Impacted communities have long slammed U.S. policies of mass incarceration that are locking up more people than any other country in the world. Now that criticism is also resounding from the highly-regarded National Research Council (an arm of the National Academy of Sciences), which issued a devastating report this week charging that “unprecedented” levels incarceration are spreading great social harm.
Following two years of data review, the 464-page report delivers a round indictment of four decades of skyrocketing incarceration that has quadrupled the prison population and torn apart families, communities, society, and the lives of the incarcerated people.
“Those in power have tried to dismiss and disparage the communities and organizations who have been calling attention to these issues and struggling to change things,” Isaac Ontiveros of Critical Resistance told Common Dreams. “Now you have the center saying the same thing people having been vocal about for a generation.”
Commissioned by the National Institute of Justice and the MacArthur Foundation, the report notes that 2.23 million people are currently locked in U.S. prisons and jails, but that number multiplies when people who are on parole or probation are considered. This is the result of an “unprecedented and internationally unique rise in U.S. state and federal prison populations” since 1973, according to an NRC statement.
The rising numbers do not correspond to an increase in violence, but rather, are driven by politically-motivated policy changes, including: the imposition of “mandatory minimums” in the 1980s, longer sentences for repeat convictions, and increased criminalization of drug offenses due to the War on Drugs.
The political push for these policies employs racist rhetoric. “Deeply held racial fears, anxieties, and animosities likely explain the resonance of coded racial appeals concerning crime-related issues,” states the report.
While the financial price of these incarceration rates has been high for society overall, the social and economic costs to poor communities and people of color is unmatched.
According to the report, “The U.S. prison population is largely drawn from the most disadvantaged part of the nation’s population: mostly men under age 40, disproportionately minority, and poorly educated.” Sixty percent of incarcerated people are people of color, and black males who did not complete high school and are younger than 35 are more likely to be incarcerated than employed in the formal labor market.
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