beginning of what would eventually become the “Get Tough On Crime” era. The 1984 Sentencing Reform Act set forth a new sentencing structure where any defendant found guilty of any offense under any Federal statute would be sentenced to a set term of imprisonment or probation and a fine in addition to additional sanctions. Legislators and legal scholars posited that mandatory sentences would deter people from committing crimes because harsher consequences would prevent criminal behavior. Despite the lack of evidence supporting these legislators’ claims, such ideology eventually gave birth to President Bill Clinton’s “Tough on Crime” campaigns throughout the 1990s. 

    The 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act (“the Crime Act”)  included funding for 100,000 more police officers, and implemented the “Three Strikes” policy. Overall, the bill lengthened prison sentences for certain federal crimes and raised mandatory minimum sentencing requirements across the United States. Anyone convicted of a crime under a mandatory minimum would receive at least that sentence. Mandatory minimums were intended to promote uniformity, ensuring that the law would determine a sentence, not the biases of the judge. The Three Strikes Law generally mandates a life sentence for the third offense of violent felonies, imposing harsher punishments for people with lengthy criminal records. Proponents of the Three Strikes Law claim that if a person who committed a crime knows that they face the potential of a life in prison for their next crime, they will not participate in offending behavior. Advocates of the policy contend that the Three Strikes Law protects victims who may fear the return of those who committed the crime, especially in cases involving rape or theft. Opponents of the Three Strikes Law argue that the policy does not deter the most violent crimes, since a life sentence would not prevent a person from committing a crime who acts impulsively. Additionally, out of nearly 34 million serious crimes committed each year in the US, only 3 million result in arrests, so many individuals who consider committing a crime do not anticipate being caught. 

    Truth In Sentencing (TIS) laws restrict the possibility of early release for incarcerated individuals. Such laws aim to limit the amount of time people in prison can earn off of their non-life sentences, which require incarcerated people to serve a substantial portion of their prison sentence before being eligible for release. Additional federal legislation passed as a part of the Crime Act and amended in 1996 gave states grants to expand their prison capacity if they imposed TIS requirements on those who commit violent crimes. The program, known as the Federal TIS Incentive Grant Program, functioned under the 85% Rule, which required states to force those who commit violent crimes to serve at least 85% of their sentence in prison in order to receive the grant. As a result, earning time off of court-appointed sentences through good behavior and participation in prison programming or rehabilitation no longer helped people in prison reduce their prison sentence. New York implemented a 1998 law which required first time offenders to serve 85% of a determinate sentence. Nevada’s TIS laws required anyone who committed a crime to serve 100% of the minimum prison term before becoming eligible for parole.

    Criticisms, “Get Tough” Policies, and their Impact on Racial Minorities 

    Deterrence Theory and related policies aim to reduce crime, but a series of studies indicated that harsher penalties led to increases in crimes of rape, assault, larceny, robbery, burglary, and auto theft. Because criminal acts may be driven by a variety of factors, such as the influence of drugs or alcohol, the existence of harsh penalties is not necessarily a deciding factor in a person’s willingness to commit the crime. Deterrence Theory assumes that human beings are always rational actors that consider the consequences of their behavior before committing a crime, so someone who is temporarily impared would not consider the pros and cons of their actions. Additionally, proponents of Deterrence Theory would assume that more severe sentences reduce a person’s likelihood of committing another crime. However, a 1999 study that reviewed 336,052 people with criminal records dating back to 1958 found that longer prison sentences increased recidivism by 3%. Finally, Deterrence Theory operates under the assumption that there is certainty people will be apprehended for committing a crime, but due to the limits of the US criminal justice system, many crimes do not result in arrest or conviction. Increasing the severity of punishment through longer prison sentences, for instance, would not deter individuals from criminal behavior if they do not believe they will be apprehended. 

    Mandatory minimums aim to create a more equitable criminal justice system, however one effect has been an increase in the power of prosecutors and a reduction in the power of judges in sentencing. Prosecutors have the ability to charge defendants with crimes that trigger mandatory minimum sentences. Previously, a judge had the ability to reduce sentences based on their understanding of the case and the defendant’s risk to society, however TISs moved that decision to prosecutors.
    African-American adults are 5.9 times more likely and Hispanic adults are 3.1 times more likely to be incarcerated than white adults, so imposing life sentences because an individual has a criminal record disproportionately impacts people of color. The Crime Act also expanded the school-to-prison pipeline and increased racial disparities in juvenile justice involvement by creating mandatory minimums that impact low-income children of color who are convicted of multiple crimes. Additionally, prosecutors are twice as likely to pursue a mandatory minimum sentence for African American people than for white people who were charged with the same offense. The 100:1 ratio in the amount of crack cocaine v. powder cocaine that triggered a five year mandatory minimum ultimately led to the mass incarceration of African Americans. Five grams of crack cocaine resulted in the same sentence as 500 grams of powder cocaine, and because the majority of people arrested for crack offenses are African American, the 100:1 ratio created racial disparities in the average length of sentences. The Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 reduced the statutory penalties for crack cocaine offenses to a 18:1 ratio and eliminated the mandatory minimum sentence for simple possession of crack cocaine by increasing statutory fines.

  • Preventing Crime Through Incapacitation

    Preventing Crime Through Incapacitation

    What is Incapacitation Theory and how does it relate to crime prevention?

    Similar to Deterrence Theory, Incapacitation Theory follows a reductivist school of thought, meaning that policymakers justify punishment through incapacitation by positioning it as a way to avoid potential future consequences. That being said, Incapacitation Theory operates under the assumption that any person who commits a crime may commit another crime. Incapacitation Theory suggests that people who have committed crimes should be prevented from committing other crimes through removal from society and/or other methods that restrict an individual’s physical ability to commit another crime. 

    Proponents of Selective Incapacitation, an incapacitation strategy within Incapacitation Theory, argue that people who are convicted of committing a crime should be divided into two groups before sentencing:

    1. “Dangerous offenders,” people who pose a high risk of committing further dangerous crimes; and
    2. “Non-dangerous offenders,” people who are unlikely to commit more dangerous crimes if they are released from prison.

    While the intention of Selective Incapacitation supporters may be to avoid overly severe punishments that result in longer sentences and prison overcrowding, there is no known method through which the courts could distinguish dangerous individuals from non-dangerous individuals with accuracy. Sentences based on Selective Incapacitation punish individuals for crimes not yet committed, which runs the risk that people who are identified as dangerous and are incarcerated will not actually commit another crime. 

    There are multiple types of Incapacitation within Incapacitation Theory: 

    • Incarceration– Imprisonment serves as the primary method of incapacitation in the United States. Incapacitation through incarceration functions through the perspective that a person who committed a crime cannot commit more crimes in their community while they are carrying out their prison sentence;
    • Capital Punishment– The Death Penalty is the most severe and permanent form of incapacitation. An individual is not capable of committing any other crimes once they are put to death, so capital punishment fulfills the goal of incapacitation to an extreme degree;
    • Lesser Penalties– Lesser penalties may concern restricting a person from committing a crime rather than completely disabling a person from committing another crime. For instance, revoking an individual’s driver’s license in response to numerous speeding tickets or putting a person on house arrest both achieve restrictive forms of incapacitation.

    Policy Origins of Mass Incarceration in the US

    Following President Richard Nixon’s presidential campaign concerning “law and order,” his administration allocated $1.5 billion in state and local law enforcement grants to prevent crime in America. Soon thereafter, Nixon declared the “War on Drugs,” and Congress passed the Comprehensive Drug Prevention and Control Act (CSA) in 1970 to prevent drug abuse, provide treatment for drug abusers, and strengthen law enforcement authority in the field of drug abuse. The CSA also provided a legal basis for the government’s “War on Drugs.” For instance, New York’s strict 1973 sentencing guidelines known as the “Rockefeller Drug Laws” placed mandatory prison sentences of fifteen years to life for drug dealers and addicts, including marijuana. Some policymakers argue that sentencing laws like the Rockefeller Drug Laws expanded the United State’s prison population from the 330,000 in 1973 to a peak of 2.3 million today. 

    President Ronald Reagan’s administration further expanded Nixon’s “War on Drugs” through the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, which authorized $1 billion to state and federal law enforcement and mandated harsher penalties in federal drug cases. The policy also expanded the use of no-knock warrants. Reagan’s administration’s drug reform policies resulted in an increase of incarceration rates of non-violent drug offenders from 50,000 in 1980 to over 400,000 in 1997. 

    The 1994 Crime Bill under President Bill Clinton’s administration paved the way for states to pass more tough-on-crime laws, as coined through Clinton’s “Tough on Crime” era. The 1994 law encouraged prosecutors and police to incarcerate more people and for longer periods of time. The Three Strikes Law, one of the most well known policies under the 1994 Crime Bill, required a minimum sentence of twenty-five years to life for people who commited three crimes with prior serious felony convictions. While Deterrence Theory partly informed the Three Strikes Law, the policy took shape through Incapacitation Theory. In California alone, there were almost 43,000 individuals in prison under the Three Strikes Law as of 2004, which was 26% of the total CA prison population. 

    Due to sentencing policies resulting from the “War on Drugs,” the number of Americans incarcerated for drug offenses has increased from 40,900 in 1980 to 430,926 in 2019. Overall, there has been a 500% increase in US prison and jail populations over the past forty years, with over two million people incarcerated today.

    Effectiveness of Incarceration and the Impact on People of Color

    Despite the steady decrease in violent crime over the past twenty years, the population of people in prison for violent crimes has quintupled since 1984. The National Research Council concluded that although prison growth was a factor in reducing crime “the magnitude of the crime reduction remains highly uncertain and the evidence suggests it was unlikely to have been large.” That being said, higher incarceration rates do not correlate to lower violent crime rates. The Sentencing Project points to two main factors that can explain why the impact of mass incarceration on reducing crime today is limited:

    • Incarceration is not a very effective tool to prevent youth crimes and drug crimes, since those individuals are quickly replaced by other people seeking an income or struggling with addiction.
    • Additionally, people tend to “age out” of crime, where crime drops rapidly when adults reach their 30s and 40s. 

    John Ehrlichman, Counsel and Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs under President Nixon, later admitted in a “War on Drugs” confessional statement:

    “We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities.”

    African Americans make up 12% of the US population, but they account for 44% of the US prison and jail population as the largest single demographic group behind bars. Harsher sentencing laws for drugs disproportionately fell on communities of color after the Reagan administration’s Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986. In particular, mandatory minimum sentences that were authorized for drug users as a result of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, specifically the 100:1 ratio between crack and powder cocaine sentences, led to wider racial disparities in incarceration rates. After the enactment of federal mandatory minimum sentencing on crack cocaine offenses, the average federal sentence for African Americans was 49% higher than for white people, 38% higher than it was four years prior. Although the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 reduced the crack and powder cocaine sentencing disparity, Black Americans are incarcerated in state prisons at nearly five times the rate of white people. 

    Incapacitation through Capital Punishment and the Impact on People of Color 

    Proponents of the capital punishment argue that incapacitation through the death penalty ensures that executed individuals who committed a crime are unable to commit another crime. However, there is no evidence pointing to the fact that the death penalty prevents crime more effectively than long term imprisonment, especially since states that have capital punishment do not show significant changes in either crime or murder rates. While capital punishment is a form of incapacitation, it is not more effective than life imprisonment in preventing crime, which explains why thirty-seven states allow juries to sentence defendants to live imprisonment without the possibility of parole instead of the death penalty. 

    Out of the 3,350 people currently on “death row” in the US, more than 40% are African American, and a disproportionate number are Native American, Latino, and Asian. Since October 2002, twelve people have been executed in cases where the defendant was white and the murder victim was black, while 178 African American defendants have beeen executed for murders with white victims, demonstrating the disproportionate impact of the death penalty on people of color.

  • The Cost of Healthcare in Prison

    The Cost of Healthcare in Prison

    Background

    Healthcare in prison is unique in that incarcerated individuals are the only group of people in the United States that have a right to medical care. According to the 1976 supreme court case Estelle V Gamble, not providing medical assistance for life-threatening conditions would violate a person’s 8th Amendment—the right against cruel and unusual punishment. 

    Since the Supreme Court ruling in the 1970s, there have been multiple cases of people still not receiving the care they need. A 2009 nationwide survey found that only 13.1% of inmates in federal prison received medical care when 38.5% of the population was suffering from a chronic condition. In 2016, Michael Ramey was confined to a county jail awaiting trial where he complained of a terrible headache. The healthcare providers did not believe the severity of his condition which resulted in his death just a month later from meningitis. Had the medical staff delivered the quality of care that is mandated by the 8th amendment, Ramey would not have lost his life to a treatable illness.  

    While the supreme court ruling does guarantee medical treatment for life-threatening conditions, chronic ailments and non-threatening illnesses are often left untreated in prisons. A report from the U.S Department of Justice showed that 40% of incarcerated individuals suffered from a chronic condition while in prison. Because Estelle V Gamble does not entitle inmates to the right to preventative care, individuals have no other choice but to pay to see a healthcare professional.

    The cost to receive care

    Although incarcerated individuals have a right to healthcare, they are still required to pay for it themselves. Copays in prison vary by state. The average copay ranges from $2-5. Notably, people in prison make an average of 14 cents an hour. Thus, a visit to the doctor would cost a person a week’s worth of their salary. Some prisons like in Texas, Arkansas, and Florida still have unpaid labor and high copays, making it even more difficult for a person to visit a healthcare provider. In some cases, the prison will still allow a person to see a healthcare provider if they can’t afford the copay. However, debt is applied to the person’s account and could even follow them after their release. 

    Programs like medicare, which allows people to seek annual wellness exams at no cost, become unusable once a person is in prison. Referred to as the Inmate exclusion policy, the law states that even if a person is eligible the Medicaid funds can not be used to pay for services in prison. Without having a sufficient income, many incarcerated people are forced to forgo seeing a healthcare provider. Which could lead to worsening of conditions, and possibly death. In the discussion of prison reform, it is important to consider ways to improve healthcare.

    Policy initiatives

    Some states like California and Illinois have chosen to get rid of their copays. To overcome the Inmate Medicaid Exclusion policy, states have asked for exemptions and waivers for coverage. As of July 2022, only 7 states have received approval for wavering exceptions to eligibility. Of all the states, Utah and Vermont are the only ones to request to provide full coverage of their Medicaid plan for incarcerated individuals. Additionally, organizations such as the National Association of Counties (NACo) have advocated for Medicaid recipients to keep health benefits for people who are in jail awaiting trial. 

    Arguments for eliminating copays

    Copays can make it difficult for people in prison to afford to seek medical treatment. By delaying care, illnesses can continue to progress. Avoiding medical treatment may be more expensive in the long run as diseases could become worse the longer a person chooses to seek help. Since prisons are required to provide medical care for life-threatening conditions, it may be more cost-effective to remove copays for minor illnesses rather than having a person avoid treatment, and the condition exacerbates to the point of hospitalization. 

    Researchers at the American Journal for Preventative Medicine suggested prisons waive copays in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic as high fees could prevent the early detection of contagious viruses. The cramped spaces in jails and prisons make the population vulnerable to spreadable infections. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, co-pays were a contributing factor to the outbreaks of MRSA in prisons in 2003. Eliminating co-pays could prevent the spread of disease in the prison population. 

    Challenges to eliminating Copays

    Eliminating copays could force the prisons to subsidize the cost of medical visits. States like Arkansas, which have opted to continue enforcing copays, argue that 20% of prison spending comes from healthcare alone. Therefore getting rid of co-pays would increase the percentage of expenditure. In addition to the increased cost, many argue that removing the financial burden from incarcerated people could lead to moral hazard, i.e. an increase in medical visits because inmates no longer have to pay. During the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, Arkansas waived co-pays for those who felt symptomatic or tested positive. However, the state had to reinstate copays after a month due to the overwhelming demand for medical attention that did not relate to the pandemic.

     
    The National Commission on Correctional Healthcare (NCCHC) states that copays are not merely seen as a medical decision, but rather a fee for service. The financial strain providing healthcare puts on prison facilities could be alleviated through the copays. Moreover, the NCCHC cites fiscal responsibility for incarcerated individuals as a reason to enforce copays. If a person can afford to purchase candy from the commissary, they can use the same money to pay to see a healthcare provider.

  • Healthcare Access and Recidivism in Boston

    Healthcare Access and Recidivism in Boston

    Recidivism refers to the likelihood of a formerly incarcerated person to reoffend. Factors such as housing, employment, and mental health can impact recidivism rates. Upon release, if a person does not have access to secure housing or mental health resources, the likelihood of them re-entering the prison system is high. Some states are experimenting with programs to help the transition from a carceral life to reduce the rate of recidivism. 

    Incarceration is a significant social determinant of health because imprisonment can create barriers for individuals once they are released. For example, over 80% of people who are released from prison do not have access to health insurance or lose their access due to their conviction. 

    Previous Policies

    In the past decades, various states have implemented programs intending to reduce prison recidivism rates. 

    • Maryland created educational programs and partnered with state agencies to provide medical services to individuals after they were released from prison. From 2000-2012, the state saw an 11% decrease in the rate of recidivism. State prison officials accredited the declining rate of reentry to their focus on the academic and health services provided.   
    • Michigan was one of the first states to create a re-entry initiative program. Coined the Michigan Prisoner Re-Entry Initiative (MPRI), the program focuses on housing, employment, mental health, and substance abuse services. The MPRI led to a 28% reduction in recidivism between 2000 and 2008.

    Current policies

    In Boston, Massachusetts Mayor Michelle Wu proposed a budget increase of 1.38 million for the Office of Returning Citizens (ORC). Before Mayor Wu’s proposal, the office operated on an annual budget of $500 thousand. The Office of Returning Citizens is in charge of assisting formerly incarcerated individuals through transitional housing, health services, employment opportunities, and record expungement. The ORC helps an average of 3,000 people per year from the state, local, and federal prisons, and has been steadily increasing its capacity since 2017.

    Arguments for supporting Boston’s ORC Budget Increase

    • Investing in re-entry programs has been cost-effective for other states. In Michigan, the MPRI has allowed the state to save over an estimated $1 billion in its efforts to reduce prison populations since 2000. 
    • As of 2020, over 54.4% of U.S citizens obtain health insurance through their employers. Thus, focusing on employment opportunities for people released from prison could increase their chances of having access to healthcare. 
    • Giving formerly incarcerated individuals supportive services such as healthcare, employment, and housing will allow them to have greater success in assimilating back into the community. Thereby reducing the likelihood of people returning to crime. 

    Arguments against investment in recidivism programs

    • Without changing policies that will make it easier for individuals with a convicted felony to obtain employment, the extent to which these programs can assist people is limited. 

    Currently there is a lack of research on the effectiveness of re-entry programs. As argued by David Muhlhausen, the former director of the National Institute of Justice, without randomized controlled trials, it is difficult for programs like the ones in Massachusetts and Michigan to be considered evidence-based.

  • Juvenile Justice: A Historic Overview

    Juvenile Justice: A Historic Overview

    18th Century and Earlier

    The earliest criminal laws in colonial America were derived from British common law. They set the precedent for early colonists on how they would address justice and crime, including juvenile delinquency and punishment. In 1646, the Massachusetts Stubborn Child Law declared that male adolescent disobedience was an offense punishable by death. Since children and adolescents were seen just as culpable as adults for breaking the law, they were to be punished like adults. These sentiments persisted through the 18th century, setting the groundwork for children “as young as age seven [to] be tried and sentenced in criminal courts” and sent to serve time in adult facilities. 

    19th Century: Roots of Juvenile Justice

    By the 19th century, a number of child advocates had organized to reform juvenile justice. The Society for the Prevention of Pauperism was founded to oppose housing youth in adult jails. They established the New York House of Refuge in 1825, the nation’s first institution to house only juveniles that were deemed to be on a path to delinquency. This society believed that, with the right support and resources, juveniles could be rehabilitated. Many cities and states adopted the same model, leading to the founding of similar institutions throughout the country in the following years. In 1899, the first juvenile court was established in Cook County, Illinois, by a group of women known as “child-savers.” It was established “under the British legal doctrine of parens patriae—‘the State as parent’”—meaning it was the state’s duty to both protect the public interest regarding juvenile delinquents, and serve as the guardian of childrens’ interests.

    20th Century to the Present: Due Process and “Tough on Crime” Policies

    The establishment of juvenile courts across the country allowed judges to have discretion over the outcome of juvenile cases without the use of formal trials, birthing wide disparities between cases. This presented an issue for most youth who had few legal protections and constitutional rights. In 1967, the Supreme Court case In re Gault delivered a landmark decision that granted juveniles legal protections under the 14th Amendment, such as the right to due process. This meant that juveniles had the right to legal representation, as well as the right to confront witnesses against them. Throughout the 1970s, additional constitutional rights were extended to juveniles, “including the right to have the charges against them proven beyond a reasonable doubt and the right against double jeopardy.” In 1974, Congress passed the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act, requiring the separation of juveniles from adults; it also created the federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention to fund statewide community-based programs as an alternative to youth incarceration.   

    Toward the late 1970s, the United States experienced an upward trend of violent juvenile offenses. This resulted in a political shift, with the government beginning the “tough on crime” era. Some of these approaches manifested into policies that moved juveniles to adult courts for trial and punishment. In 1978, the state of New York lowered “the eligible age for criminal responsibility to thirteen years old for murder and fourteen years old for other violent crimes.” Mandatory minimum sentences and three-strike laws enforced in adult cases were now extended to juveniles. By 1994, “the number of juvenile cases waived into adult criminal court peaked when 11,700 cases were transferred.” Juveniles also faced more punitive sentences, including sentences to death and life without the possibility of parole. The Supreme Court has since ruled each respective sentence as unconstitutional in Roper v. Simmons (2005) and Miller v. Alabama (2012), respectively. 

    Juvenile arrest rates for all offenses have decreased by 75% between 1996 and 2019. Despite this significant decline, laws birthed out of the “tough on crime” era remain unchanged. Prior to 2019, the maximum age of juvenile jurisdiction in New York and North Carolina was fifteen years old, meaning sixteen and seventeen year olds were automatically tried and incarcerated as adults, regardless of the crime. In 2017, bothstates passed laws to “raise the age of criminal responsibility to 18 years of age.” Most states maintain 18 as the age for criminal responsibility of non-violent crimes, however, in the case of violent crimes, there is more variability for juvenile offenders. For instance, in North Dakota and Kansas, violent offenders as young as 10 years old can be waived and prosecuted as adults. Although there are age mandates that limit juvenile jurisdiction, there are a multitude of waivers that permit juveniles to be tried as adults, much to the discretion of judges and prosecutors.

  • A Brief History of the War on Drugs

    A Brief History of the War on Drugs

    On June 17, 1971, President Richard Nixon declared a federal War on Drugs during a White House press conference. President Nixon announced that “public enemy number one in the United States is drug abuse.” Nixon proposed an “all-out offensive” composed of a worldwide, bipartisan, government-wide initiative including a nationwide youth education campaign against drug use. The official beginning of the War on Drugs had a massive cultural, governmental, and criminal impact on the United States. It led to decades of increased funding and powers for law enforcement agencies, legislation that changed sentencing laws, and a national spotlight on the adverse effects of illegal drug use in the United States.  

    Background on the Criminalization of Narcotics

    The criminalization of narcotics began in the United States decades before President Nixon’s address. The first federal law was enacted in 1906 to control narcotics in home remedies which primarily treated young children. This law, known as The Pure Food and Drug Act, emerged from salacious reports of unsanitary manufacturing conditions in the meatpacking industry. It aimed to regulate the labeling of manufactured products and prohibit the addition of ingredients which could harm the consumer. The law made clear that the government had a responsibility to protect consumers from harmful ingredients and appropriately expanded the government’s power to do so. Eight years later, the Harrison Narcotic Act classified drugs such as heroin, cocaine, morphine, and opium to facilitate the “orderly marketing” of such drugs. Disguised as a licensing law, it actually prohibited the sale of opiates. In reality, it had minimal impact on the use of such substances. The subsequent Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 levied hefty taxes against marijuana dealers to discourage its use. The Narcotics and Marijuana Tax Acts had little impact on drug use and disproportionately impacted and punished immigrants and racial minorities due to uneven enforcement. 

    Impact of the Declared ‘War on Drugs’ in the 1970s and 1980s

    Richard Nixon’s 1971 declaration set a precedent for how the country’s political leaders would approach the question of drug abuse in the coming decades, explicitly emphasizing the role of law enforcement and incarceration in combating the trafficking, distribution, sale, and use of illegal narcotics. His declaration called for $350 million from Congress, in part to establish a new government bureau, the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). The President’s call for an all-out offensive coincided with a rise in recreational drug use in the 1960s and the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), which Nixon signed into law in 1970. The CSA classified drugs into five schedules based on their medical application and potential for abuse, with class one drugs such as marijuana and heroin with a high risk for addiction and little evidence of medical benefit. Schedule five drugs are medications like cough syrup with low levels of codeine. 

    The official inception of the War on Drugs in 1971 expanded the power of law enforcement agencies and increased penalties on drug users and dealers, which President Ronald Reagan strengthened in the 1980s. President Reagan’s administration also passed the landmark Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984 and the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986. The Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984 established mandatory minimum sentences for various violent and non-violent crimes. The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 expanded the established mandatory minimum penalties for drug infractions, specifically possession, based on the drug’s classification (or schedule) and expanded international and domestic drug enforcement funding. 

    The War on Drugs in the 1990s

    The drug control measures introduced under Reagan’s administration set the stage for drug policy in the 1990s. During President Clinton’s time in office, the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 was passed, introducing a new “three-strike rule.” The “three-strike rule” was aimed at discouraging recidivism. Under this rule, a defendant may receive life imprisonment if convicted in federal court of a serious violent felony and “has two or more prior convictions in federal or state courts, at least one of which is a ‘serious violent felony. The other prior offense may be a ‘serious drug offense.’” The 1994 Act was the largest-ever crime bill, adding 100,000 new police officers, $9.7 billion in funding for prisons, and $6.1 billion for prevention programs. 

    Impact of Policy Changes

    The expansive changes in sentencing for drug infractions and police power had a massive impact on the criminal justice system. Between 1982 and 2007, drug arrests more than tripled. In a similar time frame, from 1987 to 2005, arrests from drug abuse violations increased from 1 in 14 out of all arrests to 1 in 8. The population of drug offenders in jails and prisons has increased 1100% since 1980. Between 1988 and 2004, the proportion of defendants convicted of a drug offense who were sentenced to prison increased from 79% to 93%; drug offenders released from prison in 1986 who had been convicted before the adoption of mandatory minimum sentences and sentencing guidelines had served an average of 22 months of prison, while offenders sentenced in 2004 were expected to serve 62 months. The growth in imprisonment is most explicitly seen in the increase in the number of prisons; in the mid-1990s, an average of three 500-bed prison facilities opened each week, which were filled with inmates convicted of drug offenses. In 1979, 6% of state prison inmates were convicted of nonviolent drug offenses, and by 1998 the proportion had increased to 21%. 

    Efficacy and Racial Bias

    Incarceration for drug possession has been disproportionately harmful to African Americans. 

    African Americans comprise 14% of regular drug users but are 35% of those arrested for drug offenses and 56% of persons in state prisons for drug offenses. The United States spends about 33 billion dollars a year on drug control and one trillion total since the 1960s. The United States makes up 30% of the world’s illicit drug consumption. There are roughly 70,000 overdose deaths annually, increasing 4% each year. 47% of young people will use an illegal drug by the time they graduate high school, and about 39% of adults between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five have reported using drugs. Drug use in the United States costs the economy 200 billion a dollars a year in lost productivity. 

    Recent Developments

    The War on Drugs has begun to be scaled back in recent years. In President Obama’s “drug policy for the 21st century,” he declared that the United States “cannot incarcerate our way out of the drug problem” and emphasized prevention and treatment over increased incarceration. The 2010 Fair Sentencing Act reduced the sentencing disparity between offenses for crack and powder cocaine from 100:1 to 18:1 and retroactively applied the sentencing guidelines to individuals sentenced before the law was passed, so thousands of people will be able to have their cases reviewed. The decriminalization and legalization of marijuana is also a significant step in scaling back the War on Drugs and the incarceration-focused drug control policies. Currently, it appears as though the trend is moving towards prioritizing treatment and prevention programs and scaling back the harsh penalties for drug users. The decriminalization of marijuana and the opioid crisis likely have played a significant role in changing the perception of drug users and addiction.

  • Prison Nutrition: Do Agricultural Programs Enhance Health?

    Prison Nutrition: Do Agricultural Programs Enhance Health?

    A healthy diet requires an appropriate balance of macronutrients, micronutrients, and caloric intake. A proper diet can reduce the prevalence of nutrition-related diseases such as diabetes, obesity, hypertension, and heart disease. In the United States, people in the carceral system experience a disproportionate amount of diet related illnesses. A special report by the United States Department of Justice found that 30% of incarcerated people have hypertension compared to 18% of the general population, 9% have diabetes compared to 6.5% of the general population, and 9.8% have heart problems compared to 2.9% of the general population. One factor suspected of contributing to this increased incidence of diet related illness is the high availability of processed foods and the limited availability of fresh fruits and vegetables in their prison diet. Processed foods are more frequently served in prisons due to cheap costs and long shelf life. Most correctional facilities and prisons outsource to private food vendors. Prison meals outsourced in this way are mass produced and cost around $1-$2 per meal.

    Background Information

    While processed foods are cheaper and more easily sourced, they tend to have high levels of sugar, cholesterol, and sodium, and limited amounts of essential micronutrients such as potassium, magnesium, and vitamin E. 

    • In 2016, the California’s Department of Corrections food administrator stated the sodium content of meals averaged 3,500 milligrams per day. For reference, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) advises people to eat up to 2,300 milligrams per day. 
    • A 2012 analysis of South Carolina correctional facilities found that inmates received an average of 97.5 grams of sugar per day, more than double the USDA’s recommended 41.8 grams. 
    • While fruits and vegetables provide many micronutrients, prisons are often reluctant to purchase them because of their short shelf-life and limited seasonal availability. According to a report conducted by Impact Justice, around 62% of incarcerated individuals stated they rarely have access to any fresh vegetables, while 54% expressed that they rarely had access to fresh fruits. 

    Potential Policy Solution: Prison Agricultural Programs

    One way that prisons in the U.S. can offer healthier foods to incarcerated people is through prison agricultural programs. These are programs that connect prisoners with local farms. Through prison agricultural programs, incarcerated people can gain agricultural skills, provide fresh food to the prison population, and give back to the community by providing support to local farms. 

    One such program is Planting Justice, which works to build gardens and create jobs for people transitioning from prisons in San Francisco. Individuals who go through the program have a 0% recidivism rate compared to the general 44.6% recidivism rate in California. Planting Justice provides a living wage to current and formerly incarcerated participants entering the program. Another prison agricultural program is Salvation Farms, an organization that partners with the Vermont Department of Corrections. Salvation Farms provides education, an outlet for productivity, and agricultural goods to incarcerated people. It aims to bridge the gap between agricultural surpluses and food distribution systems by partnering with various organizations and institutions across the food sector. By partnering with the Vermont DOC, Salvation Farms is able to provide fresh produce to incarcerated people in Vermont.

    Positive Arguments of the Programs

    • These programs improve nutritional quality for incarcerated people who choose to consume more fresh fruits and vegetables. This could potentially reduce the percentage of incarcerated people with diet related diseases and the healthcare expenditures associated with those diseases. 
    • Prison agricultural programs can teach incarcerated people employable skills. Having those skills may lead to a reduction in recidivism if formerly incarcerated people have access to stable employment when re-entering society. The education received may also translate to healthier eating habits after re-entry into communities.
    • Prison agricultural programs also provide an outlet for productivity, which can potentially improve the mental health of incarcerated people participating in agricultural related activities.

    Negative Arguments

    On the other hand, there’s debate over whether or not the net costs of prison operations are reduced when implementing prison agricultural programs. According to the correctional spokesperson for Wyoming County Correctional Facility, the farm that worked with the correctional facility lost $3.4 billion per year. In addition, security costs play a factor; extra security is needed when incarcerated people are working on the farms. Additionally, while fruits and vegetables are integral to nutrition, proteins and grains are also essential to a nutritious diet. Therefore, prison agricultural programs may fix some, but not all of the nutritional deficiencies present among incarcerated populations.