Criminal Justice Reform 

On any given day, there are 2.3 million people behind bars in US prisons, jails, and detention centers. That is a rate of approximately 698 people in detention per 100,000 people in the country. For comparison, that figure in Canada, England & Wales, and Germany is approximately 107, 139, and 78, respectively.  

Simply put, the United States has erected a criminal legal system whose scope is unprecedented in world history. Since 1980, the prison population has grown by approximately 700%. That growth represents a national decision to “solve” social problems such as poverty, addiction, deindustrialization, and violence by locking people up. It has stunted the American moral imagination at the expense of the poor generally, and especially Black and Latinx communities. 

This distribution of resources comes at huge costs to our ability to tend to the common good. Our criminal legal system cost approximately $265 billion in 2012, or $845 per person. Here in Connecticut, there are twice as many prison beds as there are hospital beds. It costs $62,000 per year to imprison a person, while the median salary for a licensed practicing nurse is $57,000. The ongoing fears of COVID-19 overwhelming our healthcare capacity demonstrate the folly of this distribution of resources. Neglecting the common good is both morally and economically detrimental to society.   

According to the Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness, nearly half the people in Connecticut’s shelters have been incarcerated. Over 17,000 people entered Connecticut’s shelters between 2016 and 2019; more than 8,000 have been incarcerated. Nationwide, at least 60% of the female state prison population have been the victim of physical or sexual violence before incarceration. The U.S. prisoner is likely to be poor, experience mental illness, and be a person of color.  

Rather than commit resources to solve these persistent social problems, we criminalize the survival strategies that might arise from these conditions. We use the prison to discard these vulnerable populations. It does not have to be this way. We can choose to organize society in a way that provides for basic human needs, that does not dispose of the vulnerable, that marshals its resources to promote the common good.    

Policy Solutions 

• Free prison phone calls: Most states charge the families of incarcerated people unnecessary, exorbitant rates to maintain contact via telephone. These states pocket a large portion of the funds generated by charging rates to largely poor families, creating an unethical profit motive. Connecticut ranks 49th in the affordability of a 15-minute prison phone call, with the state raking in more than $5 million in kickbacks annually, mostly from poor families.  
• End to cash bail: At the local level, 74% of people in local jails have not been convicted of a crime. That is, they are innocent under the law, and if they had enough money, they would be able to walk free until their trial. The cash bail system punishes poor people for not having disposable income, setting up a two-tiered system of justice; namely, one for those who have money, and one for those who do not.
• End to solitary confinement: Human beings are social creatures. There is no way to isolate human beings for a prolonged period that does not have deleterious effects on them psychologically. In February 2020, this prompted UN High Commissioner on Human Rights to concur with health professionals to formally declare it torture
• A complete end to childhood incarceration: Children should not be held in prisons or in prison-like facilities. In fact, the United States of America is the only country in the world where a child can be sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. It is one reason why the U.S. is the only member of the United Nations that has not ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. 
• Erasure of criminal records: A criminal conviction should not be a lifetime burden. Connecticut’s laws are set up to drive people with a criminal conviction into destitution and keep them there. They can be cut off from opportunities in education, housing, employment. Indeed, most of the people likely to get pulled into the system are poor and working class to begin with.

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