The never-ending sentence: How parole and probation fuel mass incarceration

  The U.S. operates one of the largest and most punitive criminal justice systems in the world. On any given day, 1.9 million people are incarcerated in more than 6,000 federal, state, and local facilities. Another 3.7 million remain under what scholars call “correctional control” through probation or parole supervision.

  That means one out of every 60 Americans is entangled in the system — one of the highest rates globally.

The right of trial by jury

  One of the best things that our American ancestors did was to include the right of trial by jury in the Bill of Rights. The Fifth Amendment states in part: “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed.”

Why support for the death penalty is much higher among white Americans

  Sentencing a person to die is the ultimate punishment. There is no coming back from the permanence of the death penalty.

  In the United States, the death penalty is currently authorized by the federal government, the military, and 29 states. The primary rationale for using the death penalty is deterrence.

  As public policy, I believe that capital punishment has largely not proved to be an effective deterrent.

‘No rehabilitation,’ just oppression, behind bars in Alabama

  Frances Everson was born and raised in Huntsville, Alabama. The home she now lives in, previously rented by her mother, was always a family affair. She’s visited frequently by her family – her three daughters, three grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren included. Today, her mother lives right next door.

  Frances was the middle child of five. The youngest sibling was stillborn. Her second oldest brother was hit by a car and killed in 1971 when Frances was just 8. Her sister, only a year younger than she was, was shot and killed in 1981.

  That’s when all of the trauma really started to set in.

Why prison reform is not enough to fix the U.S. criminal justice system

  The Trump administration kicked off 2018 by expressing a surprising, newfound interest in reforming the country’s prisons and strengthening opportunities for those incarcerated to successfully re-enter their communities upon completion of their sentences. In mid-January, the White House convened a group of conservative governors and advocates for a roundtable discussion on prison reform, organized by President Donald Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner. The president also mentioned prison reform in his 2018 State of the Union speech, stating that “this year we will embark on reforming our prisons to help former inmates who have served their time get a second chance.” Most recently, the White House relaunched a task force initially established by former President Barack Obama—now rebranded as the Federal Interagency Council on Crime Prevention and Improving Reentry—which comprises federal agencies to coordinate the federal government’s policies to reduce recidivism.

8 Facts you should know about the criminal justice system and people of color

  The nation’s criminal justice system is broken. People of color, particularly African Americans and Latinos, are unfairly targeted by the police and face harsher prison sentences than their white counterparts. Given the nation’s coming demographic shift, in which there will be no clear racial or ethnic majority by 2044, the United States cannot afford for these trends to continue. Not only could the money spent on mass incarceration—$80 billion in 2010—be put to better use, but the consequences for people who become entangled in the criminal justice system are also lifelong, leading to barriers to employment and housing, among many other things.