Our main focus is on ending prison-based gerrymandering, the distortion in our democratic process caused by the Census Bureau’s practice of counting people where they are confined, not where they come from.

Inspired by our work, Maryland, Delaware, New York, and California passed laws that end prison-based gerrymandering by counting incarcerated people at home for state and local redistricting purposes. New districts based on the improved data have already been drawn in New York and Maryland and upheld by the courts.” (excerpt)

http://prisonlaw.wordpress.com/2011/07/18/new-study-prosecutors-not-police-have-driven-prison-population-growth/

New Study: Prosecutors, Not Police, Have Driven Prison Population Growth

“The United States prison population has exploded over the past 40 years. But why? Have police been making more arrests? Have prosecutors been charging more people with crimes? Have judges been issuing longer sentences? Have parole boards become stricter? (All of the above?) Since many accounts of mass incarceration collapse “the criminal justice system” into a single monolith, it can be hard to know exactly what part of the system has driven the growth in the prison population.

A new empirical study by Fordham law professor John Pfaff aims to provide a more granular explanation of the causes of mass incarceration. Pfaff concludes that only one other relevant number has changed as dramatically as the prison population has: the number of felony case filings per arrest. In other words, police haven’t been arresting more people:….”

Time for reforming Arizona’s outdated, draconian and poorly written criminal laws and sentencing laws that have failed the people, taxpayers and Arizona’s future, self-destructing a once fine state to visit and live in.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/03/us/03prison.html?_r=1&

Prison Spending Outpaces All but Medicaid

By SOLOMON MOORE Published: March 2, 2009

“One in every 31 adults, or 7.3 million Americans, is in prison, on parole or probation, at a cost to the states of $47 billion in 2008, according to a new study.
Multimedia

Graphic
Prison Boom
Criminal correction spending is outpacing budget growth in education, transportation and public assistance, based on state and federal data. Only Medicaid spending grew faster than state corrections spending, which quadrupled in the past two decades, according to the report Monday by the Pew Center on the States, the first breakdown of spending in confinement and supervision in the past seven years.

The increases in the number of people in some form of correctional control occurred as crime rates declined by about 25 percent in the past two decades.

As states face huge budget shortfalls, prisons, which hold 1.5 million adults, are driving the spending increases.

States have shown a preference for prison spending even though it is cheaper to monitor convicts in community programs, including probation and parole, which require offenders to report to law enforcement officers. A survey of 34 states found that states spent an average of $29,000 a year on prisoners, compared with $1,250 on probationers and $2,750 on parolees. The study found that despite more spending on prisons, recidivism rates remained largely unchanged.

Pew researchers say that as states trim services like education and health care, prison budgets are growing. Those priorities are misguided, the study says.” (excerpt)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0atL1HSwi8

Folks, the voracious “system” wants YOU! They need “customers”, your money and assets.

“The state’s prison population soared mostly as a result of truth-in- sentencing laws passed in 1994 from 18,922 to roughly 40,000 today, causing overcrowding. But the population has leveled off in recent years and actually declined in fiscal years 2011 and 2012.”

The legislators have turned Ariozna into “prison” state, one that favors mass incarceration over education. The legislators should be ashamed of themselves over the mass incarceration of Arizona’s people who they have sold out to.

Chuck Coughlin / Paul Senseman public policy advisors to the Governor with their conflict of interest ties to CCA (Corrections Corporation of America) High Ground lobbyists, are the benefactors of the signing of the CCA private prison 2,000 bed contract on Aug. 31st (on Friday, after 5:00, as people were leaving for the long holiday week-end and the media was saturated with the RNC and DNC Conventions. All done behind closed doors and without public dialog.

This disturbing, out of control “business” growth, turning human beings into commodities for $$’s. Profiteering off human misery is not only unethical but immoral.