Article Briefs
THE NICS FAILING TO KEEP GUNS FROM DANGEROUS PEOPLE
Every one of the country’s mass shooters since January 2009 could have slipped through NICS, according to a July 2014 study by the gun control organization Everytown for Gun Safety.
Millions of people who have been forced into hospitals for mental health issues are left out of the system. Only about 30 percent of the 4.4 million estimated mental health records in the U.S. over the last two decades can be found in NICS, according to research compiled in 2012 by the National Consortium for Justice Information and Statistics and the National Center for State Courts.
Those whose names are found in the system are unlikely to try to buy a gun. Out of all gun purchases blocked by the FBI over the last 16 years, fewer than 2 percent were because of mental health status. That amounts to 14,613 blocked sales since 1998.
FEWER PRISONERS, LESS CRIME: A TALE OF THREE STATES
While it might seem intuitive that reducing prison populations would negatively impact public safety – or conversely, that declining crime rates would drive down levels of incarceration – such a relationship has generally been shown to be relatively weak. This is because just as forces beyond crime rates affect incarceration levels, forces beyond incarceration affect crime.
Much of the reform activity of recent years has centered around lower-level drug offenders, with increasing support for diverting such people to treatment programs rather than prisons, as well as reducing excessively severe mandatory minimum sentencing provisions. While these initiatives have produced significant results in many cases, they represent only one aspect of a broader strategy for prison population reduction. This can be seen by examining the composition of prison populations today
THE SENTENCING PROJECT
I’m pleased to inform you of a new publication from The Sentencing Project that examines the potential for substantial prison population reductions. Fewer Prisoners, Less Crime: A Tale of Three States profiles the experiences of three states – New York, New Jersey, and California – that have reduced their prison populations by about 25% while seeing their crime rates generally decline at a faster pace than the national average.
JOHN OLIVER CALLS OUT AMERICA’S RACIST, BROKEN PRISON SYSTERM – WE ARE DOING A TERRIBLE JOB
After dropping the bombshell that the United States has more people in prison than China, Oliver detailed the racial inequity in incarcerations, the horrid conditions in which prisoners live, thanks in no small part to privatization, and how most Americans are so disassociated from caring about prisoners, “prison rape” has become a common and acceptable punchline in mainstream media.
AMERICA ON PROBATION
America has long been more inclined than other developed countries to treat crime as a disposal problem; “trail ’em, nail ’em and jail ’em,” is our tough-on-crime slogan. Beginning in the ‘70’s, rising crime rates, compounded by the crack epidemic and the public fear it aroused, set off a binge of punitive sentencing laws. Three-strikes, mandatory minimum sentences and requirements that felons serve a minimum portion (often 85 percent) of their sentence lengthened the time offenders — especially drug offenders, and especially black men — spent in lockup. Restoring common sense to sentencing is the obvious first step in downsizing prisons
REPORT: US PRISON RATE AN ‘INJUSTICE’
The US penal population of 2.2 million adults is the largest in the world. In 2012, close to 25% of the world’s prisoners were held in American prisons, although the United States accounts for about 5% of the world’s population. The US rate of incarceration, with nearly 1 of every 100 adults in prison or jail, is 5- to 10-times higher than rates in Western Europe and other democracies.Based on the results of its study, the NRC calls the US incarceration rates “historically unprecedented and internationally unique”.
AFTER SANDY HOOK, FIREARMS REMAIN BIG BUSINESS IN CT
The new law expanded the state’s background checks for purchasers of guns and ammunition. It banned the retail sale of magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds, as well as any centerfire, semi-automatic rifle capable of accepting a detachable magazine and having one of several features, including a pistol grip, bayonet lug, collapsible stock, flash suppressor or grenade launcher.
IN THE U.S.PUNISHMENT COMES BEFORE THE CRIMES
The nation’s unique strategy on crime underscores the distinct path followed by American social and economic institutions compared with the rest of the industrialized world.
Scholars don’t have a great handle on why crime fighting in the United States veered so decidedly toward mass incarceration. But the pivotal moment seems to have occurred four decades ago.
AMERICA
The evidence is piling up that too many Americans are wasting away in prison. The National Academy of Sciences, for example, recently concluded in a major two-year study that the United States “has gone past the point where the numbers of people in prison can be justified by the social benefits.” Other groups, like Human Rights Watch, the Brennan Center for Corrections, Corrections Today and the University of Chicago Crime Lab, have also raised their voices. Pope Francis, in his address to the International Criminal Law Association on May 30, called for major reforms of criminal justice systems.