What Caused the Crime Decline? Brennan Center for Justice | Dr. Oliver Roeder, Lauren-Brooke Eisen, and Julia Bowling Executive Summary For the past 40 years, the United States has been engaged in a vast, costly social experiment. It has incarcerated a higher percentage of its people, and for a longer period, than any other democracy. In [...]
Black Lives Matter: Eliminating Racial Inequity in the Criminal Justice System by The Sentencing Project “Black lives matter” has become a rallying cry in light of evidence that the criminal justice system is failing to uphold this basic truth. Official data, although woefully inadequate, show that over half of those killed by police in recent [...]
Anne Yantus, University of Detroit-Mercy School of Law | 2014 Abstract The governor and several legislators have requested review of Michigan’s sentencing practices with an eye toward sentence reform. Michigan leads the country in the average length of prison stay, and by internal comparisons the average minimum sentence has nearly doubled in the last decade. [...]
Click here to download pdf of the full report: Paroling people who committed serious crimes: What is the actual risk? We can safely parole hundreds of people who committed very serious crimes. CAPPS's new report, using Michigan Department of Corrections data on returns to prison for new crimes, echoes decades of research in Michigan and other jurisdictions [...]
In May, the Council of State Governments Justice Center provided its report to the Michigan Law Revision Commission. The CSG report provides the Commission with " . . . areas for policy development, including opportunities to improve the state’s sentencing system to achieve more consistency and predictability in sentencing outcomes, stabilize and lower costs for the [...]
TO READ THE FULL REPORT: Corrections spending reflects major policy choices: Examining the consequences Appendix: Corrections spending proposals reflect major policy choices: Examining the consequences Executive Summary: Corrections spending proposals reflect major policy choices: Examining the consequences The Citizens Alliance on Prisons & Public Spending (CAPPS) has released Corrections spending reflects major policy choices: Examining [...]
Click on headline below to read: Read>> Parolable Lifers in Michigan: Paying the price of unchecked discretion Read>> Michigan's Parolable Lifers: The cost of a broken process CAPPS Press release February 12, 2014 Michigan Department of Corrections Professionals Comment on Lifer Paroles * Read report summaries below: The Michigan Department of Corrections has tried to contain its [...]
A new report by The Sentencing Project documents the rise of life sentences in the U.S. While serious crime rates in the U.S. have been declining for the last 20 years, the number of prisoners serving life sentences has more than quadrupled since 1984. The Sentencing Project's new report found that over 159,000 people were [...]
According to the Michigan League for Public Policy, between FY 2001 and FY 2013 Michigan's spending for corrections rose by 20 percent but dropped by 38 percent for higher education. Take a look at this report: Excessive Spending on Incarceration Undermines Educational Opportunity and Public Safety in Communities NAACP | April 2011 From the report: [...]
CAPPS is actively working to address the problem of aging prisoners, especially individuals serving life terms. Here is a long, but important ACLU report that highlights the problem of aging prisoners: please download the report here. From the introduction: “[Y]ou actually create victims by not letting [elderly prisoners] go and us[ing] your resources on rehabilitation for the [...]