Downsizing Prisons

OSI hosted a forum to mark the publication of Downsizing Prisons: How to Reduce Crime and End Mass Incarceration (New York University Press), by the director of the Vera Institute of Justice and former Soros Justice fellow Michael Jacobson.

Over two million people are incarcerated in America's prisons and jails—eight times as many as in 1975. At current incarceration rates, an African American born in the United States today has a 30 percent chance of spending time in prison. Mandatory minimum sentencing, parole agencies intent on sending people back to prison, three-strike laws, for-profit prisons, and other changes in the legal system have contributed to this spectacular rise of the general prison population.

After overseeing the largest city jail system in the country, Michael Jacobson knows first-hand the inner workings of the corrections system. In Downsizing Prisons, he argues that mass incarceration will not, as many have claimed, reduce crime nor will it create more public safety. Instead, Jacobson suggests that our prison system needs a massive overhaul.

Downsizing Prisons examines specific ways that states have begun to transform their prison systems. Jacobson offers practical policy solutions and strategies, including changing how parole and probation agencies operate, significantly reducing punitive sentencing and "technical" parole violations, and supporting drug-treatment programs for low-level drug offenders. These policy changes can actually increase public safety as well as save money.

In addition to Michael Jacobson, the panel featured:

• Michael Blain, director of public policy at the Drug Policy Alliance;
• Roderick Hickman, secretary of the California Youth and Adult Correctional Agency;
• Nkechi Taifa, senior policy analyst at OSI–Washington, D.C.;

Gara LaMarche, vice president and director of U.S. Programs at OSI, was the moderator.

Read a summary of the discussion.

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This event was the second in a series of three breakfast forums to mark the publication of books that were supported by OSI fellowships.