from federal prisons around the country; the largest release in history. Officials have

said that this is an attempt at dealing with overcrowded prisons. The released inmates

are mostly non-violent drug offenders and undocumented immigrants awaiting deportation.

With millions of inmates still in prison, we wanted to know, why does the US have more

prisoners than any other country in the world?

Well, today the US incarcerates roughly one in 100 of its citizens. That amounts to about

2.2 million adults behind bars. But by comparison, in 1979, there were only about 300,000 total

prisoners. Over that same time period, the number of people incarcerated for drug offenses

increased by over 1,000%. So what happened in 1980?

Two things. The 80s saw a period of politicians running on the promise of “cracking down

on crime”. What this led to were much stricter and narrower mandatory sentencing guidelines.

Small crimes would send a person to jail whether it was justifiable or not. People who had

already been to jail were considerably more likely to return as a result of the “three-strikes”

laws. Sentences were also made much longer, and parole was reduced in an effort to keep

criminals off the streets. Unsurprisingly, the previous decade saw the start of the War

on Drugs, and a huge increase in nonviolent drug offenders facing years in prison.

And while laws were enacted that made it more likely that you’d go to jail, mental health

services around the country were cut to the bone. This meant that mentally ill individuals

who had been housed and helped in psychiatric hospitals, were suddenly released onto the

streets, where the police were forced to deal with them. Today, a huge number of prisoners

suffer from mental illness as mental health budgets are continually reduced. Some have

reported that there are ten times as many mentally ill people in prisons as there are

in mental health facilities.

Additionally, immigrants and non-citizens have been increasingly sent to prison while

awaiting deportation, or in lieu of deportation altogether. More specifically, many sentencing

guidelines and correctional policies end up targeting minorities and the poor. It took

until 2010 for President Obama to pass the Fair Sentencing Act. This eliminated a discrepancy

where drugs which were primarily used by poor minorities carried heavier sentences than

those used by the affluent.

The US’s problems with overcrowding are further impacted by the influence of private

prisons, which see more money for more convictions. Decades of broad efforts to eliminate crime

have lowered the standard to spend time in prison, and skyrocketed the number of prisoners.

Unlike in other countries, long-term incarceration is an accepted part of US culture. Until the

focus is shifted in line with other developed countries, the US will continue cramming millions

of inmates into 5,000 total prisons.

Another factor that adds to overcrowding? The U.S. bail system, which keeps lower-income

non-violent criminals behind bars. To find out how the process works, watch this video.

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