海角大神

[Interview montage]

Samantha Laine Perfas: If the American jail and prison population were a city, it鈥檇 be , with almost locked up right now. But did you know that in jail have not yet been proven guilty. So what鈥檚 going on?听

This is Perception Gaps.

[Theme music]

I鈥檓 Samantha Laine Perfas and this is "Perception Gaps: Locked Up" by the 海角大神 Science Monitor.

Welcome to Season 2 of "Perception Gaps," "Locked Up." In Season 1, we looked at 10 different topics in which public perception doesn鈥檛 line up with reality. Some of the topics we explored were crime, substance use, political polarization, and poverty. If you haven鈥檛 listened, go back and do so! You can find all the episodes at csmonitor.com/perceptiongaps.

For Season 2, we鈥檙e gonna try something a little different 鈥� we鈥檒l spend the entire season exploring one issue: mass incarceration in America.听

We鈥檒l be diving deep into the criminal justice system, and the misperceptions about history, politics, race, and the economy that contribute to our attitudes toward crime and the people within the system. We鈥檒l explore how the coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated many of the issues we found in our early reporting. And in our final episode, we鈥檒l look at potential solutions and where we鈥檙e seeing progress.听

In this episode, we鈥檒l explore a lot of the high level misperceptions around mass incarceration as a whole and how the U.S. got to a place of locking up more people than any other country.

So back to our perception gap. . . many people don鈥檛 know that the vast majority of people locked up in American jails have not actually been convicted of a crime. Our first guest will help us understand how this came to be.

Sam: This is Alexandra Natapoff, professor of law at the University of California Irvine School of Law. She鈥檚 talking about her recent book, entitled 鈥�,鈥� which looks at the United States鈥� misdemeanor system. The book begins with a that set the stage for today.听

Sam:听The thing is, Atwater never should have been held in jail at all. At the time the seatbelt offense did not carry the possibility of jail - it was , and the maximum punishment in Texas for not wearing your seatbelt was a $50 fine. Atwater sued the city of Lago Vista, and the case went all the way to the Supreme Court. Her argument was:听

Sam:听According to a 2020 by the Prison Policy Initiative, 74 percent of people held by jails have not been convicted of a crime. And the reason is because, if they can鈥檛 afford bail (and we鈥檒l get to that soon) people are detained pretrial while they wait for their cases to be resolved. Sometimes it鈥檚 because they鈥檙e a flight risk, or the person is believed to be a danger to society. But...

Sam:听Even during the best of circumstances, this is a difficult听 choice: To either accept a plea bargain 鈥� and admit you鈥檙e guilty of something you might not be 鈥� or sit in jail for months while awaiting trial. In that time, you could lose your home, not be able to provide for your family, and potentially receive a conviction anyway.听

But during a public health crisis, the danger of locking people up pretrial becomes a matter of life and death. States are recognizing that jailing someone simply because they couldn鈥檛 pay bail results in overcrowded, unhygienic environments - which are especially concerning during a pandemic. At the beginning of the outbreak in the US, states rushed to address these issues: released inmates early, others set bail at $0, and others tried to reduce booking into jails. But it raises the question: if it鈥檚 now not okay to lock up folks like this before their trials, those accused of minor, non-violent offenses, why was it OK six months ago, before a pandemic broke out? This crisis has revealed a huge blind spot for many of us.

Sam:听For example, prisons and jails are often referred to interchangeably, and they are wildly different. Prisons are used for felony sentences, and are what we often picture when we think of mass incarceration. Jails on the other hand, are used for all sorts of things: we use jails to house people who are serving shorter sentences, but also for those who have been arrested or are waiting for the case to be resolved. So how many Americans are having that experience?

[Music transition]听

Sam:听Nearly 11 million people pass through American jails every year, and not always because they did something worthy of being imprisoned. Each week, move in and out of local jails.听

The COVID-19 pandemic has cast a spotlight on this reality, revealing that our prisons and jails aren鈥檛 dark corners where we can keep the worst of the worst out of the public鈥檚 eye. Instead, these institutions are core features of our communities, our economies, and our society. This April in Ohio, tested positive for the coronavirus, as well as over 100 staff members. At the time, Ohio鈥檚 prison system accounted for over 20% of the state鈥檚 cases.听

This left me wondering, how did we develop a system so massive that its impact reaches so far into our communities? Was it always like this?

Sam: This is Bruce Western, a sociologist and the co-director of the . And what he just said is pretty interesting - despite where we are now, the beginning of the penitentiary system in the US was paved with good intentions. He鈥檚 talking about two approaches that were emerging in the 19th century: the Auburn system and the Pennsylvania system.听

Sam:听In a nutshell: rather than physically punishing inmates for their crimes, the idea was that work and silence would give space for inmates to think about what they鈥檇 done, and repent - hence the term penitentiary. We now know that rehabilitation is so much more complex. But back then, it was progressive thinking, and the system was small.听

Sam:听Starting in the 1970s, changes began to happen when the started.

[Historical audio insert, President Richard Nixon: America鈥檚 public enemy number one in the United States is drug abuse.

[Historical audio insert, President Ronald Reagan: Millions of dollars will be allocated for prison and jail facilities so that the mistake of releasing dangerous...]

Sam:听And the prison and jail populations began to grow every year. Today, incarceration rates are five times higher than their historic average.听听

Sam: That political strategy continued into the 90s, with the passed by Democratic President Bill Clinton.听

[Historical audio, President Bill Clinton:听There must be no doubt about whose side we鈥檙e on. People who commit crimes should be caught, convicted, and punished. This bill puts government on the side of those who abide by the law...]

Sam:听It capped a 20 year period of bipartisan consensus that being 鈥渢ough on crime鈥� was the best course of action for the U.S. The bill was focused on the federal system, which only accounted for about 10 percent of the prison system. However, one provision gave states money for prison construction if they adopted certain policies that required convicts to serve at least 85 percent of their sentences. That incentivized states to change their sentencing measures, and resulted in massive growth in state prison construction.

While this bill had enormous effects, the ideology behind it had been decades in the making.听

Sam: Why that is... mostly boils down to extremely long sentences and trying to answer every crime problem with imprisonment, Bruce added. This approach leads to abnormally high levels of incarceration when you compare us to other parts of the world.听

Sam: In a 2017 report, The Sentencing Project, a research and advocacy nonprofit, actually put the number at about 53,000. To be fair, there are more people in the US than in western Europe - however, if the ratio were the same as ours, they would have something like 32,000 people serving life without parole sentences, not 50.听

Sam: The experience of Black Americans encountering the criminal justice system is an important one, and we鈥檒l be taking a closer look at this topic later in the season. But it鈥檚 worth noting that people of color are disproportionately put behind bars. Racism is baked into the criminal justice system, and those who are locked up are not the only ones affected.

Sam: This is Juleyka Lantigua-Williams, founder and CEO of , a full service production company. One of their podcasts is titled , and it centers on the stories of those who have encountered the criminal justice system. I asked Juleyka, what is the effect of having 70 million Americans with criminal records?听听

Sam: That鈥檚 not the end of it. If you have a criminal record, you鈥檙e also unable to own a home or rent without a guarantor. In some cases, it goes even further.

Sam: Juleyka says their reporting digs into an issue that we talked about earlier: the idea that incarceration doesn鈥檛 affect just the individual, but the entire community.听

Sam: From this story an organization called the came to life, and it advocates for more humane practices in the Texas county jail system. And other stories have promoted change as well. The podcast is open sourced, which means it is free for others to use, distribute, and modify - the clips you just heard came from Season 2, Episode 7. The also provides tool kits that show how programs like the Texas Jail Project were created, so anyone can use it as a blueprint in their own community.听

[Music transition]

Sam: We鈥檝e talked a lot about how incarceration affects families and communities 鈥� and how many Americans experience incarceration before they鈥檝e been convicted of a crime.听 So now, we鈥檙e going to hear from a couple who knows firsthand what it鈥檚 like to go through this.听

Sam: This is Brittany Williams, an insurance broker and the mother of three boys. Her husband, Tim, teaches entrepreneurship and how to grow a business. He grew up on the West Side of Chicago, so the life they were building for themselves was very different than what he grew up with: In Glendale Heights there was less crime, better schools鈥� they had a daycare a block away, and they lived in a neighborhood that was more of a community. So what happened in October 2017 had an enormous effect on their lives. Here鈥檚 Tim.

Sam: Tim was pulled over by the police for an act while driving. We understand that this is a vague description. But in an effort to respect the couple鈥檚 privacy and their efforts to rebuild their lives, we will not be discussing the details of their case. They did ask us to note that the charge was sealable, which means it can be kept out of public record.

After Tim was pulled over, he was immediately arrested, taken to the station, booked, and put in front of a judge. She set his bond at $100,000. Her to await trial outside of jail 鈥� if he paid 10 percent of the total sum, or about $10,000.

Sam: So he stayed behind bars. Back home, Brittany was searching frantically for a way to get Tim out.听

Sam: Brittany had found a group called the , a nonprofit that provides funds for people who have been locked up pre-trial and can鈥檛 afford to pay their bond. The Fund paid Tim鈥檚 bail, and he was released on electronic monitoring for 10 months. But by then, he had spent 2 months in jail. He still hadn鈥檛 been convicted of anything.

Before his arrest, Tim had been the breadwinner for the family. Brittany had just had a baby and was staying at home to raise their children. So while Tim was in jail, Brittany and the kids were evicted from their home.听

Sam: After he was released on electronic monitoring, Tim still could not work 鈥� he couldn鈥檛 even go outside to take the garbage out. He was essentially a prisoner in his own home. So Brittany had to both provide for their family and take care of the children 鈥� pretty much on her own.听

Then, after months of being on house arrest, Tim finally had his day in court. He was convicted, served 15 days in jail, and then spent a year on parole. Think about that: Tim served a year of punishment pretrial for a crime that merited only two weeks behind bars.听

It鈥檚 been about a year since Tim鈥檚 case was finally closed. The family has been working overtime to put their lives back together.听

Sam:听 So, this episode might be a lot to process. As we reported this series, I often felt overwhelmed, especially with the coronavirus pandemic and the civil unrest sweeping the country. In many ways, these things have forced the conversation to happen with a greater sense of urgency. But almost every person we talked to for this season was hopeful that we are moving towards positive change. The thing is, we need to recognize the problems before we can start thinking about solutions. We鈥檒l be hearing from many of the people who are contributing to progress 鈥� and sharing what we learn with you.

[Theme music]

Thanks for listening, and we hope you鈥檒l join us for future episodes. As I mentioned, all of Season 2 will cover perception gaps around criminal justice. Our next episode will focus on a very important part of the conversation: racial disparities in the system. We鈥檝e got some great interviews we can鈥檛 wait for you to hear. If you鈥檇 like to stay in the loop, sign up for our newsletter at csmonitor.com/perceptiongaps. We鈥檒l include show notes, videos, additional articles, and behind the scenes takes from the series. Again, you can sign up for it at csmonitor.com/perceptiongaps.听

This episode was produced and hosted by me, Samantha Laine Perfas. It was co-reported with Henry Gass and co-produced with Jessica Mendoza, edited by Clay Collins and Noelle Swan, with additional edits provided by Dave Scott, Timmy Broderick, Em Okrepkie, Yvonne Zipp, Rebecca Asoulin, Jingnan Peng, and Nate Richards. Sound design by Morgan Anderson and Noel Flatt, with additional audio elements from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Richard Nixon Foundation, William J. Clinton Presidential Library, Democracy Now, Historical Speeches TV, and the podcast 70 Million.

This podcast was produced by 海角大神, copyright 2020.

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