Christopher Zoukis's Blog - Posts Tagged "inmates"
State Prisons Have High Rates of Minority Prisoners, study affirms
The Sentencing Project, a Washington-based non-profit group, on June 14 released a landmark study of the racial and ethnic characteristics of inmates in state prisons, which found African-Americans are on average incarcerated at a rate more than five times higher (5.1, to be precise) than the rate for whites.
The study compared Census state population data with results from the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics’ National Prisoners Series survey, which annually compiles data on state prison populations; it used data from the 2014 survey. It then calculated each state’s average rate of incarceration for whites, blacks and Hispanics, per 100,000 of population.
Census data shows the nation’s general population is 62% white, 17% Hispanic, and 13% black. According to the Justice survey, state prison population overall is 38% black, 35% white, and 21% Hispanic. While African-Americans do not constitute a majority of the overall population in any state, in 12 states they comprise a majority of state prison inmates.
Eight of those states are below the Mason-Dixon line (Alabama, both Carolinas, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, and Virginia); the others where black inmates make up especially high percentages of state prison populations are Delaware, Illinois, Michigan, and New Jersey.
The study found blacks have an overall state prison incarceration rate of 1,408 per 100,000, compared with 378 for Hispanics and 275 for whites. But racial disparities vary widely from state to state. New Jersey state prisons have the nation’s most disproportionate ratio of black male inmates to white male inmates, with 12.2 times as many black prisoners as white prisoners.
Incarceration affects at least 5% of black males in 11 states. The overall average for state incarceration of black adult males is 1 in 26. In eleven states, at least 1 in 20 adult black males is in prison.
The state with the largest disparity for incarceration rates between blacks and whites is Oklahoma, which has the highest incarceration rates per 100,000 for both whites (580) and for blacks (2,625).
States where 10% or more of the black adult male population are incarcerated include Iowa, Minnesota, New Jersey, Vermont, and Wisconsin. Even the states which incarcerate the lowest overrepresentation of black males in their state prison populations (Hawaii’s 2.4 to 1 is the lowest), black prisoners are incarcerated at more than double the rate for white prisoners.
Hispanics also appear at an overall 1.4 times higher rate in state prisons than do whites, with have particularly high incarceration rates relative to whites in northeastern states such as Massachusetts (4.3 times higher), Connecticut (3.9 times), Pennsylvania (3.3 times), and New York (3.1 times). Latinos make up 61% of the state prison population in New Mexico, 42% in California and Arizona, and 20% or more in seven other states (Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Nevada, New York, Nevada, and Texas).
The report, The Color of Justice: Racial and Ethnic Disparity in State Prisons, identifies three main factors that may contribute to the racial and ethnic imbalances in the state prison populations: criminal justice policies and practices (such as three-strike laws or heavy penalties for drug-related offenses), structural disadvantages affecting minority groups (such as poverty and unemployment rates, and housing and education deficits), or disparate treatment in arrests, prosecutions or sentencing.
The study compared Census state population data with results from the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics’ National Prisoners Series survey, which annually compiles data on state prison populations; it used data from the 2014 survey. It then calculated each state’s average rate of incarceration for whites, blacks and Hispanics, per 100,000 of population.
Census data shows the nation’s general population is 62% white, 17% Hispanic, and 13% black. According to the Justice survey, state prison population overall is 38% black, 35% white, and 21% Hispanic. While African-Americans do not constitute a majority of the overall population in any state, in 12 states they comprise a majority of state prison inmates.
Eight of those states are below the Mason-Dixon line (Alabama, both Carolinas, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, and Virginia); the others where black inmates make up especially high percentages of state prison populations are Delaware, Illinois, Michigan, and New Jersey.
The study found blacks have an overall state prison incarceration rate of 1,408 per 100,000, compared with 378 for Hispanics and 275 for whites. But racial disparities vary widely from state to state. New Jersey state prisons have the nation’s most disproportionate ratio of black male inmates to white male inmates, with 12.2 times as many black prisoners as white prisoners.
Incarceration affects at least 5% of black males in 11 states. The overall average for state incarceration of black adult males is 1 in 26. In eleven states, at least 1 in 20 adult black males is in prison.
The state with the largest disparity for incarceration rates between blacks and whites is Oklahoma, which has the highest incarceration rates per 100,000 for both whites (580) and for blacks (2,625).
States where 10% or more of the black adult male population are incarcerated include Iowa, Minnesota, New Jersey, Vermont, and Wisconsin. Even the states which incarcerate the lowest overrepresentation of black males in their state prison populations (Hawaii’s 2.4 to 1 is the lowest), black prisoners are incarcerated at more than double the rate for white prisoners.
Hispanics also appear at an overall 1.4 times higher rate in state prisons than do whites, with have particularly high incarceration rates relative to whites in northeastern states such as Massachusetts (4.3 times higher), Connecticut (3.9 times), Pennsylvania (3.3 times), and New York (3.1 times). Latinos make up 61% of the state prison population in New Mexico, 42% in California and Arizona, and 20% or more in seven other states (Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Nevada, New York, Nevada, and Texas).
The report, The Color of Justice: Racial and Ethnic Disparity in State Prisons, identifies three main factors that may contribute to the racial and ethnic imbalances in the state prison populations: criminal justice policies and practices (such as three-strike laws or heavy penalties for drug-related offenses), structural disadvantages affecting minority groups (such as poverty and unemployment rates, and housing and education deficits), or disparate treatment in arrests, prosecutions or sentencing.
Scholarly Study Looks at Prison Popularity of Ramen Noodles
Recent research from the University of Arizona examines why ramen, the tightly curled instant noodles accompanied by a small package of tangy, high-sodium flavorings that has long been a staple of hungry college students, has become so popular in U.S. prisons.
The study, done by Michael Gibson-Light, a doctoral candidate in sociology, finds the most important reasons have little or nothing to do with the most commonly noted advantages of ramen – its relatively high caloric value, delicious flavor, cheap price, durability, or ease to prepare – but instead with chronic underfunding of food services at private-run prisons and ramen’s usefulness as a form of underground currency.
The study was done for Gibson-Light’s doctoral dissertation, which will explore the form and function of inmate labor in institutions of incarceration. As part of that broader topic, the sociologist – who identifies his main professional interests as the sociology of work, occupations, and culture, and critical criminology -- has been looking into shifts in monetary practices in inmates’ informal economies.
For his research, Gibson-Light spent a year interviewing almost 60 inmates and correctional staff in a males-only prison in an unnamed Sunbelt state, and also observed inmates during their work assignments. The sociologist presented his paper on ramen’s prison popularity at the American Sociological Association’s annual meeting in late August in Seattle.
According to a release from the ASA, Gibson-Light’s research shows that ramen is replacing cigarettes as the leading form of underground currency, and not just due to prison systems’ growing restrictions or bans on tobacco products. (Even where tobacco remains freely available, ramen is gaining on it, and on other forms of informal currency, such as stamps and envelopes.)
Instead, the researcher attributes inmates’ increasing demand for ramen to private prisons’ cost-cutting on meals; as a result of lesser amounts and lower-quality meals, inmates increasingly turn to commissary supplies of ramen, or “soup” as it is known in prison lingo.
Due to what he terms "punitive frugality," by which Gibson-Light means a trend towards tighter food budgets and prison operators’ belief that inmates can assume some of the cost and burden of obtaining their meals, inmates’ practices are changing in response.
An example he observed in the prison he studied was a change made about 10 years ago in the food preparation service at the prison. As a cost-cutting measure, the new service offered two hot meals and a cold lunch on weekdays instead of the three hot meals the former service provided, and on weekends provided just two hot meals. Gibson-Light’s report also noted corrections spending has since 1982 failed to grow as fast as prison populations.
As a result, inmates valued food more, and found ramen a convenient method of exchange and way to store value. Even though ramen at the prison commissary Gibson-Light studied was sold for about twice its price at many other facilities (59 cents per package, compared with 25 to 30 cents in many other places), its value grew even faster than did most other available commodities. He found inmates using gambling with ramen packages used as poker chips, exchanging $11 sweatshirts for two ramen packs, or providing daily bunk cleaning service for one ramen pack per week.
The study, done by Michael Gibson-Light, a doctoral candidate in sociology, finds the most important reasons have little or nothing to do with the most commonly noted advantages of ramen – its relatively high caloric value, delicious flavor, cheap price, durability, or ease to prepare – but instead with chronic underfunding of food services at private-run prisons and ramen’s usefulness as a form of underground currency.
The study was done for Gibson-Light’s doctoral dissertation, which will explore the form and function of inmate labor in institutions of incarceration. As part of that broader topic, the sociologist – who identifies his main professional interests as the sociology of work, occupations, and culture, and critical criminology -- has been looking into shifts in monetary practices in inmates’ informal economies.
For his research, Gibson-Light spent a year interviewing almost 60 inmates and correctional staff in a males-only prison in an unnamed Sunbelt state, and also observed inmates during their work assignments. The sociologist presented his paper on ramen’s prison popularity at the American Sociological Association’s annual meeting in late August in Seattle.
According to a release from the ASA, Gibson-Light’s research shows that ramen is replacing cigarettes as the leading form of underground currency, and not just due to prison systems’ growing restrictions or bans on tobacco products. (Even where tobacco remains freely available, ramen is gaining on it, and on other forms of informal currency, such as stamps and envelopes.)
Instead, the researcher attributes inmates’ increasing demand for ramen to private prisons’ cost-cutting on meals; as a result of lesser amounts and lower-quality meals, inmates increasingly turn to commissary supplies of ramen, or “soup” as it is known in prison lingo.
Due to what he terms "punitive frugality," by which Gibson-Light means a trend towards tighter food budgets and prison operators’ belief that inmates can assume some of the cost and burden of obtaining their meals, inmates’ practices are changing in response.
An example he observed in the prison he studied was a change made about 10 years ago in the food preparation service at the prison. As a cost-cutting measure, the new service offered two hot meals and a cold lunch on weekdays instead of the three hot meals the former service provided, and on weekends provided just two hot meals. Gibson-Light’s report also noted corrections spending has since 1982 failed to grow as fast as prison populations.
As a result, inmates valued food more, and found ramen a convenient method of exchange and way to store value. Even though ramen at the prison commissary Gibson-Light studied was sold for about twice its price at many other facilities (59 cents per package, compared with 25 to 30 cents in many other places), its value grew even faster than did most other available commodities. He found inmates using gambling with ramen packages used as poker chips, exchanging $11 sweatshirts for two ramen packs, or providing daily bunk cleaning service for one ramen pack per week.
Scam Draws Huge Volume of Lawsuits by Former Inmates of New Jersey County Jail
The first inkling clerks in a federal courthouse in Camden, New Jersey had that something might be seriously amiss came in August, when they started getting an unusual number of requests for a packet of legal forms and information prepared for persons wanting to file a pro se civil lawsuits (filed by individuals without the assistance of an attorney).
Within a month, to cope with a strong, ongoing demand, the clerks had to send the packets — usually produced in-house — out to a printer. But the long lines of people waiting to get the packets caused so much congestion in the courthouse hallways that the court clerks began giving them to the guards in the courthouse lobby to pass out to those seeking them.
Then came the lawsuits. Some handwritten, first a trickle and then a flood, seeking money damages for having spent time in the city’s notoriously overcrowded Camden County Correctional Facility. Some complained of having been jailed with three other inmates in a cell designed to house two prisoners; other complained of having had no bed spaces and sleeping on cell floors in rat-infested cellblocks.
And the lawsuits keep coming – as many as 50 in a single day, in a court that averages about 200 civil lawsuits filed per month. Over the span of a few months, around 1,800 filings came in, forcing the court to bring in workers from other district courts to deal with the avalanche of filings. Many of the submissions were invalid, failing to meet either the filing requirements or to state a claim on which the court could grant relief— for example, by failing to meet the two-year deadline for filing garden-variety injury claims, or by alleging harms that could not amount to a constitutional violation.
County officials eventually discovered what generated the tsunami of pro se lawsuits on the county jail’s conditions. Apparently, several people had been working the city’s streets, spreading the news that there was a class-action settlement authorizing cash payouts to anyone who had ever spent time in the overcrowded jail, which had been built to accommodate slightly more than 1,200 inmates but had for long stretches housed 1,800 or more. One account said at least one scammer claimed to have received a cash pay-out of $1,000 per day at the court, and offered to sell potential claimants the legal forms they would need to claim their recovery. Potential claimants likely felt they had a legitimate chance at compensation. There was, in fact, a long-running class action, filed in 2005, by inmates claiming conditions in the Camden jail were so bad as to violate their constitutional rights. But that case neither sought money damages nor had been settled.
In late October, the district judge posted an announcement that there was no class-action settlement or ready payments for the county jail’s ex-inmates, and a similar notice was soon inserted in the pro se form packets. When even those steps failed to stem the tide of claimants, the courthouse got a new notice from the judge denouncing the false rumor for wasting the time of both plaintiffs and court workers.
Within a month, to cope with a strong, ongoing demand, the clerks had to send the packets — usually produced in-house — out to a printer. But the long lines of people waiting to get the packets caused so much congestion in the courthouse hallways that the court clerks began giving them to the guards in the courthouse lobby to pass out to those seeking them.
Then came the lawsuits. Some handwritten, first a trickle and then a flood, seeking money damages for having spent time in the city’s notoriously overcrowded Camden County Correctional Facility. Some complained of having been jailed with three other inmates in a cell designed to house two prisoners; other complained of having had no bed spaces and sleeping on cell floors in rat-infested cellblocks.
And the lawsuits keep coming – as many as 50 in a single day, in a court that averages about 200 civil lawsuits filed per month. Over the span of a few months, around 1,800 filings came in, forcing the court to bring in workers from other district courts to deal with the avalanche of filings. Many of the submissions were invalid, failing to meet either the filing requirements or to state a claim on which the court could grant relief— for example, by failing to meet the two-year deadline for filing garden-variety injury claims, or by alleging harms that could not amount to a constitutional violation.
County officials eventually discovered what generated the tsunami of pro se lawsuits on the county jail’s conditions. Apparently, several people had been working the city’s streets, spreading the news that there was a class-action settlement authorizing cash payouts to anyone who had ever spent time in the overcrowded jail, which had been built to accommodate slightly more than 1,200 inmates but had for long stretches housed 1,800 or more. One account said at least one scammer claimed to have received a cash pay-out of $1,000 per day at the court, and offered to sell potential claimants the legal forms they would need to claim their recovery. Potential claimants likely felt they had a legitimate chance at compensation. There was, in fact, a long-running class action, filed in 2005, by inmates claiming conditions in the Camden jail were so bad as to violate their constitutional rights. But that case neither sought money damages nor had been settled.
In late October, the district judge posted an announcement that there was no class-action settlement or ready payments for the county jail’s ex-inmates, and a similar notice was soon inserted in the pro se form packets. When even those steps failed to stem the tide of claimants, the courthouse got a new notice from the judge denouncing the false rumor for wasting the time of both plaintiffs and court workers.
