NCJ Number
86404
Date Published
1982
Length
66 pages
Annotation
This paper examines recent trends in incarceration, particularly as they impact blacks and other minorities, and policy recommendations are offered based on the findings.
Abstract
An examination of recent trends in incarceration shows that blacks and other minorities are disproportionately sentenced to prison. Fragmentary evidence from other English-speaking countries indicates that the high rate of imprisonment of minorities is a global phenomenon. An analysis of imprisonment for adult males, youth, and women and highlighted empirical findings from 44 studies, most conducted in the 1970's and 1980's, reveal patterns of a disproportionately punitive approach toward minorities. The evidence points toward a qualitative shift in the penal system. There is a significant growth in the penal population, a significant deterioration in penal conditions, a significant growth in the proportion of racial and national minorities in prison, and a significant increase in 'law-and-order' policies, suggesting that the United States is only at the beginning stages of a penal crisis. Minorities are the hardest hit by both austerity policies and state repression. Economically, they are the first to feel the impact of high unemployment, public sector cutbacks, inflation, and crime. Politically, they are currently targeted for repression and scapegoating by the growing right-wing movement. Policy recommendations, some short-term and some long-term, include (1) bringing equal justice to the bail system, (2) abolishing mandatory sentences, (3) restoring indeterminate sentences, (4) combating racism in criminal justice professionals, (5) prosecuting corporate crime and racist violence, (6) increasing employment to lower the incarceration rate, (7) restoring funding for community alternatives to imprisonment, and (8) supporting prisoners' human rights. Seventy-two references are provided.