Civic Forums on Criminal Justice
Sunday, Jan 9, 2022 1:00 PM-3:30 PM
Sunday, Jan 9, 2022 1:00 PM-3:30 PM
Forum Speaker Lucy Lang has spent her career working to ensure that everyone who is touched by the criminal justice system is treated with dignity. She is a lifelong New Yorker, an attorney, and an educator. On November 29, 2021, Lucy Lang became the New York State Inspector General. As Inspector General, Lucy is responsible for ensuring State officials and employees meet the highest standards of integrity, efficiency, and accountability. The Inspector General has jurisdiction over all executive branch agencies, departments, divisions, officers, boards and commissions, and over most public authorities and public benefit corporations. Functions and responsibilities include receiving and investigating complaints concerning allegations of corruption, fraud, criminal activity, conflicts of interest, or abuse in any entity in the jurisdiction, which includes state-funded infrastructure investments and projects. The Inspector General also directly monitors and investigates activities involving several of the State's most prominent infrastructure projects including the Governor Mario M. Cuomo bridge, the Jacob Javits Convention Center expansion, and the Moynihan Train Hall.
Inspector General Lang most recently ran for District Attorney in New York City in 2021. Previously, she served as Director of the Institute for Innovation in Prosecution at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, a think tank for prosecutors and communities across the United States, and as an Assistant District Attorney in Manhattan, where she investigated and prosecuted violent crimes including domestic violence and homicides and served as Special Counsel for Policy and Projects.
Lucy is a graduate of Swarthmore College and Columbia Law School, where she was the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Gender and Law and has served as a Lecturer-in-Law. She was named a Rising Star by the New York Law Journal in 2015, selected as a Presidential Leadership Scholar in 2017, was a 2019 Aspen Society Fellow, received the Elizabeth Hurlock Beckman Award from the American Psychological Association for her work as an educator who inspired her students to make a difference in their communities in 2020, and ran for District Attorney of New York City in 2021 (check out this background article!)
Lucy was appointed to and served on the New York State Bar Association Task Forces on Racial Injustice and Police Reform in 2020, and on Racism, Social Equity, and the Law in 2021. She is currently Vice Chair of the American Bar Association Criminal Justice Section, a member of the Council on Criminal Justice, and a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She has published articles in the New York Times, The Atlantic, the New York Daily News, and many others, and is the author of March On!, a children's book about the 1915 women's march.
Recent articles include
It’s long past time to let incarcerated citizens vote (Washington Post, July 22, 2020)
Commentary: Let the pandemic guide us to rethink incarceration by Lucy Lang (Times Union, Aug 18, 2020)
Restorative justice in action: A man killed another man, then he sat in a circle with his victim’s family by Lucy Lang (Daily News, Dec 19, 2019)
An Overview in Statistics:
The statistics about criminal justice are eye-popping:
The U.S. prison population has increased by 500% over the past five decades.
The American criminal justice system holds almost 2.3 million people in 1,833 state prisons, 110 federal prisons, 1,772 juvenile correctional facilities, 3,134 local jails, 218 immigration detention facilities, and 80 Indian Country jails as well as in military prisons, civil commitment centers, state psychiatric hospitals, and prisons in the U.S. territories.
The United States has the highest reported rate of incarceration of any country-- about one in 100 adults--a total of over two million people in prison or jail. There are another 840,000 people on parole and a staggering 3.6 million people on probation. You can check out the highest to lowest prison population in the world and by regions along with other cool stats here here
The United States, which makes up less than 5% of the world’s population, holds almost 25% of the world’s prisoners.
The US incarcerates 718 people per 100,000, compared to 104 per 100,000 in neighboring Canada.
If New York were a country, it would have the 52nd highest incarceration rate in the world, virtually on par with the whole country of Rwanda.
If current trends continue, one of every three black males and one of every six Latino males born since 2001 can expect to do time in prison.
On a positive front, the U.S. incarceration rate fell 17% between 2006 and 2019, down to its lowest level since 1995.
The U.S. violent crime rate fell 51% between 1993 and 2018, while the property crime rate decreased 54% during that span, according to the FBI. There has unfortunately been an uptick over the last two years
Nearly half of those imprisoned are non-violent drug offenders, accused people held pre-trial because they cannot afford their bail, and others who have been arrested for failure to pay debts or fines for minor infractions.
Half a million people are now in prison or jail for drug offenses–about 10 times the number in 1980–but recent years have led to increasing numbers of people being discharged for drug trafficking and nonviolent offenses. You can read more about nonviolent offender releases here
The gap in the number of Black, Latinx, and White people in prison is shrinking but remains very significant. In the U.S., black people are incarcerated at more than five times the rate of white people.
In 2016, black people made up 12% of our country’s population but accounted for 33% of our prison population.
The Black imprisonment rate in the U.S. has fallen by a third since 2006, alongside the nation’s imprisonment rate being at its lowest level in more than two decades.
Imprisonment rates have also declined for the two other major racial or ethnic groups, falling 26% among Hispanics and 17% among whites.
The racial and ethnic makeup of U.S. prisons continues to look substantially different from the demographics of the country as a whole.
The number of women in prison has been increasing at twice the rate of growth for men— it is seven times higher than it was in 1980.
The vast majority of women in jail have been accused or convicted of non-violent offenses.
More than 5 million children have had an incarcerated parent. Among black children, as many as one in 10 have a parent in prison.
The vast bulk of criminal cases never go to trial —nearly 80,000 people were defendants in federal criminal cases in fiscal 2018, but just 2% of them went to trial. The overwhelming majority (90%) pleaded guilty instead, while the remaining 8% had their cases dismissed.
For every 9 people executed, 1 is wrongly accused and exonerated. Since 1973, over 156 people have been released from death rows in 26 states because of innocence.
Three decades ago, California spent 10% of its budget on higher education and 3% on prisons. In 2012, the share for higher education fell below 8% while the prison share of the budget rose above 10%.
6.7 million people, mostly men, were under correctional supervision during the year 2015—more than were enslaved in antebellum America and more than resided in the Gulag Archipelago at the height of Stalin’s misrule.
As of 2020, 5.2 million Americans were unable to vote due to state felony disenfranchisement policies.
In New York City
New York state prisons hold over 4,600 people. Almost 21% are “lifers” which means they are serving a prison sentence with “life” on the back, like 10 years to life.
New York State currently has sixteen parole-board members, who (prior to the pandemic) conducted about twelve thousand parole interviews a year.
Parole rates, in New York and beyond, are very low, and even lower in 2020 than in 2019 amidst the pandemic.
The cost of imprisoning a person in New York--which is higher than any other state-- is $70,000 per year, and often much higher for the elderly or sick.
New York received a D-minus on a national report of state parole systems by the Prison Policy Initiative in 2019.
Check out data from the NYC Office of Criminal Justice providing information on violent crime by borough since 2013, shooting incidents by borough since 2013, major crime by borough since 2013, marijuana possession arrests since 2013, stop and frisk incidents since 2012, average daily jail population since 1991, and felony arrests since 2016–some REALLY interesting stats here
Where We Are Now and What We’ll Do
Many on any side of the aisle agree that mass incarceration is one of the biggest social problems the United States faces today. Our sprawling prison system imposes staggering economic, social, political, and racial costs. But what are better ways to ensure public safety while putting more justice into criminal justice?
There’s lots brewing around criminal and prison reform—tune into Governor Hochul’s State of the State report on Jan 5 for some breaking news that will inform our Forum. On Sunday, Jan 9, we’ll explore what we should do about crime–and how to promote public safety and collective well being. Most importantly, we’ll focus on how to be an informed citizen about criminal justice!
Prep Work
There are tons of background resources on criminal justice--if you haven’t watched Ava DuVernay’s 13th (75 min documentary) and read Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow, they are great places to start. The suggested background resources below are oriented towards things that have been recently published to keep us on the cutting edge of where we are now, and key questions and concerns at play. We’ve also included a number of conservative pieces on crime because many of us don’t have as much exposure to such critiques, yet they play a key role in criminal justice reform.
We encourage you to choose a sprinkling of resources below, striving to stretch yourself and engage with different viewpoints, and ask you to cite sources to the degree possible when you share in conversation on Jan 9.
Where Things Stand, What Data Does and Doesn’t Tell Us, and What’s On the Horizon
What the data says (and doesn’t say) about crime in the United States by John Gramlich (Pew Research Center, Nov 20, 2020)
From police to parole, black and white Americans differ widely in their views of criminal justice system by John Gramlich (Pew Research Center, May 21, 2019)
2020 saw an unprecedented spike in homicides from big cities to small towns by Devlin Barrett (Washington Post, Dec 30, 2020) AND/OR Violent Year in New York and Across U.S. as Pandemic Fuels Crime Spike by Ali Watkins (New York Times, Dec 29, 2020)
Murder rates have increased, but reporting on crime data is still woefully out of date by Jeff Asher and Ben Horowitz (USA Today, Dec 29, 2020)
Charged with murder, stabbing? In NYC, you’re free to go by Seth Barron (New York Post, Dec 29, 2020)
Police Defunding and Legal Shrooms? Justice Reform Faces Hard Questions in 2021 by Ruairi Arrieta-Kenna (Politico, Dec 30, 2020)
America Is Having a Violence Wave, Not a Crime Wave by David A. Graham (The Atlantic, Sept 29, 2021)
Opinion: Street crime has distorted our politics before. If we don’t get it under control, it will do so again by Megan McArdle (Washington Post, Dec 29, 2021)
What Are the Challenges Facing Criminal Justice Reform and What Do They Stem From?
Five myths about criminal justice by Laurie R. Garduque (Washington Post, Nov 25, 2020)
READ TOGETHER: There’s overwhelming evidence that the criminal justice system is racist. Here’s the proof by Radley Balko (Washington Post, June 10, 2020) ANS
The Myth of Systemic Police Racism by Heather MacDonald (Wall Street Journal, June 2, 2020)
John Plaff on Rethinking the Causes of Mass Incarceration (Vera Institute of Justice video interview, Dec 8, 2018) OR Are We All Equal Under the Law? (Leonard Lopate Show, WNYC, Feb 16, 2017)
How thousands of American laws keep people ‘imprisoned’ long after they’re released by Reuben Jonathan Miller (Politico, Dec 20, 2020)
When Black America Was Pro-Police by Paul Butler (The Atlantic, June 2017)
How a 50-year-old report predicted America’s current racial reckoning--The 1968 government-sponsored report reveals that demands from activists around policing are nothing new” by Gwen Prowse & Vesla Weaver (Vox, June 24, 2020)
How Are These Things Playing Out in New York City Today?
Is Criminal Justice Reform to Blame for the Rise in Crime in NYC? (PBS Newshour, May 21, 2021) (6 min)
Eric Adams Wants to CompStat New York City by Eric Lash (The New Yorker, May 22, 2021) AND/OR Eric Adams is making white liberals squirm by Juan Williams (The Atlantic, Aug 4, 2021)
NYC’s Crime Spike Puts Policing in the Spotlight of Mayor’s Race by Henry Goldman (Bloomberg, May 17, 2021) AND/OR The Bronx Has The Highest Crime Rate In NYC. What Do Locals Want The Next Mayor To Do About It? By David Cruz (Gothamist, June 17, 2021)
We spent two nights on patrol with the NYPD. Here's what they told us about spiking crime in the city by Jim Sciutto and Shelby Vest (CNN, June 21, 2021) (6 min)
Criminal justice reform in NYC isn’t near finished by Mike Novogratz (NY Daily News, July 13, 2021) AND/OR The New Yorkers bedeviled by crime by David Weissburd and Taryn Zastrow (New York Daily News, July 31, 2021)
What’s REALLY Driving Crime in NYC: A Report of New Yorkers United for Justice (Aug 2021) AND A New Crime Wave—and What to Do About It by Heather MacDonald (City Journal, 2021)
Overall crime down in NYC, but hate crimes still soaring (WABC TV, Sept 7, 2021) (2 min) AND/OR Violent Crime Actually Dropped in New York City This Summer by Matt Stieb (New York Magazine, Sept 7, 2021)
NYC’s murder surge is on the pols, not the pandemic — and they must act by Nicole Gelinas (New York Post, Oct 18, 2021) OR Latest NYC crime statistics show shootings are still double what they were two years ago, with murders up by 50% by Adriana Diaz (The Daily Mail, Dec 21, 2021)
What’s Happening at Rikers and What We Should Do About It?
A Roadmap to Closing Rikers: A Borough Based Jail System sponsored by The Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice, the Department of Correction, and NYC Health and Hospitals
How Can NYC End Rikers Island Chaos? We Asked Four People on the Front Lines by Reuven Blau (The City, Oct 11, 2021)
Chaos At NYC's Rikers Island Sparks Calls For Reforms by Jasmine Garsd (NPR, Sept 21, 2021) (3 min) AND/OR 10 Deaths, Exhausted Guards, Rampant Violence: Why Rikers Is in Crisis by Jonah Bromwich and Jan Ransom (New York Times, Nov 8, 2021)
Inside Rikers: Dysfunction, Lawlessness and Detainees in Control by Jan Ransom, Jonah E. Bromwich and Rebecca Davis O’Brien (New York Times, Oct 11, 2021) OR At Rikers Island, Inmates Locked in Showers Without Food and Defecating in Bags by Nick Pinto (The Intercept, Sept 16, 2021)
Liberal ‘reforms’ turned Rikers Island into a violent hell By Rafael A. Mangual (NY Post, Sept 15, 2021)
Opinion: The History of Rikers Island Proves That Reform Isn’t Possible by Nicholas Barber (City Limits, Oct 12, 2021)
Adams Vows to Bring Solitary Confinement Back to Rikers Island, Scrapping Reforms by Reuven Blau (The City, Dec 16, 2021)
Eric Adams Says He Wants to Close Rikers. It May Not Be That Simple by Nicholas Fandos and Jonah E. Bromwich (New York Times, Dec 17, 2021)