Incarceration is a complex subject, and most citizens only know about it through scattered media reports. It is not taught in civics classes at schools and few college students study jails and prisons. Most people do not even know the difference between a jail and a prison. Wardens and Jailers try to avoid problems that will put them in the news. Deaths, short staffing, overcrowding, racial bias, lawsuits, violent incidents, ICE detainees and the perennial need for more money comprise what the public “thinks” about prisons and jails. We should fund a multi-agency public information office to proactively educate students and citizens about incarceration issues. Allowing only the media to “educate” people perpetuates a vicious circle of problems-reforms-more problems-more reforms. Without public understanding and support, reforms come and go as the political weather changes. The opinions of corrections professionals are seldom heard. Correctional staff are limited to reacting to laws and policies made by legislators who know very little about corrections. Legislators have learned that “Tough-on-Crime-speeches” and harsh sentencing laws get them elected and that campaign contributions come from business interests that profit from locking people up. Paying for increased incarceration is an afterthought.
This slide presentation with notes is a curated collection of media, public agency, and research organization reports from the past 50 years, and covers efforts by citizen activist groups speaking against injustice. It provides a long-range overview that is accessible to everyone. The slides tell the stories and readers can go deeper by using links and summary quotes in the notes. Readers are encouraged to pass this along to others. Public agencies have a vested interest in staying “Out-of-Sight—Out-of-Mind” and have no incentive to make their work accessible. The Kentucky Department of Corrections Annual Reports have been reduced from 98 pages to less than 25 pages. Except for Louisville Metro Department of Corrections, none of Kentucky’s 74 county jails have any publicly available annual reports. Citizens do not know how to find jail and prison reports or how to understand them if they did. Without a historical overview, public policy will repeat more expensive versions of yesterday’s failures. This document is an effort to change the downward spiral by making the realm of incarceration accessible.
We will have to educate ourselves to make room for lasting reform. Readers are encouraged to pass this presentation link along to others, including students, who will not find this subject in any Civics classes.
Most slides have extensive notes and reference links with short excerpts. These make it possible for reporters, researchers, activists and students to access the scope and history of incarceration policy.
Some notes and links are redundant allowing some slides to be used out of context.