A bipartisan campaign to reduce mass incarceration
has led to enormous declines in new inmates from big cities, cutting America’s
prison population for the first time since the 1970s. From 2006 to 2014, annual
prison admissions dropped 36 percent in Indianapolis; 37 percent in Brooklyn;
69 percent in Los Angeles County; and 93 percent in San Francisco, reported the New York Times.
But large parts of rural and suburban America —
overwhelmed by the heroin
epidemic and concerned about the safety of diverting people from
prison — have gone the opposite direction. Prison admissions in counties with
fewer than 100,000 people have risen even as crime has fallen, according to a Times analysis, which offers a newly detailed look at the geography of
American incarceration.
Just a decade ago, people in rural, suburban and
urban areas were all about equally likely to go to prison. But now people in
small counties are about 50 percent more likely to go to prison than people in
populous counties.
The stark disparities in how counties punish crime
show the limits of recent state and federal changes to reduce the number of
inmates. Far from Washington and state capitals, county prosecutors and judges
continue to wield great power over who goes to prison and for how long. And
many of them have no interest in reducing the prison population.
“I am proud of the fact that we send more people to
jail than other counties,” Aaron Negangard, the elected prosecutor in Dearborn
County, said last year. “That’s how we keep it safe here.”
He added in an interview: “My constituents are the
people who decide whether I keep doing my job. The governor can’t make me. The
legislature can’t make me.”
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