The Problem

The United States incarcerates approximately 2.3 million individuals, making it the nation with the leading incarceration rate. Over the last 40 years, the American prison population has increased by 500 percent, with the highest rates per capita in Louisiana, Oklahoma, Alabama, Arkansas, and Mississippi. Primarily a result of the War on Drugs, mandatory sentencing policies, and the Three Strikes Laws, this increase includes a higher proportion of females, special needs individuals, elderly offenders, nonviolent drug offenders, and those that are incarcerated for life without parole, adding to the increasing financial burden of the system of corrections. In 1980, for example, close to 41,000 people were imprisoned for nonviolent drug-related offenses and by 2014 almost 500,000 individuals were incarcerated for nonviolent drug-related offenses. While the United States houses only 5 percent of the world’s population, its prisons are home to more than 25 percent of the world’s incarcerated population, leaving it the clear leader for incarceration efforts.

Close to 12 million individuals revolve in and out of American jails in one year, with an average of 731,000 people being housed in jail facilities daily. According to a 2015 Vera Institute of Justice report, American jails were intended to house the dangerous, the individuals at risk for fleeing, yet they have become what the Vera Institute of Justice called “massive warehouses primarily for those too poor to post even low bail or too sick for existing community resources to manage.” Up to 75 percent of the jail population is detained for non-violent property, traffic, or public order offenses.

This churning of individuals in and out of incarceration facilities results in dangerous levels of overcrowding, issues with disease control, increasing suicide rates in prisons and jails, and multiple human rights violations. Additional impacts of mass incarceration include severed family relationships; lack of job opportunities and felon disenfranchisement; disparate impacts on racial and ethnic minorities; loss of public benefits; and educational, social, and severe economic and emotional consequences for children of incarcerated parents.

Research Evidence

Mass incarceration is a significant public health and public safety issue, for society and for individuals during and post-incarceration. A nation that incarcerates individuals instead of offering primary prevention programs or appropriately implemented rehabilitation programs is prone to multiple issues with economic and social oppression, high financial costs, and dangerous environments for those that are incarcerated.