Collatoral damage: prisoners, their futures, and their families.

This report is especially for those who think we need to make people pay for the cost of their own incarceration, as if they don't already pay a price. On the contrary, Americans make prisoners and their families pay, and pay, and pay - long past the original terms of the sentence, in so many ways. We might as well cut off some of these prisoners' right hands and brand their foreheads with "CRIMINAL", given the social and economic consequences of having a felony record.


Trust me, Arizona - we punish our more impoverished criminals sufficiently with their imprisonment and other sanctions - the ones with money to pay for their prison stay generally spent that money on lawyers who got them off on probation. We don't need to go after poor kids like we do, though they are often the target of the AZ Department of Corrections, which makes it hard for prisoners to support their families, and is now also imposing a new banking fee on prisoners and a $25 annual fee on each visitor to recoup their background check expenses. No wonder ADC director Chuck Ryan was hand-picked by Governor Jan Brewer to be her Chief Disciplinarian: he seems to think a lot like her and AZ Me Party Senate President Russ Pearce, who both believe that children should be punished for the "crimes" of their parents.


So, from the PEW Charitable Trusts / Economic Mobility Project, here's the executive summary of Collatoral Costs: Incarceration's Effect on Economic Mobility. In short, it's devastating, and amounts to cruel and unusual lifelong punishment for offenders and their families - and has a far more insidious effect on their communities than most people have any idea of. I think the powers that be just keep us all thinking it's a good idea because it assures them that they have a constant supply of slave labor for the state and low wage labor in the community to undercut unions and the working class if we start feeling too entitled to things like a living wage...

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Collatoral Costs: Incarceration's Effect on Economic Mobility

Executive Summary

Currently 2.3 million Americans are behind bars, equaling more than 1 in 100 adults. Up from just 500,000 in 1980, this marks more than a 300 percent increase in the United States’ incarcerated population and represents the highest rate of incarceration in the world.

Over the last four years, The Pew Charitable Trusts has documented the enormous expense of building prisons and housing inmates that is borne by states and the federal government. Indeed, in the face of gaping budget shortfalls, more than half of the states are now seeking alternative sentencing and corrections strategies that cost less than prison, but can protect public safety and hold offenders accountable. A less explored fiscal implication of incarceration is its impact on former inmates’ economic opportunity and mobility.

Economic mobility, the ability of individuals and families to move up the income ladder over their lifetime and across generations, is the epitome of the American Dream. Americans believe that economic success is determined by individual efforts and attributes, like hard work and ambition, and that anyone should be able to improve his or her economic circumstances.

Incarceration affects an inmate’s path to prosperity. Collateral Costs quantifies the size of that effect, not only on offenders but on their families and children. Before being incarcerated more than two-thirds of male inmates were employed and more than half were the primary source of financial support for their children.1 Incarceration carries significant and enduring economic repercussions for the remainder of the person’s working years. This report finds that former inmates work fewer weeks each year, earn less money and have limited upward mobility. These costs are borne by offenders’ families and communities, and they reverberate across generations.

People who break the law need to be held accountable and pay their debt to society. Prisons can enhance public safety, both by keeping dangerous criminals off the streets and by deterring would be offenders. However, virtually all inmates will be released, and when they do, society has a strong interest in helping them fulfill their responsibilities to their victims, their families and their communities.When returning offenders can find and keep legitimate employment, they are more likely to be able to pay restitution to their victims, support their children and avoid crime.

To calculate the impacts of incarceration on economic mobility, The Pew Charitable Trusts commissioned new analysis by two of the leading researchers in the field, Dr. Bruce Western of Harvard University and Dr. Becky Pettit of the University of Washington.


Major findings include the following:

INCARCERATION IS CONCENTRATED AMONG MEN, THE YOUNG, THE UNEDUCATED AND RACIAL AND ETHNIC MINORITIES—ESPECIALLY AFRICAN AMERICANS.

• One in 87 working-aged white men is in prison or jail, compared with 1 in 36 Hispanic men and 1 in 12 African American men.

• More young (20 to 34-year-old) African American men without a high school diploma or GED are currently behind bars (37 percent) than employed (26 percent).

INCARCERATION NEGATIVELY AFFECTS FORMER INMATES’ ECONOMIC PROSPECTS.

• Serving time reduces hourly wages for men by approximately 11 percent, annual employment by 9 weeks and annual earnings by 40 percent.

• By age 48, the typical former inmate will have earned $179,000 less than if he had never been incarcerated.

• Incarceration depresses the total earnings of white males by 2 percent, of Hispanic males by 6 percent, and of black males by 9 percent.

FORMER INMATES EXPERIENCE LESS UPWARD ECONOMIC MOBILITY THAN THOSE WHO ARE NEVER INCARCERATED.

• Of the former inmates who were in the lowest fifth of the male earnings distribution in 1986, two-thirds remained on the bottom rung in 2006, twice the number of those who were not incarcerated.

• Only 2 percent of previously incarcerated men who started in the bottom fifth of the earnings distribution made it to the top fifth 20 years later, compared to 15 percent of men who started at the bottom but were never incarcerated.

THE IMPACTS OF INCARCERATION REACH FAR BEYOND FORMER INMATES TO THEIR CHILDREN AND FAMILIES.

• 54 percent of inmates are parents with minor children (ages 0-17), including more than 120,000 mothers and 1.1 million fathers.

• 2.7 million children have a parent behind bars—1 in every 28 children (3.6 percent) has a parent incarcerated, up from 1 in 125 just 25 years ago. Two-thirds of these children’s parents were incarcerated for non-violent offenses.

• One in 9 African American children (11.4 percent), 1 in 28 Hispanic children (3.5 percent) and 1 in 57 white children (1.8 percent) have an incarcerated parent.

A CHILD’S PROSPECT OF UPWARD ECONOMIC MOBILITY IS NEGATIVELY AFFECTED BY THE INCARCERATION OF A PARENT.

• Previous research has shown that having a parent incarcerated hurts children, both educationally and financially.

• Children with fathers who have been incarcerated are significantly more likely than other children to be expelled or suspended from school (23 percent compared with 4 percent).2

• Family income averaged over the years a father is incarcerated is 22 percent lower than family income was the year before a father is incarcerated. Even in the year after the father is released, family income remains 15 percent lower than it was the year before incarceration.3

• Both education and parental income are strong indicators of children’s future economic mobility.4

With millions of prison and jail inmates a year returning to their communities, it is important to identify policies that address the impact of incarceration on the economic mobility of former inmates and their children. Based on information previously put forward by The Pew Charitable Trusts’ Public Safety Performance Project and Pew’s Economic Mobility Project, this report outlines ways to reduce the productivity losses associated with serving time in jail or prison.

These recommendations include the following:

• Proactively reconnect former inmates to the labor market through education and training, job search and placement support and follow-up services to help former inmates stay employed.

• Enhance former inmates’ economic condition and make work pay by capping the percent of an offenders’ income subject to deductions for unpaid debts (such as court-ordered fines and fees), and expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit to include non-custodial, low-income parents.

• Screen and sort people convicted of crimes by the risks they pose to society, diverting lower-risk offenders into high-quality, community-based mandatory supervision programs.

• Use earned-time credits, a proven model that offers selected inmates a shortened prison stay if they complete educational, vocational or rehabilitation programs that boost their chances of successful reentry into the community and the labor market.

• Provide funding incentives to corrections agencies and programs that succeed in reducing crime and increasing employment.

• Use swift and certain sanctions other than prison, such as short but immediate weekend jail stays, to punish probation and parole violations, holding offenders accountable while allowing them to keep their jobs.


1 Western, 2006; Glaze and Maruschak, 2008.
2 Johnson, 2009.
3 Ibid.
4 Isaacs, Sawhill and Haskins, 2008.

Women and Families Strengthening Act: Jersey's CJ Reforms

The New Jersey State Legislature really has their act together on criminal justice issues - look at how well all those legislators articulate themselves on the issues. Thought for sure I'd posted this here, but can't find it. This one came to me through Lois at the Real Cost of Prisons Project blog - though I don't see it posted up there right now. I believe this was an AP article. 

Think AZ has more than 2 or 3 legislators of any stripe who would come together with something like this - much less a voting majority who would support it? I bet the AZ public, if well-informed, would support this kind of legislation. I hope that the candidates putting together their talking points and platforms keep that in mind.

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NJ Prison Bills Advance, To Improve Rehabilitation Efforts
November 24th, 2009

A sweeping bill package sponsored by six Assembly Democratic legislators to improve rehabilitation in New Jersey prisons and to save taxpayer dollars by cutting recidivism and giving released inmates an improved chance of success was advanced Monday by an Assembly panel. News from PolitickerNJ.

The package is sponsored by Assembly Majority Leader Assembly Majority Leader Bonnie Watson ColemanBonnie Watson Coleman and Assembly members Albert Coutinho, Elease Evans, Mila M. Jasey, L. Grace Spencer and Cleopatra G. Tucker. It stems from a series of hearings on Watson Coleman hosted throughout New Jersey to hear from citizens and experts on how to cut into recidivism and save public money.

The bills were released by the Assembly Law and Public Safety Committee.

“The pervasive cycle of arrest, release and re-arrest is failed system that wastes lives and costs taxpayers dearly,” said Watson Coleman (D-Mercer). “Quite simply, it’s a disgraceful and destructive cycle that must come to an end for the good of all New Jersey taxpayers and those directly affected by our failed system. We’ve seen too much money unsuccessfully spent on programs that don’t work. These reforms are a long overdue step toward progress.”

“These reforms range from improving education and job training to enhancing family support to eliminating antiquated roadblocks to success for those released from prison,” said Coutinho (D-Essex). “These common sense steps will give people an opportunity to earn their second chance and ensure we spend public money wisely.”

“None of these bills would make it easier to serve sentences,” said Spencer (D-Essex). “What they would do is make serving that time more sensible and help ensure that after their time is served, prisoners re-enter society ready to be productive citizens. That will save lives and taxpayer dollars.”

“The simple fact is that of the thousands people released from New Jersey prisons each year, 65 percent of the adults and 37 percent of the juveniles will return within two years,” said Tucker (D-Essex). “That is unacceptable, and these bills aim to not only to improve lives and neighborhoods, but to save money.”

“Spending money time and time again on prisoners who come and go from our prison systems is, quite simply, a waste,” said Evans (D-Passaic). “We need to do better, not only for the wellbeing of the people whose lives are being lost in our prisons, but for taxpayers who need to know their money is spent smartly.”

“We simply cannot afford to continue the present system of spending money repeatedly on repeat offenders,” said Jasey (D-Essex). “The time has come to change our approach so that we can give people and our society a better chance at a better future.”

The “Women and Families Strengthening Act” (A-4197), which would:

* End the prohibition in state law against released prisoners from receiving cash assistance benefits provided under Work First New Jersey.
* Require the state to contract with the lowest bidder for inmate telephone services, prohibit the contractor from imposing surcharges on inmate calls and bar the state from accepting revenue in excess of the cost of operating inmate telephone services.
* Establish a commission to examine strategies for strengthening bonds between jailed parents and their children.
* Require an assistant corrections commissioner establish and monitor policies affecting incarcerated mothers and their children.
* Prohibit the state from housing female inmates in the same facility as male inmates, if it results in conditions more restrictive than the male inmates.
* Require the state to make every effort to assign an inmate to a facility close to where the inmate’s family resides.

A bill (A-4199) designed to address incarceration concerns, which would:

* Allow prisoners in a state or county jail to keep $25 of their monthly income earned for labor performed at the facility, up from $15.
* Require the state to semiannually submit all inmate complaints to the Department of the Public Advocate.
* Require the state to develop an in-service training program for corrections officers that must include mental health sensitivity.

A bill (A-4201) designed to address release concerns, which would:

* Establish a faith-based programs coordinator with the state Department of Corrections to compile and disseminate information about faith-based groups and programs, especially those that provide assistance and services to inmates re-entering society.
* Establish Mental Health Courts to facilitate voluntary treatment of defendants who have mental health illnesses.
* Create a Prisoner Re-entry Commission and require the collection of data on recidivism and a fiscal estimate or the potential cost of any legislation that increases prison sentences.
* Give prisoners a 90-day grace period on outstanding fines and other monetary penalties.
* A bill (A-4202) designed to address education and job training, which would:
* Require the state to create a mandatory workforce skills training and a mandatory education program in each state correctional facility.
* Require inmates to attain a high school equivalency certificate or high school diploma.
* Allow inmates and parolees to enter into agreements with institutions for education, training or other activities that, if successfully completed, could reduce parole terms.
* Establish a mandatory six-month period of post-release supervision for all state inmates.
* Allow a person who has been released from prison to obtain a court order that allows them to visit prisons, if they can show that such visits are likely to motivate and help rehabilitate other inmates.

“This is important unfinished business from the many hearings we held throughout New Jersey, during which we heard from thousands of people about how our system has failed people and cost us money,” Watson Coleman said. “A broad coalition of community organizations, faith leaders, law enforcement officials and ordinary citizens have lined up behind these ideas and will work to build support for these well-informed and carefully crafted bills that reflect a desire to improve lives and save money.”