Analysts at the Pew Memorial Trust in Philadelphia have released a new study ofstate imprisonment and crime rates, and Minnesota doesn't shine in the data.
Star Tribune city hall and crime beat reporter Andy Mannix looks at the data (and some from researchers at the U) in Minnesota's rising prison rate bucks national trends. It's not pretty. Not simply for the clash between plummeting crime rates and higher incarceration, but for the racial disparities as well. Mannix reports:
Crime is down in Minnesota, but more people are getting locked up.
In an era of policies geared toward reducing prison populations, Minnesota has bucked national trends by incarcerating more people, according a new study by the Pew Charitable Trusts, which shows how 35 states simultaneously cut crime and prison rates....
A longer view of the state’s prison populations shows the growth dates back much further than the period studied by Pew. The population rate — calculated per 100,000 people — has been on the rise for decades, spiking about 150 percent from the early 1990s, according to Minnesota Department of Corrections data. Nearly 40 percent of that jump came from 2000 to 2008.
A major factor has been a 55 percent increase in felony charges across the state, according to Kelly Lyn Mitchell and Richard Frase, who have been studying this trend at the University of Minnesota’s Robina Institute of Criminal Law and Criminal Justice.
Mitchell and Frase’s research, which will soon be published in the Federal Sentencing Reporter, also points to the high number of Minnesotans on probation or post-prison supervised release who often end up back in prison after violating their release terms. More people are coming to Minnesota courtrooms with thicker criminal histories than in the past, which can contribute to harsher penalties, said Frase, co-director for Robina.
Frase suggested caution on drawing a relationship between sending more people to prison and a crime reduction, noting any correlation between the two is riddled with caveats.
He also notes that, even after years of growth, Minnesota’s prison population rates are among the lowest in the nation. “We’re still doing pretty well,” he said. “In spite of those caseload increases, we’re holding to our pattern of low incarceration rates.”
As for who gets locked up: Minnesota is among the worst in the country for incarcerating people of color at disproportionate rates, according to a 2016 study from the Washington, D.C.-based Sentencing Project.
The study found Hispanics go to prison in Minnesota at a rate 2 ½ times higher than whites. Blacks go to prison at a rate 11 times higher than whites.
Read the rest at the Strib. Frase's cautionary note echoes the concluding paragraphs in Pew's summary of the data:
Starting with Texas in 2007, more than 30 states have adopted sentencing and corrections reforms designed to improve public safety and control taxpayer costs. The reforms vary from state to state, but typically they prioritize prison space for people who have committed serious offenses and invest some of the savings in effective alternatives to incarceration. Research shows that investment in evidence-based re-entry programs reduces recidivism, contributing to declines in crime and imprisonment. Several states have cut return-to-prison rates significantly, including Georgia (35 percent) and Michigan (43 percent) over the past decade.
The lack of a consistent relationship between the crime and imprisonment trends reinforces a growing body of research and expert consensus that imprisonment in many states and the nation as a whole has long since passed the point of diminishing returns. This indicates that local, state, and federal policymakers can adopt additional reforms to reduce imprisonment without jeopardizing public safety.
While Mannix looked at declines in incarceration and crime rates in Wisconsin, when we look at the data from states at the bottom of the chart, we see that North and South Dakota are experiencing both rising crime and incarceration rates. That twenty percent jump in South Dakota, where we live now, gives us pause.
We're hoping that folks back in Minnesota will be lucky enough to have a rational person replace disgraced sexual harasser Tony Cornish (a lock 'em up cowboy) as the chair of the Minnesota House Public Safety committee so the legislature can start working on reasonable corrections and probation reform.
Meanwhile, as we reported in #Mnleg ordered study: Appleton private prison bed rent more expensive than county jail cell, Minnesota is looking for somewhere to house its growing prison population. Two more news reports on the Minnesota study: Minnesota Public Radio's Mark Steil in Study: Leasing private Appleton prison would be costly and Tom Cherveny's $196.5 million over 15 years: State gets price tag for buying, upgrading Appleton prison at the West Central Tribune in Willmar
Image: Data from the bottom of the chart in the Pew study, National Prison Rate Continues to Decline Amid Sentencing, Re-Entry Reforms.
If you appreciate our posts and original analysis, you can mail contributions (payable to Sally Jo Sorensen, 600 Maple Street, Summit SD 57266) or use the paypal button in the upper right hand corner of this post. Those wishing to make a small ongoing monthly contribution should click on the paypal subscription button.
Or you can contribute via this link to paypal; use email [email protected] as recipient.
Comments