We’ve urged exactly this sort of reorientation of federal dollars for years. Importantly, the proposal would enable communities to better care for historically vulnerable populations - like those contending with substance abuse, homelessness, and poverty. The plan would help states reduce unnecessary incarceration, improving public safety without locking up more people. This week, President Biden announced a landmark proposal to establish a $15 billion grant program called Accelerating Justice System Reform. The Brennan Center found that almost 40 percent of our prison population is behind bars with no compelling public safety reason.īut there is hope for change. In fact, incarceration has little to no effect on violent crime. Decades of research show that incarceration doesn’t produce public safety. It extracts wealth from communities we’ve never invested in by imposing criminal fees and fines on top of lost wages for those with criminal records. It drives and reinforces racial inequity, disproportionately punishing Black and Latino people. This level of incarceration has massive societal consequences.
Four million more are on probation or parole. Nearly 1.2 million people are serving sentences in state and federal prisons, and our county jails see over 10 million admissions every year. The scope of incarceration in the United States is well known by now, but it still stuns.
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