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$22.2 billion
is America’s annual cost to detain people in local jails.Christian Henrichson, Joshua Rinaldi, and Ruth Delaney, The Price of Jails: Measuring the Taxpayer Cost of Local Incarceration (New York: Vera Institute of Justice, 2015).
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In California, those locked up pretrial are "overwhelmingly poor, working class, and from racial and ethnic minorities."Human Rights Watch, “Not in it for Justice: How California’s Pretrial Detention and Bail System Unfairly Punishes Poor People,” April 11, 2017.
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More than
60%of the jail population consists of people who have not been convicted.Vera Institute of Justice, “Bail and Pretrial.”; and Teresa Mathew, “Why New York City Created Its Own Fund to Bail People Out of Jail,” Citylab, December 1, 2017. In New York, that figure approaches 75 percent.Independent Commission on New York City Criminal Justice and Incarceration Reform, A More Just New York City (New York: Independent Commission on New York City Criminal Justice and Incarceration Reform, 2017), 25.
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Bail not Jail: Grassroots organizations are stepping up to fill gaps in bail reform, with National Bail Out alone raising nearly $1 million in 2017.National Bail Out, “National Bail Out.”; and National Bail Out, “National Bail Out to #FreeBlackMommas; and #EndMoneyBail.”
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$10,000
The median money bail set nationwide
$15,000
The median pre-incarceration annual income of people incarcerated in 2015Bernadette Rabuy and Daniel Kopf, “Detaining the Poor: How Money Bail Perpetuates an Endless Cycle of Poverty and Jail Time,” press release (Northampton, MA: Prison Policy Initiative, May 10, 2016).
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Every
16 minutessomeone in America dies from an opioid overdose. CDC, “Understanding the Epidemic.”
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Death from a
drug overdose
is up to
129xmore likely for people within the first two weeks of being released from incarceration, compared to the general population. Ingrid A. Binswanger, Marc F. Stern, Richard A. Deyo, et al., “Release from Prison—A High Risk of Death for Former Inmates,” New England Journal of Medicine 356, no. 5 (2007), 157-65.
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There is no statistically significant relationship between incarceration for drug offenses and lower rates of drug use, drug arrests, or overdose deaths.Letter from Adam Gelb, Director, Public Safety Performance Project, The Pew Charitable Trusts, to the Honorable Chris Christie, President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis, “Re: The Lack of a Relationship between Drug Imprisonment and Drug Problems,” June 19, 2017, 4.
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Confidence
in the police has risen
5%from a record-tying low of 52 percent in 2015.Jim Norman, “Confidence in Police Back at Historical Average,” Gallup, July 10, 2017.
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of black people
have confidence in the police in
contrast to 61 percent of white people.Jim Norman, “Confidence in Police Back at Historical Average,” Gallup, July 10, 2017.
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Black people accounted for
of total arrests in 2016, a rate more than double their representation in the U.S. population.Federal Bureau of Investigation, “Arrests by Race and Ethnicity: 2016,” accessed December 13, 2017; and U.S. Census Bureau, “Quick Facts: Population Estimates.”
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Up to half
1 in 2of all people killed by police in the U.S. have a
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Mental illness
played a role in
of police shootings in 2017, with black people making up 23 percent of the fatalities.“Fatal Force: Police Shootings Data 2017,” Washington Post, accessed December 13, 2017.
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The number of
delinquency cases
decreased
42% -
The number of
incarcerated children
decreased
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Black children
are
3xas likely to be referred to court compared to white children.OJJDP, “National Disproportionate Minority Contact Databook.”
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Native American Girls
are
3xmore likely to be suspended from school than white girls.National Women’s Law Center, “2013-14 Suspension Rates for Girls of Color by State”.
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Students with disabilities
are nearly
3xmore likely to be referred to law enforcement while at school than students without disabilities.Hannah Rappleye, Brenda Breslauer, Stephanie Gosk, and Kenzi Abou-Sabe, “Kids in Cuffs: Why Handcuff a Student with a Disability,” NBC, February 20, 1017.
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Black students with disabilities
are nearly
3xmore likely to be arrested while at school than white students with disabilities.Hannah Rappleye, Brenda Breslauer, Stephanie Gosk, and Kenzi Abou-Sabe, “Kids in Cuffs: Why Handcuff a Student with a Disability,” NBC, February 20, 1017.
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The DHS FY18 budget included
$2.7 billion
to hold over
51,000
immigrants in detention every night—an increase over the 2016 record-high.Exec. Order No. 13768; U.S. Department of Homeland Security, “2018 Budget-in-Brief,” 4, last published May 23, 2017; and U.S. Department of Homeland Security, “Statement by Secretary Johnson on Southwest Border Security,” press release (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Homeland Security, November 10, 2016).
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of Americans support the continuation of DACA.Langer Research Associates, Americans Back DACA by a Huge Margin (New York: Langer Research, 2017) (ABC News/Washington Post poll).
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10 in 11 victims
of serious violent crimes do not receive assistance from victim service organizations.Lynn Langton, Use of Victim Service Agencies by Victims of Serious Violent Crime, 1993-2009 (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureaus of Justice Statistics, 2011).
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50 percent of white people feel “very safe” compared to 38 percent of Black people and 40 percent of Latino people.Alliance for Safety and Justice (ASJ), Crime Survivors Speak: The First-Ever National Survey of Victims’ Views on Safety and Justice, 9.
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People with disabilities are
2 1/2 xmore likely to experience rape, sexual assault, aggravated assault, and robbery.Erika Harrell, Crime Against Persons with Disabilities, 2009–2014 - Statistical Tables (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2016).
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1 in 9 People
in prison is currently serving a
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Black men convicted of a crime in federal court receive prison sentences that are, on average
19.1 percentlonger than similarly situated white men.United States Sentencing Commission, “Demographic Differences in Sentencing: An Update to the 2012 Booker Report,” November 14, 2017, 2.
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1 in 3 adults
70 million Americans have criminal records.Half in Ten and The Sentencing Project, Americans with Criminal Records (Washington, DC: Half in Ten and The Sentencing Project, 2015).
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There are more than
46,000collateral consequences
that impact people with conviction histories and create hurdles to certain career paths.Joe Palazzolo, “5 Things to Know About Collateral Consequences,” Wall Street Journal, May 17, 2015; and Council of State Governments Justice Center, “National Inventory of Collateral Consequences of Conviction,”
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Less than
of incarcerated people in state prisons have completed at least some postsecondary education.This finding came out of a landmark meta-analysis of correctional education programs, covering 30 years of research—the largest ever completed. Lois M. Davis, Robert Bozick, Jennifer L. Steele, et al., Evaluating the Effectiveness of Correctional Education: A Meta-Analysis of Programs That Provide Education to Incarcerated Adults (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2013), 3.
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6.1 million
Americans
could not vote
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The United States incarcerates
more people—and at a higher rate—than almost any country in the world.World Prison Brief, “Highest to Lowest – Prison Population Total,”; and World Prison Brief, “Highest to Lowest – Prison Population Rate,”
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As of 2016, black adults were imprisoned at a rate
5 x greaterthan that of white adults.Eli Hager, “A Mass Incarceration Mystery: Why are Black Imprisonment Rates Going Down? Four Theories,” The Marshall Project, December 15, 2017; and BJS, Prisoners in 2016 (2018), at 8.
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An estimated
5 million childrenhave had a parent in jail or prison.David Murphey and P. Mae Cooper, Parents Behind Bars: What Happens to Their Children (Bethesda, MD: Child Trends, 2015), 1.
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An estimated
90%of guilty verdicts are reached through
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Of all the elected prosecutors in office in February 2016,
72%ran
unopposed
in their most recent elections.“America’s Prosecutor Problem,” Fusion
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In an ACLU poll
38%of respondents did not know district attorneys are elected, and about half thought they played a small role in the criminal justice system.ACLU of Massachusetts, “Poll: Mass. Voters Think Criminal Justice System is Biased,” press release (Boston: ACLU of Massachusetts, July 12, 2017, updated December 2017); and Michael Jonas, “ACLU Campaign to Spotlight Crucial Role of DAs,” Commonwealth, July 12, 2017.
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Of the
57candidates President Trump has nominated to fill the vacant U.S. Attorney positions, only three are women and one male candidate is black.Max Kutner, “The Trump Administration Can’t Come Up With a List of Good Black Attorneys,” Newsweek, November 11, 2017.
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Amount state and county governments annually allocate to public defense:
$2.3 billion.Amount state and county governments spend annually on criminal justice: $200 billion.Erinn Herbman and Tracey Kyckelhahn, State Government Indigent Defense Expenditures, FY 2008-2012 – Updated (Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2014), 1. Also see Jonathan Pfaff, “A Mockery of Justice for the Poor,” New York Times, April 29, 2016.
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of black people in state prisons had a public defender or court-appointed counsel, compared to 73 percent of Latino people and 69 percent of white people.Caroline Wolf Harlow, Defense Counsel in Criminal Cases (Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2000), 9.
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Nearly
3/4of county-based public defender offices have exceeded the maximum recommended limit of cases received per attorney.Donald J. Farole, Jr. and Lynn Langton, County-based and Local Public Defender Offices (Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2010), 1.
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There are nearly
11 million admissions
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As of 2015, the average length of stay in jail was approximately
24 daysup from 14 days in 1983.https://storage.googleapis.com...
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of elected local head prosecutors across the country are