Because 90% of all prisoners in the United States are in state facilities, the work that states are doing to reduce their prison populations is crucial. Attempting to end mass incarceration necessitates realizing this is a situation requiring not one national solution, but fifty state solutions. Below are current state solutions that could be effectively modeled by other states for meaningful reform.
“Despite Florida’s low crime rates and despite prison admissions declining for nine of the last 10 years, Florida’s prison and jails budgets are higher than ever. Due to long sentences, the inmate population has stayed stubbornly near its all-time high, and this past year, the state budget gave $2.3 billion for the Department of Corrections, and even that wasn’t enough — the agency hit a $79 million deficit.“
Florida Times-Union
October 19, 2018
Read More"Gillum has campaigned on a platform that could change that. His campaign’s official site touts measures similar to those adopted in some Democratic-led states, like reducing the number of crimes that carry mandatory-minimum sentences and reforming the cash-bail system, which disproportionately harms lower-income Americans. Others are more bold: Gillum went further than his primary opponents and called for the full legalization, rather than just decriminalization, of marijuana."
New Republic
August 29, 2018
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