The overuse of prisons, jails, and other forms of correctional control as tools to address broader societal issues is a failed American experiment. The transcendent harm inflicted by mass incarceration cannot be overstated, and over the past four decades, the United States has become the face of it.
During that time, there has been a 500% increase in the number of people in prisons and jails, and today, approximately 2.3 million people are caged each year. An additional 4.4 million people in the U.S. are on probation and parole, and people are taken to jail a staggering 10.6 million times per year.
While the national data is stunning, Georgia’s correctional control rate is even more shocking. In Georgia, more than 525,000 people are either incarcerated, on probation, or on parole. With one out of every eighteen adults under some form of correctional control, Georgia has the highest rate of correctional supervision in the country. To put this in perspective, Georgia’s rate of correctional control is 73% higher than that of Pennsylvania, the state with the second-highest correctional control rate.
SCHR’s work to reduce mass incarceration takes on many of it’s primary drivers with the ultimate goal of decarceration and liberation of individuals, families, and communities that have been torn apart by involvement in the system.