deep impact v3 - Open Society Foundations · 2019. 4. 29. · 2.1 million people incarcerated, 2.2...

DEEP IMPACTQuantifying the Effect of

Prison Expansion in the SouthNew Orleans, Louisiana

April 4, 2003

I N S T I T U T E

POLICY REPORT

Justice Policy

J u s t i c e P o l i c y I n s t i t u t e

Table of Contents

Preface 3

Introduction 4

Executive Summary 5

Signif icant Findings 8

The South’s Incarcerated Population 8

The Economic Impact of Prison Expansion in the South 8

The Increasing Use of Incarceration has not been borne Equally 1 3

The “Collateral Consequence” of Prison: Felony Disenfranchisement 1 4

The Impact of Prison on Women,their families, and communities 1 7

The Impact of Prisons on the Crime Rates of the South 2 0

Conclusion 2 1

Endnotes 2 2

About the Author

Jason Ziedenberg is the Assistant Director for Policy and Research of the Justice Policy

Institute, a Washington DC-based think tankdedicated to ending society’s reliance onincarceration and promoting effective and justsolutions to social problems.

Acknowledgments Deep Impact was authored by JasonZiedenberg of the Justice Policy Institute.

As this brief summarizes the work of variousauthors, we would like to acknowledge theresearch, editorial and review assistance ofPatricia Allard of The Sentencing Project, JenniGainsborough of Penal Reform International,

Judith Greene of Justice Strategies, ChistopherUggen of the University of Minnesota and BruceWestern of Princeton University. We would alsolike to thank Rachel Herzing, Rose Braz and Jane Wholey of Critical Resistance, and Laura Jones and Deborah Clark of the Justice

Policy Institute for their editorial and contentguidance during the drafting of this report. This report was designed by Julie Laudenslagerof InHouseGraphics, and was posted on theweb by Riseup.net. The production of Deep

Impact was funded by generous grants from theOpen Society Institute-Criminal Justice Initiative,

the JEHT Foundation, and the Public Welfare

Foundation. The full report can be found atwww.justicepolicy.org. The Justice Policy

Institute is a project of the Tides Center.

4455 Connecticut Avenue NW Suite B-500 Washington, DC 20008

v 202.363.7847 f 202.363.8677 www.justicepolicy.org

Preface from Critical Resistance

Today, 97,000 people live in Charleston, 362,000 inMiami, and 485,000 in New Orleans. But toweringabove these cities are the approximately 560,000 wholive inside Southern prisons and jails in the 12-stateregion from Louisiana to Virginia.

While prisons have multiplied across the U.S., theresults have been especially dramatic in the South.The South’s history of slavery, convict leasing, and JimCrow segregation set the context for the increaseduse of imprisonment and the especially brutaldefinition of justice delivered in the South. The Southwas an easy target for an expanding prison system,and it now leads the nation with the highest regionalincarceration rate. Some Southern states have thehighest incarceration rates in the world.

Until its abolition, slavery was used as a means tocontrol those deemed undesirable by society—peopleof color and the Southern poor. With the abolition ofslavery, the convict leasing system picked up whereslavery left off, providing a new form of cheap laborand social control. Convict leasing along with theBlack Codes—which criminalized everyday activities ofAfrican Americans—filled the gap left by slavery untilthey were struck down about 70 years ago.

Today, the prison industrial complex has arisen to fillthe role played by slavery, convict leasing and theBlack Codes. We understand the prison industrial

complex to be a multifaceted system, maintainedthrough cooperation between government andindustry that designates prisons as a solution to social,political, and economic problems. Like the systems ofbrutality that preceded it, today’s prison industrialcomplex criminalizes a target population based onrace and class, providing a means of social control ofthose deemed undesirable, and provides a source ofcheap labor for the state. The prison industrialcomplex represents the answer to the problemscreated by slavery’s historical legacies: social,economic and political problems, such as poverty,drug addiction, under education, racism,unemployment and dissent, bringing with it under-funded educational systems, lack of quality healthcareand inadequate affordable housing as its byproducts.

At Critical Resistance South, people across theSouthern region will be discussing, debating, andformulating strategies to rid the South and the nationof the prison industrial complex, and talk about whata nation without 2 million prisoners might look like.To that end, this report depicts some of the “deepimpacts” the prison industrial complex has on thesocial, economic and political life of the South. Byexploring the scope of the problem, this report aimsto help people consider what their communitieswould look like if the justice system were truly just,and were to break free of the history that led theSouth to lead the world in imprisonment.

Deep Impact: Quantifying the Effect of Prison Expansion in the South


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IntroductionFrom 1980 to 2002, the number of peopleincarcerated in the nation’s prisons, jails, juvenilefacilities and detention centers quadrupled in size—from roughly 500,000 to 2.1 million people. The USAnow has the largest penal system in the world. Whilethe prison system looms large in and of itself, the truereach and impact of the growing corrections andcriminal justice sector is immense, and its tentaclesinfluence the social, economic and political life of allregions and sectors in the U.S. Along with America’s2.1 million people incarcerated, 2.2 million citizens arenow employed in policing, corrections and courts,overshadowing the 1.7 million Americans employed inhigher education, and the 600,000 employed inpublic welfare.1 With 6.6 million people in prison andjail, or on probation and parole, there are now 8.8million people either under the control of thecorrectional system or working in the criminal justicesector.2 Even these figures underestimate the deepimpact of criminalizing and imprisoning so manyAmericans throughout their lifetime: University ofMinnesota professor Christopher Uggen recentlyestimated that there are at least 13 million Americans

currently incarcerated on a felony, or living with afelony conviction record in the United States—representing almost 7 percent of the adultpopulation.3

In the past, the Justice Policy Institute (JPI) has beencommissioned by legislators, government executives,foundations, the media and community groups toanalyze correctional and criminal justice trends instates, counties and communities. The purpose ofthese reports has been to help individuals, andpolicymakers, consider more fair, effective and justpolicies. On the occasion of a regional conferencecalled by Critical Resistance to examine the scope ofthe criminal justice systems’ expansion and reach inthe South,4 JPI has prepared a report that documentskey statistical trends to quantify the depth of theimpact of current policies in the Southern region.5

While no one report can document all the effects ofthe increased use of incarceration in a state or region,this report will show that growing use of prisons andjails in the South has had a deep impact on theregion’s social, political and economic life.


Deep Impact: Quantifying the Effect of Prison Expansion in the South 4

Executive Summary

Significant Findings for the South and Southern States

1. The South’s incarcerated population is immense,both in national and international terms.

Prison and Jail Populations: The prison and jailpopulations of the South accounted for 4 out of 10incarcerated people in the U.S. Between 1983 and2001, the South accounted for 45% of all the peopleadded to prison and jail in the 50 states and theDistrict of Columbia. In 2001, the South’s prison andjail populations represented 1 out of 11 prisoners inthe World, and states like Alabama, Louisiana,Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia havefar more prison and jail inmates than countries likeCanada and Argentina.

Incarceration Rates: The South as a region and mostSouthern states individually had significantly higherincarceration rates than the national average, and allSouthern states had incarceration rates that werehigher than 63% of the countries in the world. In2001, the South’s regional incarceration rate was 12%higher than the country as a whole. If places likeLouisiana and Mississippi were countries, they wouldhave the highest incarceration rates in the world.Between 1980 and 2001, Alabama, Georgia,Mississippi and South Carolina had incarceration ratesabove the national average, and Arkansas, Kentuckyand West Virginia saw their incarceration rates rise atrates much higher than the national or regionalaverage. West Virginia, which has the smallest prisonpopulation in the South saw its incarceration rate riseat a rate 10% greater than the U.S. average, andMississippi saw its incarceration rate rise at a rate 86%greater than the U.S. average.

2. The economic impact of imprisonment in theSouth is large, particularly during times whenstates face fiscal shortfalls.

The increase in corrections spending looms largeduring the states’ budget crisis. As states eliminatehealth care, welfare, education and, transportationexpenditures and are simultaneously raising taxes toclose their budget shortfall, the two decade growth instate corrections spending takes on a heightenedsignificance. In some states, the increase in spendingon corrections between 1985 and 2001 representsbetween 27% (North Carolina) to more than 90%(Georgia) of the fiscal shortfall these states werestruggling to close earlier this year, when cuts topopular programs that build economic and socialfabric of communities were contemplated. While risingcorrections budgets are one of many things states aregrappling with during their budget crises, andrepresents only one new area of growing statespending, the prison and jail capacity of the countryrepresents large new annual costs that forcecommunities to choose between funding libraries,schools, vital public services, or cellblocks. To bringtheir budgets into balance, some state policymakersare rethinking the costly sentencing and parolepolicies that have contributed to increasing prisonpopulations.

State employment growth in criminal justiceoutpaces other public sectors. State employment inpolicing and corrections has grown at higher ratesthan employment in higher education or publicwelfare (which includes employment in state facilitiesfor the elderly, disabled, veterans or the poor). InTennessee, employment in policing and correctionsgrew at 3.9 times the rate of higher education, and7.8 times the rate of the public welfare sector. Similartrends were found in states throughout the South. In2000, 27.3% state public sector workers in Floridaworked in the justice system (corrections, police, andjudicial)—the highest proportion in the country.



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3. The increasing use of incarceration in the Southhas not been borne equally.

African Americans and Latinos are subject tohigher incarceration rates than Whites. As is thecase nationally, the impact of the region’s increasingreliance on incarceration has been concentrated onminority racial and ethnic communities. In everySouthern state, African Americans were incarcerated atleast at 4 times the rate of Whites. In West Virginia,African Americans were incarcerated at 17 times therate of Whites. Even though the criminal justicesystem distorts and masks much of the disparity in theuse of incarceration for Latinos and other ethnicitiesby counting them as White, with the exception ofMaryland and Delaware, every Southern stateincarcerated Latinos at a higher rate than Whites. Instates with relatively small Latino populations, likeMississippi, they were incarcerated at nearly 9 timesthe rate of Whites.

4. Among several collateral consequences facingformer prisoners, significant numbers ofSoutherners have lost the right to vote due to theirimprisonment, and the impact of felonydisenfranchisement has had a larger impact onAfrican Americans.

Former prisoners are often punished for life through avariety of consequences of imprisonment that affectthe 13 million people who have felony convictions inthis country. Depending on the state or jurisdiction,ex-prisoners and people with felony convictions arecurrently subject to bans on receiving publicassistance, public housing and college financial aid. Inmany states, former prisoners are also prohibited fromaccepting a wide spectrum of public sector jobs.Felony disenfranchisement, where people convictedand imprisoned for felony offenses lose their right tovote while under criminal justice control (and in somecases, long after their sentence has ended) isemblematic of the various collateral consequencesresearchers are only now beginning to quantify.

Large proportions of Southerners have lost somevoting rights. In 48 of the 50 states, people in prisonor jail, or under criminal justice control for a felony—including, in most cases, those people on probationand parole—are barred from voting. While ballotrestrictions for people in prison and ex-prisoners arespecific to each state, as of December 2000, Alabama,Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee and Virginiapermanently bar ex-prisoners convicted of felonyoffenses from voting, unless reinstated by a clemencyprocedure. In Florida, seven percent of voting ageresidents were subject to some form of felonydisenfranchisement in 2000. In Alabama, Mississippiand Virginia, more than five percent of voting ageresidents have lost some of their voting rights. In Kentucky, nearly 1 out of 5 voting age AfricanAmericans faced some form of electoraldisenfranchisement, and in Georgia, Alabama,Mississippi, Florida and Virginia, more than 10% ofvoting age African Americans had lost some votingrights.

5. The rate of growth in women’s imprisonment inthe South has exceeded that of men throughoutthe 1990s. The economic and social impact ofwomen’s imprisonment is disproportionately large.

The rate of women’s imprisonment in the U.S., andthroughout the South, has grown at a rate farhigher than the increase for men. In 2001, theSouth had the highest regional incarceration rate forwomen in the country—17% higher than the nationalaverage (68 per 100,000 in the South, 58 per 100,000in the U.S.). While women were incarcerated at higherrates than men around the country, the increase inimprisonment of women in the South was 40% higherthan the national average (South, 155% , to 111%U.S.). Other than Florida, every state in the Southincreased imprisonment of women at a faster ratethan men—and in some cases, markedly faster.Women were added to prisons at double the rate ofmen in Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee andWest Virginia.



Recent studies on the fiscal impact of women’simprisonment underscore the reality that exists acrossthe rest of the nation, and the South: While theeconomic impact of her crime is typically small, theeconomic impact of the prison term typically metedout to a woman is huge. When a woman isimprisoned, communities face a fiscal multiplier effectof that consequence, including the increased cost ofincarcerating women over men, and the largecommunity impact of their children’s displacement-including costs to the child welfare system.

The Lifetime Drug Felony Welfare BanAs part of the 1996 Welfare Reform Act, womenconvicted of a state or federal felony offense forpossessing or selling drugs are subject to a lifetimeban on receiving cash assistance and food stamps. Ofthe Southern states in which data was available, onlyTennessee, Florida and Arkansas have amended theban, and in the rest of the Southern states, womenaffected by the ban in the late 1990s were still subjectto the complete ban on receiving assistance.

A study by The Sentencing Project notes several keyimpacts of the drug felony welfare ban whichhighlight the economic and social “multiplier effect” ofwomen’s imprisonment, including the impact on theability of women to become self-sufficient to providefor their children; to be active participants in theircommunities; higher incidences of family dissolutionand increased child welfare caseloads. The SentencingProject estimates that, while nationwide, at least92,000 women were impacted by the ban, 135,000children had been affected by the ban in the late1990s. The lifetime welfare ban has adisproportionate impact on African American andLatino women and families: In Alabama, Mississippi,Tennessee, Georgia and Virginia (states where themajority of women in the general population areWhite), the majority or nearly half of women whowere impacted by the ban were African American orLatina.

6. The expanding use of incarceration does notdirectly correlate with crime rate declines, bothnationally and in the South.

In the South, there was no relationship betweenstates that made a more zealous use of prisonsthroughout the 1990s (when most statesexperienced declining crime rates), and largerdeclines in crime. West Virginia had one of thelargest increases in its incarceration rate during the1990s, and saw an increase in the state’s violent crimerate. On the other end of the spectrum, states likeFlorida, Arkansas and Virginia had much more modestincreases in their incarceration rates, and experiencedlarger drops in crime than West Virginia, as well asMississippi and Louisiana. Alabama’s violent crime ratedropped 77% more than Georgia, even thoughGeorgia’s incarceration rate rose at a rate 47% higherthan Alabama’s incarceration rate. A comparison ofthe Southern states to New York and Massachusettsreveals an even starker contrast: The two Northernstates experienced larger crime drops with much moremodest increases in incarceration than most of thestates in the South.



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Significant Findings1.The size of the South’s incarceratedpopulation looms over the country and the world.

As Figure 1 shows, the South accounts for 4 outof 10 incarcerated people in the U.S. Between1983 and 2001, the South accounted for 45% ofall the people added to U.S prisons and jails in thestates. In 2001, the South’s prison and jailpopulations represented 1 out of 11 prisoners inthe world. States like Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia,North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia have farmore prison and jail inmates than countries likeCanada and Argentina. Japan, a country with 24million more residents than the South, has afraction of the regions’ incarcerated population.Between 1983 and 2001, most states more thandoubled, and some (Georgia, Mississippi andVirginia) tripled their prison and jail populations.

Figure 2 represents only the prison populations ofthe South and Southern states, as rates per100,000 people. In 2001, the South as a regionand many Southern states had significantly higherincarceration rates than the national average, andall Southern states had incarceration rates thatwere higher than 63% of the countries in theworld. In 2001, the South’s regional incarcerationrate was 12% higher than the country as a whole.If places like Louisiana and Mississippi werecountries, they would have the highestincarceration rates in the world. Alabama, Georgia,Mississippi and South Carolina have incarcerationrates above the national average, and Arkansas,Kentucky and West Virginia have seen theirincarceration rates rise at rates much higher thanthe national or regional average. For example,West Virginia, which has the smallest prisonpopulation of any state in the South saw itsincarceration rate rise at a rate 10% greater thanthe U.S. average, and Mississippi saw itsincarceration rate rise at a rate 86% greater thanthe U.S. average.



2.The economic impact of prison expansion in theSouth is large, particularly during times when statesface fiscal shortfalls.

From 1977 to 1999, total state and local expenditures oncorrections rose by 946%—2.5 times the rate of increaseof spending on all levels of education, and double theaverage increase for all state and local functions.6 Withtotal government expenditures on criminal justicereaching $147 billion in 1999 ($49 billion of which wason corrections), no consideration of the public policydirections that have characterized the American economicmodel is complete without assessing the growth andimpact of the prison system.7

Virtually every state in the country is grappling with theworst fiscal crisis facing state budgets since World War II.Some states legislators were cutting the number of publicschool days, limiting health coverage to millions ofAmericans, and laying off government workers.8 Thereare a variety of explanations for the poor fiscal health ofthe states, including inequities in the tax systemstemming from tax cuts, declining revenue due to thepoor economic times and the declining stock market, and rising new cost centers, particularly, Medicaid andhealth care.

As prison and jail populations have grown throughoutthe 1980s and 1990s, corrections expenditures havecome to represent larger portions of state and localspending. In 2000, the National Association of StateBudget Officers reported that 1 in 14 dollars spent bystates was spent on corrections. As states eliminate healthcare, welfare, education, and transportation projects andmany are at the same time raising taxes to close theirbudget shortfalls, the growth in state correctionsspending takes on a heightened significance.

Figure 3 contextualizes the increase in spending oncorrections during the 1980s and 1990s with the fiscalwoes facing states in the South (as of January, 2003). Theincrease in spending on corrections between 1985 and2001 represents between 25% to more than 90% of thefiscal shortfall these states were struggling to close earlierthis year, when cuts to popular programs that build the



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economic and social fabric of communities werecontemplated. Again, while rising corrections budgetsare one of many things states are grappling withduring the state budget crisis, corrections was one ofthe fastest growing budget items in many states inthe 1990s, and the new prison and jail capacity of thecountry represents large annual costs that forcecommunities to choose between funding classrooms,libraries, health care and cellblocks.

In his endorsement of sentencing reforms to reducecorrectional spending, Mississippi CorrectionalCommissioner Chris Epps recently said, “if we loweredour prison population, we could reduce our staffing,which is your greatest cost.”9 As states spent moreand more public dollars on prisons to incarceratepeople, and more on policing to enable states to fillthese prisons and jails, correctional and policingemployment grew at rates which dwarfed othercategories of state employment.

As Figure 4 shows, state employment in policing andcorrections has grown at higher rates than employmentin higher education or public welfare (which includesemployment in state facilities for the elderly, disabled,veterans or poor people), and this was generally truefor most states in the South. Princeton academics BruceWestern and Josh Guetzkow argue that the fact thatpolice and correctional employment has outpaced othergoverning functions is evidence of a shift of publicresources from transfers to individuals andcommunities, to “social control functions, monitoring,enforcing regulations, and incarceration of offenders.”10

The Bureau of Justice Statistics reported that Floridahad the second11 highest proportion of its publicpayroll working in justice (including corrections,police, judicial and court staff). In 2000, 16.7% ofFlorida’s public sector payroll (including the state,cities and counties) worked in the justice system (thenational average was 12.9%), and 27.3% of thepeople on the state payroll worked in the justicesystem.12

To bring their budgets into balance, some statepolicymakers are rethinking the costly sentencing andparole policies that have contributed to increasingprison populations. While some of these measures,like cuts to prison health care and vocationalprograms will likely compound already highrecidivism rates, there have been some noteworthyreforms in the South:

Lacking funds to open some 900 newly-constructed prison beds, the Arkansas Board ofCorrection invoked emergency powers to grantrelease to 521 prisoners in November 2002 toreduce prison crowding.13

In 2001, Louisiana’s legislators repealedmandatory minimum sentences for simple drugpossession and similar offenses, while cuttingminimum sentences for drug trafficking in half.The possibility of parole, probation, or suspensionof sentence was restored for a wide range ofoffenses—from prostitution to burglary of apharmacy. The bill allowed for already-sentencedprisoners to apply for an early releaserecommendation from a “risk review panel.” Ifrecommended, their case is sent to the paroleboard for consideration.14

In Mississippi, legislators reduced some mandatoryminimum sentences, which resulted in the releaseof 885 prisoners since July of 2001. The state hassaved nearly $12 million in spending oncorrections during that period, and of thosereleased from prison, less than 7% have been re-arrested—a rate far lower than national averagerecidivism rates. According to Mississippi HousePenitentiary Committee Chairman BennettMalone, “We don’t have enough money to housethe number of inmates we have, and the only wayto get a handle on it is to lower the number ofoffenders in prison.”15

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While time will tell whether more elected officials willreduce prison populations as a response to thebudget crisis, these changes show that even thenation’s leading incarceration states arereconsidering the policies that have contributed tothe South leading the world in imprisonment.

3. The increasing use of incarceration in theSouth has not been borne equally.

As is the case nationally, the impact of the country’sincreasing reliance on incarceration has beenconcentrated in minority16 racial and ethnic

communities. The Bureau of Justice Statisticsreported that an African American man born in the1990s has a 1 in 4 chance of spending some time inprison during his lifetime.17 A study by the NationalCenter on Institutions and Alternatives showed thatbetween 1985 and 1997 (when more than a millionnew prisoners were added to state and federalprisons), 70% of prison growth came from theaddition of new African American and Latinoprisoners.18 Even in states with very smallpopulations of Native Americans, surveys have foundthat their incarceration rates are much higher thanthe White incarceration rates.19



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While African Americans and Latinos are 25 percent ofthe national population, they represent 63 percent ofthe people incarcerated in the country. With theexception of Kentucky, Oklahoma and West Virginia, inevery other Southern state, ethnic and racial minoritiescomprise the majority of prisoners, but thoseproportions blur the concentrated impact of prison oncertain communities in the South.

Figure 5 is a table representing the findings of aHuman Rights Watch study, which translated thedocumented disparity in the use of incarceration intoincarceration rates for Latinos and African Americans.

In every Southern state, African Americans wereincarcerated at least at 4 times the rate of Whites. For example, in West Virginia, African Americans were incarcerated at 17 times the rate of Whites. Even though the criminal justice system distorts andmasks much of the disparity in the use of incarcerationfor Latinos and other ethnicities by counting them as White, with the exception of Maryland andDelaware, every Southern state incarcerated Latinos at higher rate than Whites. In states with relativelysmall Latino populations, like Mississippi, they wereincarcerated at a rate nearly 9 times greater than thatof Whites.



4. Among several “collateral consequences” facingformer prisoners, significant numbers of Southernershave lost the right to vote due to their imprisonmentand the impact of felony disenfranchisement has had a larger impact on African Americans.

Former prisoners are often punished for life through avariety of consequences that affects the 13 millionpeople who have felony convictions in this country.20

Depending on the state or jurisdiction, ex-prisonersand people once convicted of a felony can besubjected to bans on receiving public assistance, and the ability to live in public housing. They areprohibited from receiving financial aid for college, and

in many states, are prohibited from working in a widespectrum of public sector jobs.21 These “collateralconsequences” are tacked on top of barriers thatprevent ex-prisoners from successfully returning to theeconomic and social life of their communities. Someof these barriers include difficulties regainingemployment, reconnecting with families andcommunities, and the cultural stigma attached to acriminal conviction.

Felony disenfranchisement, where people undercriminal justice control for a felony offense (or peoplewho once were convicted of a felony offense andhave completed their sentence) lose their right to



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vote, is emblematic of the various collateralconsequences that researchers and advocates are onlynow beginning to quantify as the extended impact ofthe nation’s prison expansion. Forty-eight of the 50states bar people under criminal justice control for afelony offense—including, in most cases, those peopleon probation and parole—from voting.

While ballot restrictions for people in prison and ex-prisoners are specific to each state, in December,2000, Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi,Tennessee and Virginia permanently barred ex-prisoners convicted of felony offenses from voting, unless reinstated by a clemency procedure. As Figure 6 shows, researchers from the University of Minnesota estimate that in Florida seven percent of voting age residents were subject to some form of felony disenfranchisement in 2000. In Alabama,Mississippi and Virginia, more than five percent ofvoting age residents have lost some of their votingrights.

Like other impacts of incarceration, the effects offelony disenfranchisement are concentrated in thecommunities most affected by the expansion ofprisons. In Kentucky, nearly 1 out of 5 voting ageAfrican Americans faced some form of electoraldisenfranchisement, and in Georgia, Alabama,Mississippi, Florida and Virginia, more than 10 % ofvoting age African Americans had lost some votingrights. These represent thousands of people whocannot vote, which potentially could have significantimpacts on election outcomes throughout the South.

It is worthwhile to note that some state legislatures are reconsidering the issue of felonydisenfranchisement and voting rights. In Alabama and Florida, members of their respective legislatureshave considered bills to restore ex-prisoners’ voting rights.22

5. The rate of women’s imprisonment in the Southhas exceeded that of men throughout the 1990s.The economic and social impact of women’simprisonment is disproportionately large.23

Since men represent more than 93% of the country’sprisoners, the discussion of the impact of risingincarceration rates has often centered on men. But asFigure 7 shows, the rate of women’s imprisonment inthe U.S. and throughout the South has grown at ratesfar higher than the increase for men. In 2001, theSouth had the highest regional incarceration rate forwomen in the country—17% higher than the nationalaverage (68 per 100,000 in the South, 58 per 100,000in the U.S).24 While women were incarcerated athigher rates than men around the country, theincrease in imprisonment of women in the South was40% higher than the national average (South, 155% ,to 111% U.S.). Other than Florida, every state in theSouth increased imprisonment of women at a fasterrate than men—and in some cases, markedly faster.Women were added to prisons at double the rate ofmen in Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee andWest Virginia.

As researchers Meda-Chesney-Lind and Judith Greenerecently summarized, while the economic impact ofher crime is typically small, the economic impact ofthe prison term typically meted out to a woman ishuge.

While more than half of all prisoners have minorchildren whose lives may be affected by theincarceration of a parent, women are far more likelythan men to have been living with dependentchildren when they were arrested (64 percent,compared with 44 percent). Almost all prison fathers(90 percent) report that their children reside with theirother parent while they are imprisoned—but just 28percent of mothers report this to be the case. Most ofwomen prisoners’ children are displaced—living withextended family members or friends—while they areincarcerated. At least 10% of the children of prisonersare placed in non-kin foster care.25





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Susan George, a principal researcher for a Universityof Chicago research project on women offendersestimates the cost of jailing and processing a womanprisoner from her arrest to her entry to prison totals$31,000 in Illinois. George calculates that another$20-25,000 is spent to keep her in prison for a year.The amortized capital cost of the prison bed sheoccupies adds another $7,500. And since one in tenchildren of women prisoners is placed in foster care(estimated to cost $25,000 per year) another $2,500 isaveraged in, for a total estimated average annual costof $65,000.26

The Lifetime Drug Felony Welfare BanThe “collateral consequences” facing ex-womenprisoners have a compounded economic and socialeffect on the community. A recent report by TheSentencing Project quantified the impact of thelifetime drug felony welfare ban: as part of the 1996Welfare Reform Act, women convicted of a state orfederal felony offense for possessing or selling drugsare subject to a lifetime ban on receiving cash

assistance and food stamps. (No other offenses resultin losing benefits).

Due, in part, to the projected impact on women andtheir families, 31 states and the District of Columbiahave eliminated or modified the lifetime ban, and thefact that states continue to modify or opt out of theban reflects mounting recognition that a completelifetime welfare ban is unsound public policy. Still, ofthe Southern states in which data was available, onlyTennessee, Arkansas and Florida have amended theban.27 In the rest of the states summarized in Figure 8, those states follow the federal law, whichmeans that if a person is convicted of possession, salesor distribution of drugs, that person is ineligible forwelfare or food stamps for the rest of his or her life.

The Sentencing Project study notes several keyimpacts of the drug felony welfare ban whichhighlight the multiplier effect of women’simprisonment. The loss of welfare benefits that occursunder the ban adversely affects the ability of women



to become self-sufficient to provide for their childrenand to be active participants in their communities. Likeother “collateral consequences,” the ban may lead tohigher incidences of family dissolution and furtherincrease child welfare caseloads. The SentencingProject estimates that, while nationwide, at least92,000 women were impacted by the ban, 135,000children had been affected by the ban in the late1990s. Finally, the lifetime welfare ban has adisproportionate impact on African American andLatino women and families: In Alabama, Mississippi,Tennessee, Georgia and Virginia (states where themajority of residents are White), the majority or nearlyhalf of women who were impacted by the ban wereAfrican American or Latina.

6. The expanding use of incarceration does notdirectly correlate with crime rate declines, bothnationally and in the South.

Academics, politicians and community members arere-examining the choice of focusing so manyresources on prisons and the criminal justice system asa means to reduce crime. In particular, the efficacy ofincarceration as a crime control measure has comeunder scrutiny. In the last few years, the followingcritiques of the utilization of prison to reduce crimehave been issued:

A University of Texas researcher contends that 79 to96 percent of the violent crime drop of the 1990’scannot be explained by prison expansion. About 25percent of the total drop in crime is due to prisonexpansion, and further prison expansion will havefar less return in reducing crime.28

A University of Missouri-St. Louis researcher showedthat about one-fourth of the drop in homicidesnationally is attributable to incarceration. Changesin living arrangements among young adults andfalling marriage rates were shown to becontributing factors to the drop in homicides.29

No correlation was found between increasing drugoffense admissions to prison and lower drug use.30

Incarceration may drive up crime rates in placeswhere a “tipping point” of more than 1 to 1.5percent of a community is incarcerated.31

Given the impacts of prisons on the economy,communities and people’s lives, it is important toquantify whether the costs of incarceration are worththe benefit in terms of crime prevention. In 2000,The Sentencing Project showed that there were“diminished returns” to using prison as a way ofreducing crime: throughout the nation, states withbelow average increases in incarceration experiencedgreater reductions in violent, property and total crimethan states with above average increases inincarceration. These general findings held true in theSouth, as well.

As Figure 9 shows, there was no relationship betweenstates that made a more zealous use of prisonthroughout the 1990s (when most states experienceddeclining crime rates) and larger declines in crime. West Virginia, for example, had one of the largestincreases in its incarceration rate during the 1990s, andsaw an increase in the states’ violent crime rate. On theother end of the spectrum, states like Florida, Arkansasand Virginia had more modest increases in theirincarceration rates and they also experienced muchlarger drops in crime than West Virginia, Mississippi andLouisiana. Alabama’s violent crime rate dropped 77%more than Georgia’s, even though Georgia’sincarceration rate rose at a rate 47% higher thanAlabama’s incarceration rate. Comparing the Southernstates to New York and Massachusetts reveals an evenstarker contrast: the two northern states experiencedlarger crime drops with much more modest increases inincarceration than most of the states in the South.

As the authors of the Sentencing Project study note,use of imprisonment is only one factor affecting thenation’s changing crime rates: Much of the explanationfor the reduction in crime in the 1990s is due toeconomic expansion and changes in the drug trade.Whatever effect imprisonment has on the crime rate,that effect must be measured against the impact theuse of incarceration has on people and communitiesthroughout the nation and throughout the South.

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ConclusionBy localizing the impact of incarceration policies in the South, this report is intended to act asa porthole for those investigating the various kinds of “collateral consequences” and also thecosts of imprisonment in the South—particularly in certain communities.

While the debate over prisons as a crime reduction strategy and institution of punishment islargely political, this report shows that these policies come with deep economic and socialcosts. As the people of the Southern states contemplate the political debate, this reportshows that the varied costs of prison growth are not abstract, but are quantifiablydevastating to communities, families and individuals.



Endnotes


21

Endnotes

1 Western, Bruce, Guetzkow, Josh. (August, 2002). Punitive Policy and Neoliberalism in the U.S. Labor Market. A paper presented at the American Sociological

Association, Chicago, Illinois.

2 Feldman, Lisa; Schiraldi, Vincent and Jason Ziedenberg. (2001) Too Little Too Late: President Clinton’s Prison Legacy. Washington DC: The Justice Policy Institute.

3 Fox Butterfield, “Freed From Prison, but Still Paying a Penalty,” The New York Times, December 29th, 2002.

4 This report will be discussed at Critical Resistance South, a regional conference assessing the impact and alternatives to the growing use of prisons in the South.

5 Bureau of Justice Statistics, the agency of the Justice Department that has kept correctional statistics for the federal government since the 1970s defines “the South” as a

region encompassing the following states: Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North

Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia.

6 Gifford, Sidra Lea (February, 2002). Justice Expenditure and Employment in the United States, 1999. Washington, DC: Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice

Statistics.

7 Gifford, February, 2002.

8 Herbert, Bob. “States Of Alarm,” The New York Times, December 29, 2002.

9 Harden, Clay. “Early Release Plan Would Reduce Number of Inmates, Cost.” The Clarion Ledger, February 3, 2003.

10 Source: Change in Full-Time equivalent employment from Western, Bruce and Guetzkow, Josh. (August, 2002) Punitive Policy and Neoliberalism in the U.S. Labor

Market. Presented at annual meeting of the American Sociological Association. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University.

11 Nevada had the highest proportion of its public payroll working in justice, with 17.5%. However, the number of justice system employees in Florida (127,000 of 765,000

FTE) towers over the number of justice system employees in Nevada (14,000 of 83,000 FTE).

12 Smith, Stephen (2002). Table 5: Justice System Employment and Percent Distribution of Full-Time Equivalent Employment by State and Local Government. Washington,

DC: Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics.

13 Moritz, Rob. “Board Invokes Emergency Act, Allows Early Release of Inmates.” Arkansas News Bureau, November 27, 2002.

14 Greene, Judith and Vincent Schiraldi. (February, 2002). Cutting Correctly: New Prison Policies for Times of Fiscal Crisis. Washington, DC: The Justice Policy Institute.

15 Harden, Clay. “Early Release Plan Would Reduce Number of Inmates, Cost.” The Clarion Ledger, February 3, 2003.

16 As this report draws on primary source materials from governments, the table headings reflect the way governments and the original researchers have defined racial or

ethnic identities, including use of the term Black and Hispanic. For this purposes of this paper, minority refers to racial and ethnic identities which are less than the majority

in the national context. In many counties, cities and some states in the U.S., people who are defined as Latino or racially and ethnically Non-White are the majority of

citizens and people in those places.

17 Beck, Allen J. and Bonczar, Thomas P. (1997) Lifetime Likelihood of Going to State or Federal Prison. Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics.

18 Holman, Barry (2001) Masking the Divide: How Officially Reported Prison Statistics Distort the Racial and Ethnic Realities of Prison Growth. Washington, DC: National

Center on Institutions and Alternatives; The United States government uses the term Hispanic to recognize individuals’ common Spanish descent. The term refers, in part, to

people with ties to nations where Spanish is the official language. The U.S. government and legal system historically have insisted on categorizing all Spanish-speaking

people as Hispanic and treating them as a monolithic group, regardless of cultural differences. The term Latino, on the other hand, generally refers to people with ties to the

nations of Latin America and the Caribbean, including some nations where Spanish is not spoken (e.g., Brazil). It also encompasses persons born in the United States

whose families immigrated to this country from Latin America in the recent past, as well as those whose ancestors immigrated generations ago. Like the term Hispanic, the

categorization Latino is a general one that does not recognize the diversity of ethnic subgroups (e.g., Puerto Rican, Dominican, Guatemalan, Peruvian, Mexican). This

document will not resolve this definitional dispute. Throughout the text of this report we have elected to use the term Latino to describe people in this country who identify

their racial/ethnic backgrounds in reference to Mexico, Central and South America, and the Caribbean, including people born or living in the United States. As this report

draws on primary source materials from governments, the table headings reflect the way governments and the original researchers have defined racial or ethnic identities.

For a more thorough discussion, see Dónde está la justicia? A call to action on behalf of Latino and Latina youth in the U.S. justice system. Washington, DC: Building

Blocks for Youth, 2002 www.buildingblocksforyouth.org.

Endnotes 22


19 See “The Real Price of Prisons,” from MotherJones.com (www.motherjones.com/prisons/atlas.html), for incarceration rates for every state, including Americans defined

as Latinos and Native Americans.

20 Uggen, Christopher, Manza, Jeff and Thompson, Melissa. (2000). Crime, Class and Reintegration: The Socioeconomic, Familiae, and Civic Lives of Offenders.

November 18, 2000, American Society of Criminology Meeting, San Francisco.

21 For a more in-depth discussion of the consequences of incarceration on an ex-offenders life course, see Collateral Damage: The Social Cost of Mass Incarceration.

(2002) ed. Chesney-Lind, Meda and Mauer, Marc. New York: Free Press.

22 Allard, Patricia and Mauer, Marc. Regaining the Vote: An Assessment of Activity Relating to Felon Disenfranchisement Laws. (January 2002) Washington, D.C.: The

Sentencing Project.

23 Much of this section was derived from Chesney-Lind, Meda. “Imprisoning Women: The Unintended Victims of Mass Incarceration.” In Invisible Punishment, edited by

Mark Mauer and Meda Chesney-Lind. The New Press. 2002. Greene, Judith and Roche, Timothy. Cutting Correctly in Maryland. Washington, DC: The Justice Policy

Institute.

24Beck, Allen and Harrison, Paige (2002). Prisoners in 2001. Washington, D.C.: Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics.

25 Mumola, Christopher (2000). Incarcerated Children and their Parents. Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics.

26 LaLonde, Robert J. and Susan George (2002). Characteristics of Women Entering and Exiting State Prison in Illinois. Unpublished paper. Chicago, IL: University of

Chicago Center for Human Potential and Public Policy. 2001.

27 Data for Hispanics is incomplete due lack of reporting by government sources. As of October, 2002, the following amendments to the bans in these states were known to

have been made: In Arkansas, the ban is limited to drug trafficking; In Tennessee, the ban does not apply if you are receiving, or on a waiting list to receive drug treatment;

In Florida, the ban only applies to drug sales, and even if you are convicted, there is a process available to remain eligible for benefits. For more information, see, Allard,

Patricia. (2002) Life Sentences: Denying Welfare Benefits to Women Convicted of Drug Offenses. Washington, D.C.: The Sentencing Project.

28 Spelling, William (2000). “The Limited Importance of Prison Expansion.” In The American Crime Drop, ed. Blumstein, Alfred and Wallman, Joel. Boston: Cambridge

University Press, 2000.

29 Rosenfeld, Richard (2000). “Patterns in Adult Homicide: 1980-1995.” In The American Crime Drop, ed. Blumstein, Alfred and Wallman, Joel. Boston: Cambridge

University Press, 2000.

30 Schiraldi, Vincent, Holman, Barry and Beatty, Philip (2000). Poor Prescription: The Costs of Imprisoning Drug Offenders in the United States. Washington, D.C.: The

Justice Policy Institute. 2000

31 Cose, Ellis. “The Prison Paradox.” Newsweek. November 17, 2000.

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