This issue of the RESIST Newsletter examines prisons and alternatives to incarceration. Mass incarceration is a timely issue. During 2007 alone, the prison population in the United States rose by more than 25,000 people. Nearly one in four of all prisoners worldwide is now incarcerated in America.

Today, while one in 30 men between the ages of 20 and 34 is behind bars, one in nine African American men in that age group is locked up. In 1970, our prisons held fewer than 200,000 people; now that number exceeds 1.5 million, and when you add in local jails, it’s 2.3 million – 1 in 100 American adults.

Policy think tank Pew Charitable Trust reported earlier this year that prison growth and higher incarceration rates do not reflect a parallel increase in crime or a corresponding surge in the nation’s population at large. Instead, more people are behind bars primarily because of policy choices that are sending more people to prison with longer sentences.

Isaac Ontiveros and Amy Vanderwarker address this punishment system in their article, “Critical Resistance: Ten Years and Counting” on page 7, in which they introduce an analysis of the systems that create and support the “prison industrial complex” and analyze 10 years of the role of Critical Resistance, a RESIST grantee.

Not only are more people in the United States being locked up, but more of them are being caged for extended periods of time in solitary confinement, as “supermax” prisons expand. Stephen Eisenman of Tamms Year Ten, a RESIST grantee, details the struggle against Tamms Correctional Center in his article, “Struggling against Torture in an Illinois Prison” on page 1. Originally designed to hold prisoners for brief periods of time, over one-third of Tamms’ inmates have now been held in solitary confinement for over ten years.

Over recent years, states have continued to spend more money on building and running prisons – $49 billion in 2007, up from $11 billion 20 years before. More money spent on prisons means less is spent on everything else, from health care to schools to countless other public services.

The rate of expansion of the prison system in the U.S. is becoming too costly to sustain. Two articles in this newsletter dive into incarceration alternatives. In “How Many People Can We Afford to Lock Up?” on page 5, Charmaine Fuller details the work of the Carolina Justice Policy Center, a RESIST grantee, to offer alternatives to prison in North Carolina.

Generation FIVE offers a compelling presentation in their article “Towards Transformative Justice” on page 4. While Generation FIVE focuses primarily on the interpersonal and community violence of child sexual abuse, their analysis around creating alternatives to state systems of dealing with violence is a call to all of us on the Left working to develop alternatives to state intervention.

RESIST has partnered with a number of organizations doing critical work to support prisoners and their families while challenging the systems of mass incarceration in this country. See our Resource List on page 9 for more information about how you can connect with their important work.

As the number of people under supervision in the nation’s criminal justice system has risen to over 7.2 million, the highest ever, we hope this issue of the RESIST Newsletter serves as another call and resource to stop this runaway train and to push us to become a people shaped not by our cravings for punishment and revenge, but rather by our trust in the power of redemption and liberation.

Christy Pardew is the Communications Director at RESIST and the editor of the RESIST Newsletter.


Sources: Mother Jones, Pew Charitable Trust

IMAGE by Roymieco Carter.