NAACP Bakersfield Branch Criminal Justice Department
The goal of the NAACP Bakersfield Branch Criminal Justice Department is to advocate for and advance a better public safety system that reduces the reliance on prisons as means of solving social problems, advances effective law enforcement and removes barriers to voting and employment for formerly incarcerated people. The Criminal Justice Department will accomplish its goal in ways that is responsive to individual needs and builds stronger families and communities.
In efforts to advance Criminal Justice goals, the Criminal Justice Department has developed a "smart and safe" framework to implement an advocacy agenda to ensure public safety as a civil and human right for all communities and more specifically the many communities in crisis. Instead of calling for "tough on crime" rhetoric and lock'em up practices, Smart and Safe was developed to capture the true goals and aspirations of how public safety and criminal justice institutions should operate and perform in communities.
Our communities will only become safer when trust is built between the criminal justice system and the communities they serve, when more help and services are provided as opposed to prison, when citizens coming home from prison can vote and work freely and when we expand and reinvest our prison budgets on education and other civic institutions that helps and serves communities.
Four Components to the Smart and Safe Initiative:
In efforts to advance Criminal Justice goals, the Criminal Justice Department has developed a "smart and safe" framework to implement an advocacy agenda to ensure public safety as a civil and human right for all communities and more specifically the many communities in crisis. Instead of calling for "tough on crime" rhetoric and lock'em up practices, Smart and Safe was developed to capture the true goals and aspirations of how public safety and criminal justice institutions should operate and perform in communities.
Our communities will only become safer when trust is built between the criminal justice system and the communities they serve, when more help and services are provided as opposed to prison, when citizens coming home from prison can vote and work freely and when we expand and reinvest our prison budgets on education and other civic institutions that helps and serves communities.
Four Components to the Smart and Safe Initiative:
- Advancing Sentencing Reform and The Right to Vote for Formerly Incarcerated People
- Advancing Effective Law Enforcement Practices
- Elevating and supporting the voices of crime survivors
- Removing Employment Barriers for formerly incarcerated people
Incarceration Trends in America
- From 1980 to 2008, the number of people incarcerated in America quadrupled-from roughly 500,000 to 2.3 million people
- Today, the US is 5% of the World population and has 25% of world prisoners.
- Combining the number of people in prison and jail with those under parole or probation supervision, 1 in ever y 31 adults, or 3.2 percent of the population is under some form of correctional control
- African Americans now constitute nearly 1 million of the total 2.3 million incarcerated population
- African Americans are incarcerated at nearly six times the rate of whites
- Together, African American and Hispanics comprised 58% of all prisoners in 2008, even though African Americans and Hispanics make up approximately one quarter of the US population
- According to Unlocking America, if African American and Hispanics were incarcerated at the same rates of whites, today's prison and jail populations would decline by approximately 50%
- One in six black men had been incarcerated as of 2001. If current trends continue, one in three black males born today can expect to spend time in prison during his lifetime
- 1 in 100 African American women are in prison
- Nationwide, African-Americans represent 26% of juvenile arrests, 44% of youth who are detained, 46% of the youth who are judicially waived to criminal court, and 58% of the youth admitted to state prisons (Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice).
- About 14 million Whites and 2.6 million African Americans report using an illicit drug
- 5 times as many Whites are using drugs as African Americans, yet African Americans are sent to prison for drug offenses at 10 times the rate of Whites
- African Americans represent 12% of the total population of drug users, but 38% of those arrested for drug offenses, and 59% of those in state prison for a drug offense.
- African Americans serve virtually as much time in prison for a drug offense (58.7 months) as whites do for a violent offense (61.7 months). (Sentencing Project)
- Inner city crime prompted by social and economic isolation
- Crime/drug arrest rates: African Americans represent 12% of monthly drug users, but comprise 32% of persons arrested for drug possession
- "Get tough on crime" and "war on drugs" policies
- Mandatory minimum sentencing, especially disparities in sentencing for crack and powder cocaine possession
- In 2002, blacks constituted more than 80% of the people sentenced under the federal crack cocaine laws and served substantially more time in prison for drug offenses than did whites, despite that fact that more than 2/3 of crack cocaine users in the U.S. are white or Hispanic
- "Three Strikes"/habitual offender policies
- Zero Tolerance policies as a result of perceived problems of school violence; adverse affect on black children.
- 35% of black children grades 7-12 have been suspended or expelled at some point in their school careers compared to 20% of Hispanics and 15% of whites
- Jail reduces work time of young people over the next decade by 25-30 percent when compared with arrested youths who were not incarcerated
- Jails and prisons are recognized as settings where society's infectious diseases are highly concentrated
- Prison has not been proven as a rehabilitation for behavior, as two-thirds of prisoners will reoffend
- About $70 billion dollars are spent on corrections yearly
- Prisons and jails consume a growing portion of the nearly $200 billion we spend annually on public safety