{"id":145074,"date":"2018-01-10T11:42:22","date_gmt":"2018-01-10T16:42:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/?p=145074"},"modified":"2024-10-28T10:38:59","modified_gmt":"2024-10-28T14:38:59","slug":"mass-incarceration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/news\/smart-justice\/mass-incarceration","title":{"rendered":"MASS INCARCERATION"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"tags":[],"metadata":[1773,1764,1763,1783,1750,2024,1762,1755,2026,1768],"class_list":["post-145074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","metadata-aclu","metadata-advocacy-news","metadata-context","metadata-general-commentary","metadata-layout","metadata-length","metadata-multimedia","metadata-narrative-frame","metadata-standard","metadata-voice"],"acf":{"header_layout":"full-bleed","header_image":145075,"mobile_header_image":192104,"description":"An Animated Series","authors":[2492],"components":[{"acf_fc_layout":"text","text":{"text":"The United States incarcerates more people, in both absolute numbers and per capita, than any other nation in the world. Since 1970, the number of incarcerated people has increased sevenfold to 2.3 million in jail and prison today, far outpacing population growth and crime.\r\n\r\nNot everyone is treated equally in the criminal justice system. Racial bias keeps more people of color in prisons and on probation than ever before. One out of every three Black boys born today can expect to go to prison in his lifetime, as can one of every six Latino boys \u2014 compared with one of every 17 white boys. Black people are also subject to pretrial detention at a higher rate than white arrestees with similar charges and history.\r\n\r\nHere are the stories of three people whose experiences show the toll that an abusive and unjust criminal system takes on individuals, families, and communities."}},{"acf_fc_layout":"heading","heading":{"":null,"text":"Lavette Mayes","anchor":"","sub-heading":"","type":"h2","heading-style":"standard"}},{"acf_fc_layout":"single-image","single-image":{"":null,"image-group":{"image":145077,"":null,"caption":"","credit":"Wood Funds Chicago","link-settings":"none","url":""},"width":"standard","alignment":"left"}},{"acf_fc_layout":"text","text":{"text":"<a>Lavette<\/a> Mayes is a single mother. She was arrested after a fight with her mother-in-law. To stay out of jail before her court date, she was asked to pay a cash bail she could not afford. For lack of money, she was locked up for 14 months while waiting for her court date. In a country that says \"innocent until proven guilty,\" <a>cash bail <\/a>renders a punishment before someone even gets a trial.\r\n\r\nBecause she couldn\u2019t afford a pre-trial bond, Lavette lost her small business and was separated from her children. \u201cMy children were just as incarcerated as I was with me being gone,\u201d she says."}},{"acf_fc_layout":"link","link":{"":null,"url":"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/news\/smart-justice\/lavettes-choice","custom_title":"READ LAVETTE'S FULL STORY","image":"","hide-description":false,"description":"","title":"Lavette\u2019s Choice | ACLU","og-image":192100,"og-title":"Lavette\u2019s Choice | ACLU","og-site-name":"American Civil Liberties Union","width":"standard","alignment":"left","image_alignment":"left"}},{"acf_fc_layout":"youtube","youtube":{"oembed-url":"https:\/\/youtu.be\/E0LFFXt5D0E","cover-image":145085}},{"acf_fc_layout":"text","text":{"text":"Lavette\u2019s experience isn\u2019t rare. On any given day, hundreds of thousands of people are locked up in jails even though they have not been convicted of a crime, and many of them are in jail simply because they cannot afford cash bail. As a result, they lose their jobs, homes, and families, regardless of guilt, innocence, or legality of the arrest. Lavette\u2019s ordeal also speaks to another worrisome trend. Women are the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/report\/womens-mass-incarceration-whole-pie-2017\">fastest growing incarcerated population<\/a>, with 219,000 women now in prisons and jails in the United States.\r\n\r\nThe cash bail system was originally designed to ensure that people return to court as their case progresses, but it has morphed into a <a href=\"https:\/\/action.aclu.org\/secure\/pretrial-integrity-safety-act?ms=web_180207_massincarceration_fairbailbill\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">for-profit system<\/a> of wealth-based incarceration."}},{"acf_fc_layout":"heading","heading":{"":null,"text":"Jason Hernandez","anchor":"","sub-heading":"","type":"h2","heading-style":"standard"}},{"acf_fc_layout":"single-image","single-image":{"":null,"image-group":{"image":145080,"":null,"caption":"","credit":"Can Turkyilmaz \/ ACLU","link-settings":"none","url":""},"width":"standard","alignment":"left"}},{"acf_fc_layout":"text","text":{"text":"<a>Jason Hernandez<\/a> was a young man when he was locked up. The judge wanted to give him a second chance, but mandatory minimums tied his hands and forced him to sentence Jason to life without parole plus 320 years. Sentenced in 1998 for a low-level drug crime, Jason was robbed of any opportunity to turn his life around and rejoin society.\r\n\r\nIn 2011, Jason petitioned President Obama for clemency. \u201cBy that time, I had earned a reputation as a jailhouse attorney,\u2019 Jason says. \u201cI was advocating for other inmates. I had [also] become obsessed with trying to get my freedom, and I was in the library all day, every day filing motion after motion, brief upon brief.\u201d He was one of the first people to receive clemency from President Obama."}},{"acf_fc_layout":"link","link":{"":null,"url":"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/news\/smart-justice\/longer-life-sentence","custom_title":"READ JASON'S FULL STORY","image":"","hide-description":false,"description":"","title":"A Longer Than Life Sentence | ACLU","og-image":192101,"og-title":"A Longer Than Life Sentence | ACLU","og-site-name":"American Civil Liberties Union","width":"standard","alignment":"left","image_alignment":"left"}},{"acf_fc_layout":"youtube","youtube":{"oembed-url":"https:\/\/youtu.be\/2NlDT17ghbE","cover-image":145088}},{"acf_fc_layout":"text","text":{"text":"<a>Extreme sentencing laws<\/a> and practices are keeping people in prisons for far longer than ever before. The result is that more people are spending more of their lives in prison than at any point in U.S. history. Excessive <a href=\"https:\/\/action.aclu.org\/secure\/real-criminal-justice-reform-now?ms=web_180207_massincarceration_smartjustice_realCJreformnow\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">sentences are not effective<\/a> deterrents, and they destroy a person\u2019s chance at rehabilitation, reunification with family, and reintegration into society. With convictions disproportionately affecting poor people and people of color, these sentences are also exacerbating extreme racial disparities in the criminal justice system and tearing vulnerable communities apart."}},{"acf_fc_layout":"heading","heading":{"":null,"text":"Johnny Perez","anchor":"","sub-heading":"","type":"h2","heading-style":"standard"}},{"acf_fc_layout":"single-image","single-image":{"":null,"image-group":{"image":145081,"":null,"caption":"","credit":"","link-settings":"none","url":""},"width":"standard","alignment":"left"}},{"acf_fc_layout":"text","text":{"text":"For <a>Johnny Perez<\/a>, returning to society and to his family after being in prison for 13 years wasn't easy. \u201c[The] world was a different place than the one that I left,\u201d says Johnny. \u201cThe biggest challenge was learning how to live with a family who [had] learned to live without you.\u201d\r\n\r\nIt isn't just the changes in society, technology, and culture that formerly incarcerated people are up against. The law makes <a>returning home from prison <\/a>more difficult, too. People living with a conviction record face nearly 50,000 federal, state, and local legal restrictions \u2014 often referred to as collateral consequences \u2014 that consistently impair them from freely pursuing the American dream. Many of those hurdles make it difficult for them to obtain basic necessities to survive, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/report\/back-business-how-hiring-formerly-incarcerated-job-seekers-benefits-your-company\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">including employment<\/a>, education, and affordable housing."}},{"acf_fc_layout":"link","link":{"":null,"url":"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/news\/smart-justice\/when-youre-prison-no-one-prepares-you-coming-home","custom_title":"READ JOHNNY'S FULL STORY","image":"","hide-description":false,"description":"","title":"When You're in Prison No One Prepares You for Coming Home | ACLU","og-image":192102,"og-title":"When You're in Prison No One Prepares You for Coming Home | ACLU","og-site-name":"American Civil Liberties Union","width":"standard","alignment":"left","image_alignment":"left"}},{"acf_fc_layout":"youtube","youtube":{"oembed-url":"https:\/\/youtu.be\/mV-f7hO8iLE","cover-image":145089}},{"acf_fc_layout":"text","text":{"text":"These collateral consequences drive re-arrest and significantly contribute to extraordinary high rates of recidivism. Each year, 650,000 men and women nationwide return from prison to their communities. About half of them will return to prison within a matter of years. Because of the pervasive culture of legalized discrimination aimed at people living with a criminal record, nearly 75 percent of formerly incarcerated people are still unemployed a year after release.\r\n\r\nRather than help formerly incarcerated people get the health care, training, and education they need to regain their livelihood, the lack of meaningful resources makes it more likely that they will wind up back in the criminal justice system soon after they've left it.\r\n\r\nAttitudes about the criminal justice system are changing. Across demographics and party lines, Americans <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/report\/smart-justice-campaign-polling-americans-attitudes-criminal-justice\">believe<\/a> that the criminal justice system is in urgent need of reform and that shifting resources from incarceration to rehabilitation would make communities safer.\r\n\r\nNinety-one percent of Americans say that the criminal justice system has problems that need fixing. Overall, 71 percent say it is important to reduce the prison population in America, including 87 percent of Democrats, 67 percent of Independents and 57 percent of Republicans. Even among Trump voters, 52 percent say it\u2019s important to reduce the prison population.\r\n\r\nThe fight for reform to end mass incarceration is a state and local issue. That\u2019s why the ACLU Campaign for Smart Justice works in all 50 states to push for reforms on bail, sentencing, prosecutorial practices, and parole. The campaign is also working to lessen the barriers formerly incarcerated people face as they reenter their communities and to combat racial disparities in the criminal justice system.\r\n\r\nLet's end mass incarceration.\r\nText SMARTJUSTICE to 82623 to sign up for ACLU action alerts."}}],"featured_cases_section":{"enable_featured_cases":false,"title":"Featured Cases","description":"","featured_cases":null},"action":[148399],"issues":[46735,46575],"related_content_cases":"","related_content_documents":"","related_content_publications":"","related_affiliates":"","content_layout":"standard","theme":"light","drupal_nid":""},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>American Civil Liberties Union<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"An Animated Series\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"MASS INCARCERATION | ACLU\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"An Animated Series\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/news\/smart-justice\/mass-incarceration\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"American Civil Liberties Union\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-01-10T16:42:22+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-10-28T14:38:59+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"ACLU\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@aclu\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@aclu\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/news\/smart-justice\/mass-incarceration\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/news\/smart-justice\/mass-incarceration\",\"name\":\"MASS INCARCERATION | ACLU\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2018-01-10T16:42:22+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-10-28T14:38:59+00:00\",\"description\":\"An Animated Series\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/news\/smart-justice\/mass-incarceration\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/\",\"name\":\"American Civil Liberties Union\",\"description\":\"The ACLU dares to create a more perfect union \u2014 beyond one person, party, or side. Our mission is to realize this promise of the United States Constitution for all and expand the reach of its guarantees.\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"American Civil Liberties Union","description":"An Animated Series","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"MASS INCARCERATION | ACLU","og_description":"An Animated Series","og_url":"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/news\/smart-justice\/mass-incarceration","og_site_name":"American Civil Liberties Union","article_published_time":"2018-01-10T16:42:22+00:00","article_modified_time":"2024-10-28T14:38:59+00:00","author":"ACLU","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@aclu","twitter_site":"@aclu","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/news\/smart-justice\/mass-incarceration","url":"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/news\/smart-justice\/mass-incarceration","name":"MASS INCARCERATION | ACLU","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/#website"},"datePublished":"2018-01-10T16:42:22+00:00","dateModified":"2024-10-28T14:38:59+00:00","description":"An Animated Series","inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/news\/smart-justice\/mass-incarceration"]}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/","name":"American Civil Liberties Union","description":"The ACLU dares to create a more perfect union \u2014 beyond one person, party, or side. 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