The Rise of Mass Incarceration Sample Clauses

The Rise of Mass Incarceration. The 1980s heralded a monumental shift in criminal justice policymaking in America. Prior to the 1970s, states largely relied on the rehabilitative approach to corrections. Governments used indeterminate sentencing, which allowed administrative authori- ties like parole boards to personalize offenders’ sentences based on capacity for and evidence of rehabilitation, to reduce recidivism and ease the formerly incarcerated per- son’s transition back into the community (Xxxxxxxxxx 2006). Simultaneously, states employed education and vocational programs, substance abuse treatment and other counseling, therapeutic communities, and other residential programs to prepare an inmate for release (Xxxxxx and Xxxxxx 2003). Sociologist Xxxxxx Xxxxxxxxx’x infamous declaration that “nothing works” in the field of criminal rehabilitation in 1974 galva- nized the critics of indeterminate sentencing and rehabilitative reentry policies into action. In the next ten years, indeterminate sentencing was abolished at the federal level4 and replaced it with determinate sentencing, mandatory minimum drug laws passed with sweeping congressional majorities, and truth-in-sentencing laws man- dated that offenders serve at least 85% of their sentence (Xxxxxxxxxx 2006). These radical changes in the criminal justice system pushed hundreds of thousands of people into prison and community supervision programs like probation and parole each year that would previously be diverted or released early. Incarceration rates were largely stable in the first half of the twentieth century, in- creased slightly in the 1960s and 1970s, before exploding in the 1980s (see Figure 3.1). The incarceration rate rose precipitously as punitive laws passed legislatures at the state, national, and local level to criminalize drug possession and dealing and to in- crease mandatory minimum sentencing for a variety of crimes (Murakawa 2014). This shift vastly expanded the reach and scope of the criminal justice system, as thousands of people, the majority of whom were African-American or Latino, were swept into prisons and jails (Alexander 2010). This nationwide change is partially attributable to the wide support for the expansion of the criminal justice system across political and social lines: Republicans, Democrats, Whites, Blacks, and others all supported the expansion of the carceral state, at least at the beginning of the 1980s (Xxxxxxx 1999, Xxxx 2016, Xxxxxxx 2015, Xxxxxxxxx and West 2001, Murakawa 2014, Xxxxx ...