Anonymous said on May 18, 2009  

How does this tie in with the fact that the U.S. incarcerates far more than the baseline for other countries? Do you think we have that many more bad actors, on an objective basis, than Russia or South Africa?

 John Neff said on May 18, 2009  

A large incarceration rate can be obtained by
1) Increasing the length of confinement (LOC) and keeping the admission rate constant.
2) Increasing the admission rate while holding the LOC constant.

Using historical data from Iowa prisons the incarceration rate was increase at first by increasing the admission rate for persons serving short sentences and than about five to ten years later the LOC for persons serving long sentences was also increased. The most rapid growth in incarceration rate occurred before the LOC was increased.

It appears that Iowa prison population growth lagged the national prison growth but I believe that the lag was because Iowa tried and failed to cap the prison population about the time the national growth started introducing a five to seven year lag.

My guess is that high admission rates for persons serving short sentences for offenses that used to result in probation or a jail sentence is the primary reason for the large US incarceration rate.

 Anonymous said on May 18, 2009  

John,

That's really interesting. Can you share your source of information there?

It jibes with my general feeling that there has been an increase in measures that increase the number of people interacting with the incarceration system have been on the rise alongside of other measures (the rather notable asset-forfeiture laws in some states, etc.) that seem revenue based rather than something coming from a sincere concern with public safety.

 John Neff said on May 19, 2009  

In my study of the history of incarceration I used the following data sets
1) The prison population from 1898 to present.
2) Annual prison snapshots.
3) Annual prison admission reports by gender, race/ethnicity & offense type.
4) Crime rate histories (1960 to present)
5) Criminal code history.
6) Depopulation history of state mental health hospitals (5,500 in 1955 to 200 at present).

There was only one man-min sentence for habitual offenders prior to the large prison population growth spurt and two thirds of the growth had occurred before man-min sentences were passed for violent and drug offenses. So the timing was wrong for man-min sentences to be responsible for the rapid growth.

It is possible to gain some insight into what caused the growth by looking at the distribution of prisoners by intake year and offense type. Most prisoners were admitted within the past three years and the most common offense types are property, public order, drug possession and minor crimes against persons (assaults). For most of the prisoners that were admitted more than three years ago the offense types are violent, drug trafficking and serious property crimes.

 John Neff said on May 19, 2009  

I forgot to mention that the largest state mental hospital in Iowa is behind prison walls. There have always been mentally ill persons in prison but other than special security arrangements for many years they received no special attention or treatment.

I have not been able to determine when they realized that there were a lot more mentally ill prisoners than normal.

 Darrell said on May 25, 2009  

My wife was found guitly of embezzelement of 17,000 .3 counts Jury gave her 7y 6 mths in prison on each count 23 years total. she is 40 so 63 is how old she will be. This is in VA. Took her life and mine for 17,000 and I paid the money back before court.FBI handwriting said it wasn't her writing. You can take a life and get less time but take money give ya death row!!!!!!!!!