Prison Population Can Shrink When Police Crowd Streets

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The prison population is actually slowly on the decline. I forgot where on Bloomberg I saw that a couple weeks ago.
 
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BarNone said:
The prison population is actually slowly on the decline. I forgot where on Bloomberg I saw that a couple weeks ago.
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Is it the population or the growth rate? I thought it was the growth rate of the population, but I know the former has finally become recognized as a problem by more powerful authorities as well.
 
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The Real said:
Is it the population or the growth rate? I thought it was the growth rate of the population, but I know the former has finally become recognized as a problem by more powerful authorities as well.
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[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abH7pw31Yf4&sns=em[/ame] (1 minute youtube Bloomberg explanation)

It's the actual population. Not significantly though, but it's three straight years of decline. In 2007 1 out of every 31 US adults was in the prison system. Now it's one out of every 34. It's a drop but barely. It's not opening the floodgates by any means.

The reason is the recession: America's Prison Population Is Finally Shrinking. Here's Why. - Hit & Run : Reason.com

What explains the decline? The short answer is money. When the housing market crashed, cash-strapped states and cities were forced to take a hard look at their budgets. A lot of them realized they were spending insane amounts of money keeping nonviolent offenders in cages, so many increased funding for diversion programs like drug court and veterans court. Some states have also begun reducing penalties for parole and probation violations, which make up 75 percent of prison admissions in Texas, and cost Florida $100 million a year.

But these policy changes don't amount to opening the gates, as demonstrated by the chart below:
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JailStat2.png


And none of those policies address head-on the single biggest growth driver for prison populations in the country: Draconian drug policies. In Wisconsin, for instance, the state's prison population has tripled since 1990, and 80 percent of that growth came from drug and alcohol convictions. Florida's prison population has quadrupled since 1984. According to Florida TaxWatch, the state spent $300 million in 2011 incarcerating drug offenders.

To the extent that you can quickly reduce a state's prison population, it's by lessening penalties for drug-related and victimless crimes. That's why the decline is happening at the state level, and not the federal level, where diversion is not an option, sentencing is less flexible, and early release is rare. In fact, the federal prison population is actually growing. In 2006, the federal corrections system oversaw 176,824 offenders.
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thekingsmen said:
The only reason of the decline in some of the population is because the older inmates are dying and are most likely released to die outside prison.

Let's see more meat than what's given.

http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/usprisons0112webwcover_0.pdf

Massive Rise in Prison Population May Have Serious Consequences | U.S. Criminal & Imprisonment Rates | Social Consequences of Mass Imprisonment | LiveScience

Obama Budget: Grow Prisons and Keep Gitmo | Mother Jones
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I just showed why the decline is happening and it's not due to older prisoners dying off. Just looking at the titles of your links, none of them prove your points either. They seem tangentially related at best.
 
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BarNone said:
I just showed why the decline is happening and it's not due to older prisoners dying off. Just looking at the titles of your links, none of them prove your points either. They seem tangentially related at best.
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Sadly a one minute youtube video and gaps between years in your report don't help your points either. Btw....read the articles instead of looking at the titles.
 
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how about we invest that money into getting people educated and employed
 
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thekingsmen said:
Sadly a one minute youtube video and gaps between years in your report don't help your points either. Btw....read the articles instead of looking at the titles.
Click to expand...

There are no gaps between years anywhere in the "report." I provided the video for lazy people and then quoted specific portions of another article that verifies the report. Second, you initially said that "you really believe that" in that you didn't even believe that there was a decline. Then you brought up random articles to prove your unsubstantiated assertion that it is because of old inmates dying off...as if there are 100,000 inmates dying in prison every year to make up the number.

You have not pointed out anywhere in that research where there are flaws. I'm convinced that you didn't read my post because all your articles verify the latter portion of it. Be reasonable bro.
 
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