Mass decarceration?
In October last year I wrote that the United States has started to incarcerate people at a lower rate, going from having the highest prison population rate in the world in 2015 to sixth place in 2021. “Obviously,” I wrote, “those still aren’t good numbers.” Until now I hadn’t seen further data on exactly how good or not good those numbers are. 

In early February research and advocacy group The Sentencing Project released a policy brief that drills into the decarceration rate nationwide and in each state. Nationally, we are decarcerating 2.3 percent annually since 2009, when the US prison population was at its peak. At that pace, writes the brief’s author, Nazgol Ghandnoosh, we will return to 1972’s prison population in 2098. The group pins 1972 as the beginning of mass incarceration.

As we can see in the graph below, we are decarcerating more quickly when it comes to drug and property crimes than we are for violent offenders, which is sensible given that the late 1970s into the early 90s were a time of rising violent crime rates in the US. There is a natural delay in examining our response to that, which would necessarily include higher rates of incarceration for violent crimes.

The pertinent question then, in my view, is not when we would return prison populations to 1972 levels but whether we are finding the right balance, as a society, between overdoing and underdoing incarceration as it corresponds to crime rates, especially now as violent crime rates nationwide are much lower than they were even in the 70s.

As with most things in the US, the numbers vary greatly across states, and those varying scenarios are great case studies for attempting to answer the question above. As of 2021, all US states have reduced their prison populations since their peaks, although some are poised for those trends to reverse, says the Sentencing Project brief.

Some states, like Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York, reduced their prison populations by around 60 percent since their respective peaks, with no corresponding rise in violent and property crime, according to data from the FBI (their Crime Explorer does not track drug crime). I would call this progress. Others, like Arkansas, reduced their populations only slightly, but are dealing with violent crime rates that have been increasing since 2002 and are akin to late 90s nationwide levels. What I don’t see in the data given from The Sentencing Project—and it may not exist—is what kind of offenders have been released in each state, leaving the picture incomplete for an analysis of what path forward makes sense state by state. 

One part of the brief, though, is a much more straightforward success story. The US youth justice system has already undergone a dramatic transformation, with the number of youth held in juvenile justice facilities at 25,000 in 2020, down from 109,000 in 2000. Youth crime rates are down, too.

Before we go
 It’s not often you see the word “ahead of schedule” in articles about government plans. Ghana’s 2016 commitment to restore 2 million hectares of deforested and degraded land by 2030, however, is seven years ahead of schedule. They are already a third of the way toward their goal.

 Options are slowly expanding for teenagers who want to stop an intimate photo of them circulating on the Internet. A new tool called Take It Down allows teens to report photos of themselves without having to send the photo itself to the company, which was previously required. So far, Facebook, Instagram, Yubo, OnlyFans, and Pornhub are participating.

 It’s nice to see the Biden administration acknowledging that if you want people to work, you need to solve for caregiving. To be eligible for funding from the CHIPS and Science Act, companies “will be required to submit a plan explaining how facility [and] construction workers will access child care,” as per a presentation from the Commerce Department.

Below in the links section, EV-charging Subway restaurants, blood-glucose monitoring smartwatches, space-viewing balloon flights, and more.

—Emma Varvaloucas

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