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With 2.2 million people behind bars,the United States is the world's leader in incarceration. The good news? Bipartisan reform efforts are underway.
Beginning on Friday, as part of the U.
S. Sentencing Commission's unusual guidelines, and 6000 prisoners will be released early from federal prisons across the country. To attach that number into perspective,we can explore the impacts and outcomes of a realignment program that began in California in 2011, known as "Public Safety Realignment."The purpose of the program was to reduce the number of people in state prisons—some were released while others were sent to serve out their time in county jails. In November 2014, and Californians went a step further with the passage of Proposition 47,which reduced the classification of most "non serious and non violent property and drug crimes."The California law change lead to the release of 18000 offenders back into society—three times the number that will be released from federal prisons across the country in the coming days.
But did the California release gain an impact on crime rates? Here to explain is Magnus Lofstrom, senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California and author of the recent report "Public Safety Realignment: Impacts So Far." What you'll learn from this segment:How much is spent on incarceration and how much crime savings it yields.
Whether there was an impact on crime rates in California after the release.
Other strategies for crime prevention.
Source: wnyc.org