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Date: April 29, 2024 Mon
Time: 9:52 pm
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Results for criminal justice systems (u.s.)
3 results foundAuthor: Hartney, Christopher Title: Created Equal: Racial and Ethnic Disparities in the US Criminal Justice System Summary: African Americans make up 13% of the general US population, yet they constitute 28% of all arrests, 40% of all inmates held in prisons and jails, and 42% of the population on death row. In contrast, Whites make up 67% of the total US population and 70% of all arrests, yet only 40% of all inmates held in state prisons or local jails and 56% of the population on death row. Hispanics and Native Americans are also alarmingly overrepresented in the criminal justice system. This overrepresentation of people of color in the nation’s criminal justice system, also referred to as disproportionate minority contact (DMC), is a serious issue in our society. DMC has been the subject of concern in the juvenile justice system since 1988, when a federal mandate required states to address the issue for system-involved youth. This mandate led to an increase in the information on racial disparities in the juvenile system and efforts to reduce these numbers. However, no such efforts have been made in the adult system. This report documents DMC in the adult criminal justice system by tabulating the most reliable data available. It does not seek to thoroughly describe the causes of DMC nor does it perform an advanced statistical analysis of how various factors impact disparity. Disproportionate representation most likely stems from a combination of many different circumstances and decisions. It is difficult to ascertain definitive causes; the nature of offenses, differential policing policies and practices, sentencing laws, or racial bias are just some of the possible contributors to disparities in the system. Some studies have begun to explore these issues and are so cited, but the purpose of this report is to describe the nature and extent of the problem. DMC is problematic not only because persons of color are incarcerated in greater numbers, but because they face harsher penalties for given crimes and that the discrepancies accumulate through the stages of the system. This report presents the data on DMC in arrests, court processing and sentencing, new admissions and ongoing populations in prison and jails, probation and parole, capital punishment, and recidivism. At each of these stages, persons of color, particularly African Americans, are more likely to receive less favorable results than their White counterparts. The data reveal that, overall, Hispanics are also overrepresented, though to a lesser extent than African Americans, and that Asian Pacific Islanders as a whole are generally underrepresented. Correcting DMC in the adult system will require improvements in state and federal data collection. In contrast to juvenile DMC data, much of which can be found from a single source and can often be compared across the stages of the juvenile system, data for the adult system are only available through several independent federal and state data collection programs. Each dataset uses different sampling methods, in effect, obscuring how DMC accumulates in the system. All data in this report reflect national figures; when possible, data by state are also presented. All data reported are categorized by race and, when possible, by ethnicity. The latest available data are usually from 2003 to 2006. Most data are reported as a Relative Rate Index, a ratio of the rates at which people of color and Whites are represented in the system relative to their representation in the general population. Failing to separate ethnicity from race hides the true disparity among races, as Hispanics — a growing proportion of the system’s population—are often combined with Whites, which has the effect of inflating White rates and deflating African American rates in comparison. Asian American system populations, while small in comparison to the other groups, also need to be disaggregated. Disaggregation of “Asian,” for instance, allows researchers to assess subgroups such as Vietnamese, Chinese, Indian, Japanese, etc., some of which may have disproportion even when the overall group does not. Despite the shortcomings of the data, this report shows clearly that people of color are overrepresented throughout the adult system and that the system often responds more harshly to people of color than to Whites for similar offenses. Details: Oakland, CA: National Council on Crime and Delinquency, 2009. 44p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed October 5, 2011 at: http://www.nccd-crc.org/nccd/pdf/CreatedEqualReport2009.pdf Year: 2009 Country: United States URL: http://www.nccd-crc.org/nccd/pdf/CreatedEqualReport2009.pdf Shelf Number: 113857 Keywords: African AmericansCriminal Justice Systems (U.S.)Disproportionate Minority ContactMinority GroupsRacial Disparities |
Author: Leachman, Michael Title: Improving Budget Analysis of State Criminal Justice Reforms: A Strategy for Better Outcomes and Saving Money Summary: This report details how a change to the way states evaluate the budgetary effects of proposed laws could help states find better budget solutions while protecting public safety and decreasing our incarceration rate. According to the report, “Improving Budget Analysis of State Criminal Justice Reforms: Strategies for Improving Outcomes and Saving States Money,” poorly performed state evaluations of the budgetary consequences of criminal justice legislation are causing some states to spend unnecessarily on prisons while cutting other vital state programs. Earlier this year, for example, legislators from both sides of the political aisle in Maryland sought to pass a law that would have allowed nonprison sanctions for individuals who commit technical parole violations, such as missing a meeting with their parole officer or failing to complete community service. More than one-third of the people behind bars around our nation are there for similar technical violations, not for new crimes. This Maryland bill would have allowed the state to put a portion of the $1 billion it spends annually on corrections to better use while keeping the public safe. If implemented, this reform could have started saving the state money within three years, since that’s when most people return to prison for technical violations. But a misguided state budget estimate of the bill’s impact considered only the up-front costs, ignoring the future savings and thus incorrectly concluding that the program would cost too much. As a result, the bill was scaled back to only three counties. Now, the rest of Maryland will continue to send individuals who violate parole conditions back to prison. According to the new report released today, Maryland isn’t the only state where this is happening. Many state budget analyses tend to focus on the upfront start-up costs of a bill, but fail to examine the later savings these programs will bring—even savings that could be realized in the following year. The upshot: When states examine policies through a cost-only lens, instead of a cost-effectiveness lens, legislators and the public are more likely to reject policies that would actually save money overall. Amid this mess, however, there is hope. Bipartisan leaders in some states, among them Texas, Mississippi, and Ohio, recognized the short- and long-term benefits of cutting prison spending. Over the last few years, these states implemented reforms to cut their incarceration rates and their costs—all the while protecting public safety and reducing recidivism. Such reforms—like providing effective addiction treatment instead of prison to more people convicted of drug crimes and increasing parole eligibility for elderly prisons who no longer pose safety risks—free up precious state dollars to reallocate to other societal resources such as education, infrastructure, or returning tax dollars back to working families. Details: Washington, DC: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities; American Civil Liberties Union, 2012 28p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed January 18, 2012 at: http://www.aclu.org/files/assets/improvingbudgetanalysis_20120110.pdf Year: 2012 Country: United States URL: http://www.aclu.org/files/assets/improvingbudgetanalysis_20120110.pdf Shelf Number: 123657 Keywords: BudgetsCosts of Criminal JusticeCriminal Justice ReformCriminal Justice Systems (U.S.)Expenditures in Criminal Justice |
Author: Labriola, Melissa Title: Innovation in the Criminal Justice System: A National Survey of Criminal Justice Leaders Summary: Innovation in the Criminal Justice System: A National Survey of Criminal Justice Leaders is part of a multi-faceted inquiry concerning innovation and criminal justice reform conducted by the Center for Court Innovation in partnership with the Bureau of Justice Assistance and the U.S. Department of Justice. The questionnaire was administered from June to August 2012 among a nationwide sample of 1,000 professionals: 300 community corrections officials; 300 leaders from prosecutors’ offices; 300 police chiefs and sheriffs; and all 102 chief judges and chief court administrators from the 50 states and the District of Columbia. There was an overall response rate of 62%, and the final sample included responses from 624 individual criminal justice leaders. On average, respondents had over 26 years of experience in the criminal justice system. Weighting techniques were utilized to assign each of the four criminal justice segments (community corrections, prosecution, law enforcement, and court administration) equal influence over the reported totals. The questionnaire was designed to provide a snapshot of the current state of innovation in the field of criminal justice: Is innovation a priority? Are criminal justice leaders aware of emerging research, and do they use research to inform policymaking? What obstacles stand in the way of innovation in the field? Details: New York: Center for Court Innovation, 2013. 34p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed August 6, 2013 at: https://www.bja.gov/Publications/CCI-InnovationSurveyReport.pdf Year: 2013 Country: United States URL: https://www.bja.gov/Publications/CCI-InnovationSurveyReport.pdf Shelf Number: 129552 Keywords: Criminal Justice AdministrationCriminal Justice ReformCriminal Justice Systems (U.S.) |