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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 2015[]Bernadette 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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All 50 states and the District of Columbia have passed legislation to increase layperson access to
naloxone
—a lifesaving medication that reduces the effects of an opioid overdose.[]Network for Public Health Law, Legal Interventions to Reduce Overdose Mortality (2017).
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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
50% -
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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ICE ARRESTS
increased nearly
40%with 75,000 between January and June of 2017.[]Tal Kopan, “ICE: Arrests Still Up, Deportations Still Down,” CNN, August 11, 2017.
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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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630,000
The number of cases pending before federal immigration courts in 2017, an all time high.[]TRAC Immigration, “Immigration Court Filings Take Nose Dive” (2017).
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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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Nationally, black people account for
of all people held on death row.[]Death Penalty Information Center, Facts about the Death Penalty (2017), at 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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States spent
$56.9 billionon their corrections systems in 2015.[]The Sentencing Project, Trends in U.S. Corrections (Washington, DC: The Sentencing Project, 2017).
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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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of elected local head prosecutors across the country are
white.[]Reflective Democracy Campaign, “Justice For All?: A Project by the Reflective Democracy Campaign on Who Prosecutes in America,”
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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
to local jails in any given year, nearly 18 times the annual number of admissions to state and federal prisons.[]For 2015 jail admissions data, see Minton and Zeng, Jail Inmates in 2015 (2016), 8. For 2015 prison admissions data, see Carson and Anderson, Prisoners in 2015 (2016), at 11.
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60%
Unconvicted
More than three-fifths of those held in jail are unconvicted individuals who are awaiting trial, typically because they cannot make bail.[]Subramanian, Delaney, Roberts, et al., Incarceration’s Front Door (2015), at 4-5.
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Black Americans are jailed at
4xthe rate of white Americans; in New York City, the rate is almost
12xthat of whites.[]Subramanian, Delaney, Roberts, et al., Incarceration’s Front Door (2015), at 4-5.
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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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Forty states and the District of Columbia have passed
Good Samaritan laws
that provide some form of protection from arrest or prosecution for individuals who report an overdose.[]Network for Public Health Law, Legal Interventions to Reduce Overdose Mortality (2017).
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of elected local head prosecutors across the country are