For decades, the United States had a relatively stable prison population. That changed in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Some factors included a rise in crime from the 1960s to 1980s; rising concerns over crack cocaine and other drugs, resulting in huge increases in drug penalties; a move to mandatory minimum sentences; and the implementation of other tough-on-crime policies, such as "three-strikes" laws and policies to ensure prisoners served at least 85 percent of their sentences. These harsher sentencing laws coupled with the dramatic increase in drug penalties added up to a state and federal prison population of 1.5 million, up from 200,000 in 1973. And that's not including nearly 750,000 Americans in jails on a daily basis (as well as an annual jail population of close to 13 million, says Tangney).
This growth is "historically unprecedented" in the United States and "internationally unique," the report concludes.
What's more, the movement toward broad, punitive crime control and prison policies wasn't based on any scientific rationale, says Haney, who studies the psychological effects of incarceration. "Rather, it was largely the product of a series of policy decisions made for largely political reasons," he says. "For whatever reason, legislators and other politicians have found it politically advantageous and expedient to continue to pursue a strategy of punitive crime control policies irrespective of the cost of that policy."
