Philosophy.

There are over 2 million people incarcerated in the United States- a 500% increase over the last 40 years. This increase is not the result of a change in crime rates, but is explained by changes in sentencing law and policy. These trends have resulted in prison overcrowding and fiscal burdens on states to accommodate a rapidly expanding penal system, despite increasing evidence that large-scale incarceration is not an effective means of achieving rehabilitation nor addressing recidivism or public safety.

Sentencing policies of the War on Drugs era resulted in dramatic growth in incarceration for drug offenses. Since its official beginning in the 1980s, the number of Americans incarcerated for drug offenses has skyrocketed from 40,900 in 1980 to 430,926 in 2019. Furthermore, harsh sentencing laws such as mandatory minimums keep many people convicted of drug offenses in prison for longer periods of time: in 1986, people released after serving time for a federal drug offense had spent an average of 22 months in prison. By 2004, people convicted of federal drug offenses were expected to serve almost three times that length: 62 months in prison.

Currently, there are twice as many people incarcerated in local jails on pretrial matters than in the entire federal prison system. These pretrial detainees are presumed innocent and often nonviolent offenders who simply cannot afford the cash bail amount set by courts. And each year, 650,000 people nationwide return from prison to their communities. They face nearly 50,000 federal, state, and local legal restrictions that make it difficult to reintegrate back into society, including limited job opportunities and potentially the loss of voting rights.

The number of people serving life sentences endures even while serious, violent crime has been declining for the past 20 years and little public safety benefit has been demonstrated to correlate with increasingly lengthy sentences. This population has nearly quintupled since 1984. One in seven people in prison are serving life with parole, life without parole, or virtual life (50 years or more).

The American prison system costs taxpayers upwards of $80 billion per year. This money should be spent building up our communities- not perpetuating harm. Investments, not incarceration, is how we create a safer America.