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Criminal Justice Reform - Mass Incarceration

  • document cover of The Growth of Incarceration in the United States: Exploring Causes and Consequences

    The Growth of Incarceration in the United States: Exploring Causes and Consequences

    "After decades of stability from the 1920s to the early 1970s, the rate of imprisonment in the United States more than quadrupled during the last four decades. The U.S. penal population of 2.2 million adults is by far the largest in the world. Just under one-quarter of the world's prisoners are held in American prisons. The U.S. rate of incarceration, with nearly 1 out of every 100 adults in prison or jail, is 5 to 10 times higher than the...

  • document cover for How Many Americans Are Unnecessarily Incarcerated?

    How Many Americans Are Unnecessarily Incarcerated?

    "Nearly 40 percent of the U.S. prison population - 576,000 people - are behind bars with no compelling public safety reason, according to a new report from the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law. The first-of-its-kind analysis provides a blueprint for how the country can drastically cut its prison population while still keeping crime rates near historic lows."

    Sections cover: the current prison population; time served in prison today; ending prison for lower-level crimes; reducing time served...