The Growth of Incarceration in the United States Exploring Causes and Consequences (2014) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
11 Wider Consequences for U.S. Society
11 Wider Consequences for U.S. Society
Pages 303-319
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From page 303... ...
Furthermore, many people, including prisoners, parolees, probationers, convicted sex offenders, and others with a criminal record, are now routinely denied a range of rights as well as access to many public benefits because of previous or current involvement with the criminal justice system. The result is a growing number of people who are "partial citizens" or "internal exiles" in the United States (Manza and Uggen, 2006, p.
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From page 304... ...
As a result, less money is available to spend on education, health care, economic development, state and local police, and other key government interventions and services to aid historically disadvantaged groups and improve the health and well-being of the population as a whole. As this chapter demonstrates, some of the effects of high incarceration rates on U.S.
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From page 305... ...
details the extensive systems of policing and supervision that have accompanied the rise of incarceration rates. She demonstrates how these developments have fostered a climate of fear and suspicion that penetrates all aspects of daily life in these neighborhoods, including intimate and family relations, labor force participation, and access to medical care.
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From page 306... ...
. These developments, together with the persistence of extensive racial discrimination in jury selection, compound the problem of the gross underrepresentation of African Americans on juries.1 Some jurisdictions forbid employers to discriminate against job applicants based solely on their criminal record unless their offense is directly relevant to performing the job (see, e.g., National Employment Law Project [2012]
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From page 307... ...
The Commission acknowledged that employers may legally consider criminal records in their hiring decisions, but determined that across-the-board exclusion of all applicants with a conviction could violate employment discrimination law because of the potentially disparate effects on racial and ethnic minorities. "National data supports a finding that criminal record exclusions have a disparate impact based on race and national origin," according to the agency (as quoted in Greenhouse, 2012)
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From page 308... ...
. The distribution of disenfranchised felons varies greatly by state, race, and ethnicity because of variations in state disenfranchisement statutes and state incarceration rates.
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From page 309... ...
. The impact of penal policies on political participation extends beyond official barriers to voting such as felon disenfranchisement statutes.
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From page 310... ...
finds that several Republican seats in the New York State Senate would be in jeopardy if prisoners in upstate correctional institutions were counted in their home neighborhood in New York City. Under growing political pressure to revise how it enumerates prisoners, the U.S.
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From page 311... ...
Since the 1930s, these federal surveys have been central to determining how federal government funds are allocated to state and local jurisdictions.9 Undercounting of historically disadvantaged groups has been a perennial problem for the decennial census. Since the mid-twentieth century, the size of the census undercount has diminished, thanks in part to improved statistical techniques; greater investments in data collection; and growing political pressure, especially from urban areas and advocacy groups, to enumerate marginalized groups fully and accurately.
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From page 312... ...
Distortions resulting from the way the census enumerates prisoners have led to misleading conclusions on such matters as economic growth, migration, household income, and racial composition. For the 2010 census, the Census Bureau chose to continue the practice of enumerating prisoners as residents of the towns and counties where they are incarcerated.
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From page 313... ...
. Although it is theoretically possible for researchers to combine information from inmate surveys and surveys of the nonincarcerated population, federal surveys specifically designed to gauge the health status of inmates "are not always comparable to those conducted with the noninstitutionalized population" (Pettit, 2012, p.
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From page 314... ...
This was the first time blacks outvoted whites since the Census Bureau started publishing voting rates by eligible citizenship population in 1996. However, the Census Bureau analysis did not consider the institutionalized population, which is composed primarily of people residing in correctional institutions and nursing homes.
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From page 315... ...
From fiscal year 1985 to 2012, corrections spending increased from 1.9 percent to 3.3 percent of state budgets, or from $6.7 to $53.2 billion (U.S. Census Bureau, n.d.-a; Census of Government Finances historical tables; National Association of State Budget Officers, 2013)
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From page 316... ...
If this percentage is used to exclude the amounts spent on probation or parole, average state spending per prisoner is around $33,000, or comparable to the average for local governments. 16 These estimates include corrections-related expenditures recorded outside the corrections budgets of those states, including current and accruing contributions to employee health care and pensions, some capital costs, and some hospital and health care for prisoners (Henrichson and Delaney, 2012)
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From page 317... ...
While varying by state, policing is largely a local government responsibility; 87 percent of combined state and local police spending in 2010 was by local governments. In contrast, 63 percent of combined state and local corrections spending that year was by state governments.
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From page 318... ...
This system of laws and punishments is meting out stigma and producing social stratification on a large scale and has become a key contributor to the political, social, and economic marginalization of African Americans and members of other groups that have historically been disadvantaged in the United States. The new penal regime of tougher criminal sanctions, high rates of incarceration, and severely reduced opportunities for the millions of people with a criminal record has not yet drawn widespread public concern.
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From page 319... ...
On another level, the fact that racial and ethnic minorities constitute a large portion of the nation's prison population must still be questioned on grounds of social justice. Even if the American criminal justice system were entirely free of racial or ethnic discrimination and bias -- a highly elusive goal -- the fact that blacks, Hispanics, and members of other historically disadvantaged groups dominate the country's prison and jail populations is deeply troubling.
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