Penal Reform International: Global Prison Trends 2015

"This report is designed to describe key global trends in the use and practice of imprisonment and to identify some of the pressing challenges facing states that wish to organise their penitentiary system in accordance with international norms and standards. Topics include:

• Prison populations and rates of imprisonment
• Prison management
• Prison regimes
• New technologies
• Criminal justice, social policy and sustainable development

The report also includes a Special Focus pull-out section on the impact of the ‘war on drugs’ and its implications for prison management. Significant international developments, recent research projects and precedent-setting court decisions are highlighted throughout.

Global Prison Trends is intended to be an annual publication. Tracking trends and challenges in criminal justice systems will be vital to designing and assessing measures intended to strengthen the rule of law as a means to advancing sustainable development."

View the Report

Skyrocketing Prison Population Devastating US Society: Report

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."

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Stemming the Tide:

The federal prison population has risen dramatically over the past few decades, as more people are sentenced to prison and for longer terms. The result? Dangerously overcrowded facilities and an increasing expense to taxpayers. In a new Urban Institute report, the authors project the population and cost savings impact of a variety of strategies designed to reduce the inmate population without compromising public safety. They find that the most effective approach is a combination of strategies, including early release for current prisoners and reducing the length of stay for future offenders, particularly those convicted of drug trafficking.

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This is from the Urban Institute.  Tom

Forecasting Rise In Inmate Population, Florida May Re-Open Nine Prison Facilities

Last year, Florida did what many other states did to save money in a tight budget. They closed prisons and other correctional facilities. But unlike other states that implemented “smart on crime” reforms, Florida didn’t change the laws that imprison most people in the first place.

So the closures didn’t stick. Now, with projected increases in its prison population over the next two years, the state’s Department of Corrections is seeking to re-open nine corrections facilities, including two prisons, two re-entry centers, and five work camps. Work camps are minimum to medium-security facilities where inmates are transferred to complete their sentences while performing work assignments for the prison or community.

Although Florida’s crime rate is at a 41-year low, the prison population continues to grow, with the largest increase coming from first-time drug offenders ensnared by undercover agents, according to a recent analysis by the state’s accountability office. Among those inmates are John Horner, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison for selling some of his own pain pills to an undercover informant who befriended him. A recent analysis by the state’s accountability office called for more use of ligher-security remedies like supervision with GPS monitoring and probation.

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The truth about 'early release'

Both Gov. Jerry Brown's ill-considered plan for complying with a court-ordered prison population cap by contracting out for inmate beds, and Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg's much smarter plan to control the flow of new inmates into prison, are based on the desire to prevent, at almost all costs, the early release of inmates.

And that is understandable. California's 33 prisons are overpopulated by about 9,600 felons, according to courts that have ordered the number of inmates to be reduced to 137.5% of design capacity by Dec. 31. The prospect of that many convicted criminals being released onto the streets in a single wave is frightening.

But Californians should understand that their leaders' motivation for resisting early release is based at least as much on political as criminological facts. The prison doors will not swing open. There will be no new wave of released felons.

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Prison-Industrial Complex? Maybe It's Time For A Schools-Industrial Complex

California has built 23 prisons since 1980. In the same period, the University of California system has opened one new campus. And although California's prison population has declined in recent years, the state's spending per prisoner has increased five times faster than its spending per K-12 student in the last two decades.

California has more than 130,000 prisoners, a huge increase from the state's 1980 prison population of about 25,000. Prisons cost California taxpayers close to $10 billion, compared with $604 million in 1980. While some say the additional spending is needed for rehabilitation services, they also note that the prisons are draining scarce funds from education and other key areas.

This week, Californians who hope to see the state scale down its prison spending were dismayed to learn that Gov. Jerry Brown (D) wants to further expand the prison system, spending an additional $700 million on prisons over the next two years. Brown is trying to comply with a federal court order to reduce prison overcrowding by the end of this year: Despite the 21 new prisons built since 1980, construction hasn’t kept pace with the growth of the inmate population, and California’s prison system is one of the most crowded in the country.

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Overcrowding making life dangerous for workers and inmates in prisons

The people who supervise inmates at Canada’s overcrowded federal prisons say bulging populations mean less opportunity for rehabilitation, and they fear a more dangerous breed of convict will be released back on the streets.

Hundreds of officers of the Correctional Service of Canada are expected to rally Saturday outside Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s constituency office in Calgary to protest what they say are increasingly dangerous conditions inside penitentiaries.

Climbing incarceration rates and a toxic mix of convicts, many of them with gang ties, have made life behind bars more difficult for prisoners and the people who work with them, says Pierre Mallette, the national president of the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers.

Mr. Mallette has been on a cross-country tour of federal institutions to learn first hand about the challenges facing his members and says the problems associated with overcrowding top of the list.
Although the national crime rate has been dropping since 1992 and is now at levels not seen since 1972, policies of the federal Conservative government have put more people behind bars.

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California's Prison Population Eclipsed By Texas

Calif. -- Everything is bigger in Texas, the saying goes, and that is now also true of its prison system.
California used to have the nation's largest state prison system, topping 173,000 inmates at its peak in 2006. But since a law took effect last year that shifts responsibility for less serious criminals to county jails, the state has reduced its prison population and is no longer the largest in the nation.

California now has fewer than 136,000 state inmates, eclipsed by about 154,000 in Texas. Florida previously was third, according to 2010 figures from the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics, and currently has about 100,000 inmates.

The reduction in California was ordered by federal judges in a decision backed last year by the U.S. Supreme Court. The courts ruled crowded prisons were causing poor care of sick and mentally ill inmates.

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Shrinking Pa.'s prison population

New Jersey and a few other states have shown the way.

By Marc Mauer and Judith Greene

A new report by the Pew Center on the States shows that while the national prison population declined last year for the first time in 38 years, Pennsylvania's number of inmates increased more than any other state's. Unless policymakers address the factors contributing to these figures, the state risks continued high incarceration costs, which will come at the expense of education and other services.

Especially given the serious fiscal challenges facing the states, gaining control of the prison population is a critical issue for policymakers. Fortunately, recent developments in a few states offer a road map for producing sustained declines in prison populations.

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Here is the report from The Sentencing Project