Communities must prepare for influx of ex-offenders

[struggle4progress]

ohn Klofas
guest essayist

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(July 8, 2007) — "They're back": It's not just a warning from Steven Spielberg about a poltergeist in a TV set. Today it is acknowledgement of the unplanned consequences of a nearly 40-year experiment in crime control. And it is a call to action to address the large number of convicted criminals returning from prison to communities nationwide.

Since 1970, the U.S. prison population has soared from under 200,000 to more than 1.4 million. The number of prisoners increased at 16 times the rate of the U.S. population and at 14 times the rate of increase in crime. More than 63,000 New Yorkers are in prison today, up from just 13,000 40 years ago.

The plan seemed simple enough, and by some measures it worked: Send a lot of offenders to prison for a long time. The trouble was we didn't look far enough into the future.

Every day now nearly 1,900 men and women are released from prison to the streets. Almost 700,000 will be freed this year. More than four times as many prisoners will be released this year as were let go in 1970. ~snip~

http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070708/OPINION02/707080315/1039/OPINION

The figure I heard was 2.5 million over the next decade, none with more than a few months of supervision after release

[Laughing Mirror]

1. That 1.4 million figure is either a typo or a deliberate error

There were 2.2 million in prison five years ago, and that figure must be closer to 2.5 million today, what with the explosion of the private prison industry and all.

[struggle4progress]

2. U.S. Prison Population Sets Record

Associated Press
Friday, December 1, 2006; Page A03

A record 7 million people -- one in every 32 U.S. adults -- were behind bars, on probation or on parole by the end of last year, a Justice Department report released yesterday shows.

Of those, 2.2 million were in prison or jail, an increase of 2.7 percent over the previous year, according to the report. ~snip~

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/30/AR2006113000912.html

[struggle4progress]

3. Prison Statistics

~snip~ On June 30, 2006 -- 2,245,189 prisoners were held in Federal or State prisons or in local jails ~snip~ http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/prisons.htm

I'd guess the 1.4 million may represent somebody's estimate for total state prisoners, or for total federal prisoners, but not both.