Another Pie

3/14/2022

The Prison Policy Initiative today released their important annual report on mass incarceration in the United States. The Whole Pie 2022 reveals that military confinement is a negligible part of the whole, despite a jurisdictional population that is roughly the size of Kansas and is greater than a number of states.

Brenner Fissell

EIC

Concerned Citizen

3/15/2022 08:37:36 am

What is the significance of that?

Also, seems like a decent-sized percentage of those are people awaiting trial in local jails, something which the military does way less of.

Lone Bear

3/15/2022 08:39:20 am

That makes sense, the military has a screening process and kicks out people for minor offenses (before the commit a more serious second offense). You wouldn’t expect many people to get lengthy sentences in the military.

Brenner

3/15/2022 09:21:05 am

Yes, and another factor is everyone is employed with a salary and health insurance etc.

Scott

3/15/2022 10:27:03 am

Exactly. The screening process largely keeps out the criminally inclined.

And those who are missed are usually filtered out quickly - but seldom via a means that results in jail time.

It’s likely the second group that represent the substantial veteran prison population. Apparently over 100,000 as of 2016: https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/veterans-prison-survey-prison-inmates-2016

Military sentence tend to include less confinement than civilian sentences as well. Probably for good reasons, including (1) above average character - and below average criminal history - of military offenders and (2) increased severity of non-confinement punishment for military offenders without civilian equivalent.

For example if a military member commits a drug offense that would usually rate 1 year confinement in the civilian world - but the military member is discharged, loses veterans benefits, loses retirement, etc - those punishments may be seen as just as severe even with no confinement.

All that said, 1000 total military prisoners sounds low. If I’m not mistaken there are 700-800 or so just at Leavenworth (between the DB and JRCF). They seem to be rounding to the nearest thousand in all categories - so perhaps if the real number were, say, 1400 - then via their rounding process they would just say 1000. Obviously rounding to the nearest thousand makes a bigger percentage difference when dealing with smaller total numbers.

Scott

3/15/2022 10:29:29 am

I don’t have the data off hand, but I’m not mistaken a particularly large percentage of military prisoners are confined as a result of child abuse offenses.

Ryan Coward link

3/15/2022 02:05:02 pm

But.... this could significantly change once we have sentencing guidelines and MJ's doing all the sentencing. The writing is on the wall..

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