1. Mass Incarceration Ecosystem Mapping
April 25, 2018
Mass Incarceration Ecosystem Mapping
Nathan Emmons
Clark-Fox Family Foundation

3. Project Aims Map the mass incarceration ecosystem.
April 25, 2018
Project Aims
Map the mass incarceration ecosystem.
Reduce the War on Crime’s negative impacts on our country’s future.
Inform community leadership to enable them to advance an effective and humane criminal justice agenda.
Get the money out of mass incarceration.

4. Research Methods Newspapers/journalism Academic literature
April 25, 2018
Research Methods
Newspapers/journalism
The Marshall Project
Current events as data points
Academic literature
Research reports (Economic Policy Institute)
Primary source documents
Conversations with experts
Professors, non-profits, justice system employees
Books (The New Jim Crow, Just Mercy, etc.)

5. Thoughts Mass incarceration is a self-perpetuating ecosystem.
April 25, 2018
Thoughts
Mass incarceration is a self-perpetuating ecosystem.
It achieves its purposes of retribution and incapacitation, but it does not achieve deterrence and rehabilitation.
DESCRIPTIVE: Mass incarceration refers to the current American phenomenon of comparatively and historically extreme rates of incarceration, concentrated in poor communities of color.
INTERPRETIVE: Mass incarceration should be understood as a community of interdependent members existing in an environment maintained without external intervention and is capable of preservative self-correction.
community: 50 states, federal government interdependent: our decisions affect, and are affected by, all other members members: us!
environment: physical, social, economic external intervention: policy entrepreneurs, advocacy preservative self-correction: finger in the dam

6. Total Carceral Populations
April 25, 2018
Total Carceral Populations
200,000 (federal) + 1,350,000 (state) + 650,000 (local) = 2,200,000
102 federal prisons ,719 state prisons ,362 local jails

7. Incarceration Rate vs. Crime Rate

8. Global Incarceration Rates

9. Cumulative Risk of Imprisonment
April 25, 2018
Cumulative Risk of Imprisonment
Refers to MALES and not all PEOPLE
the projected lifetime likelihood of serving time for a person born in a specific year. Specifically, each point reflects the percent chance that a man born within a given range of years will have spent time in prison by age thirty to thirty-four.

10. Incarceration Hurts Children
Children with incarcerated parents:
Child is more likely to experience stress and trauma
Instability at home follows a child to school
Stress increases risk of obesity, asthma, anxiety, poor emotional regulation, and poor memory
Family is more likely to become poor
Families cannot afford to lose an income source
Poverty predicts a child’s educational outcomes
More likely to have speech impediments
Lower GPA
Complete fewer years of school
More likely to drop out of school

11. Incarceration Hurts Children
The greater likelihood that children with incarcerated parents will experience physical and mental health problems

12. Thoughts Mass incarceration has been created, and is sustained, by:
April 25, 2018
Thoughts
Mass incarceration has been created, and is sustained, by:
(1) individual actors with personal objectives;
(2) opportunistic policymakers; and
(3) a complicit public.

13.
April 25, 2018
“An increase in drug use leads to an increase in simple possession arrests.”

15.
April 25, 2018
ToC Longer sentences  prison population  public perception  ToC (individual actors and acquiescent public)
ToC  Community supervisions conditions  technical violations  revocation  recidivism (opportunistic policymakers and acquiescent public)
ToC  Community supervisions conditions  collateral consequences  driver’s license  jobs/employment

20.
April 25, 2018
My arrows are + signs, so explain how in poor communities the issue has a flipped script

21. Conclusion (1) Individual actors with personal objectives;
April 25, 2018
Conclusion
(1) Individual actors with personal objectives;
(2) opportunistic policymakers; and
(3) a complicit public.
Study mass incarceration as an ecosystem.

23. Texas 800 new residential substance abuse treatment beds
3,000 more outpatient substance abuse treatment slots
2,700 substance abuse treatment beds behind bars
1,400 new intermediate sanction beds (a 90-day program for technical violations)
300 halfway-house beds
75-case maximum for parole officers

24. Texas 2007: 15.9 percent of probationers failed
2015: 11,000 more parolees than in 2007
2015: 17 percent fewer crimes alleged against parolees than in 2007

25. Change in Imprisonment Rates, 2008-2013
>10% declines:
California
Hawaii
Rhode Island
Colorado
Connecticut
New Jersey
Alaska
South Carolina
Maryland
New York
Massachusetts
Texas
Missouri:
3% increase
Rank: 42nd of 50

27. Closing Thoughts The ecosystem will not get better on its own.
We, as the public, are a critical part of the ecosystem.
We can demand a different system.