Using Official Crime Data|Legit essays

MUST BE 250 words AT LEAST 3 scholarly citations FROM REQUIRED READING ATTACHED in APA format.

After reading Chapter 3 of the Mosher textbook, “An Arresting Experiment: Domestic Violence Victim and Perceptions” by Miller, and “Controlling a Jail Population by Partially Closing the Front Door” by Baumer and Adams, discuss the following prompts:

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• How important is it to use official crime data?
• What are some issues with using official crime data?
• What public policy changes could be made by relying upon the 2 articles?386

  Controlling a Jail Population by Partially Closing the Front Door

  An Evaluation of a “Summons in Lieu of Arrest” Policy

  Terry L. Baumer Indiana University Purdue University, Indianapolis Kenneth Adams University of Central Florida, Orlando

  This study reports on an evaluation of a strategy designed to reduce crowd- ing of a county jail. The local judiciary sought to reduce the jail population by ordering local police agencies to issue a summons rather than arrest indi- viduals accused of seven misdemeanor offenses. The study compares all cases booked during the first 8 months of the policy with all cases booked during the same months in the previous year. The results indicate that the policy was implemented, that it did reduce the intake population, and that there were minimal side effects; however, the potential impact was considerably overes- timated in the planning stage.

  Keywords: jails; overcrowding; summons; alternatives to arrest

  During the past two and one half decades, correctional populations in the United States have experienced exceptional growth. Between 1980

  and 2004, the total number of people under correctional supervision increased by 280% (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2005). Although all forms of corrections experienced increases, the largest changes occurred in the most restrictive and costly dispositions: prisons and jails. During this same

  The Prison Journal Volume 86 Number 3

  September 2006 386-402 © 2006 Sage Publications

  10.1177/0032885506291036 http://tpj.sagepub.com

  hosted at http://online.sagepub.com

  Authors’ Note: This research was supported by a grant from the Indiana Criminal Justice Institute. Points of view or opinions are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the supporting agency. This is a revised version of a paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Criminology, November 2003.

  time frame, prison populations increased 345% and jail populations increased 288% (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2005).

  These dramatic increases have resulted in crowded conditions for both prisons and jails. At the end of 2004, state prisons were operating at 99% of their highest capacity and 115% of their lowest capacity estimates (Harrison & Beck, 2005b). When the lowest capacity estimate for each state is used, all but five states exceeded the 90% guideline established by the American Correctional Association. The situation is similar in local jails. At midyear 2004, 94% of jail capacity was occupied (Harrison & Beck, 2005a). The 50 largest jails in the United States hold approximately 31% of the jail population. At midyear 2004, 20 (40%) of these exceeded their capacity, whereas 33 (66%) were more than 90% full (Harrison & Beck, 2005a).

  At its broadest level, the dynamics of prison and jail populations are the same. At any given time, the population is a direct function of the number of admissions and the length of stay (see Cushman, 2002; Pretrial Services Resource Center, 2000). Although the effect of the former is immediate and the effect of the latter delayed by the current length of stay, the final result is the same: Any change to either will result in a corresponding change in the overall population. In this sense, the sources of the dramatic increases in prison and jail populations are conceptually the same. A number of authors have identified policy changes that affected one or both of these factors for prison populations (Blumstein, 1995; Tonry, 1990).

  The factors that drive admissions and length of stay, however, are quite different for prisons and jails. Much of the prison population is legislatively driven. In any given jurisdiction the type of sentences (determinate– indeterminate), type of release (discretionary–mandatory), length of sentence, extent of credit time, mandatory minimums, sentence enhancements (three strikes), and a host of other factors are largely controlled by the relevant sentencing statutes. As a result, significant reductions in prison populations must rely on statutory changes (or administrative sleight of hand), which are difficult to come by.

  Jail populations, on the other hand, are potentially much more amenable to change. Nationally, slightly more than 60% of jail inmates are pretrial detainees (Harrison & Beck, 2005a) who either have been denied bail or do not have the resources to obtain release through bail. Most, but not all, of those individuals serving sentences in jail were convicted of misdemeanor or minor felony offenses. Arrest policies and bail standards are generally estab- lished at the local level by police agencies and the county courts. Similarly, misdemeanor sentences seldom suffer the constraints and mandates of their

  Baumer, Adams / Summons in Lieu of Arrest 387

  felony counterparts. This leaves the nature of the disposition potentially much more open to negotiations among the interested parties. As a result, local officials can manipulate both the number of admissions and the length of stay through changes in local policies (see Cunniff, 2002; Cushman, 2002; Pretrial Services Resource Center, 2000).

  This article reports on one approach by a county to control its local jail pop- ulation. This jurisdiction focused on a “front door” strategy (Blumstein, 1995) designed to reduce admissions to the county jail system. The executive com- mittee of the local judiciary ordered police agencies to issue a summons to appear rather than arrest individuals accused of seven misdemeanor offenses. At initiation of the policy, it was estimated that this change might reduce admissions to the county jail system by approximately 20% to 25%. If suc- cessful, this would have a substantial effect on the local jail population.

  Background

  Like many others around the United States, the county under study had a long history of litigation concerning the county jail. In 1972, inmates filed suit in federal court seeking relief from the overcrowded condition in the jail. Three years later, in 1975, the judge assigned to the case imposed a cap on the jail population. The county added capacity to the jail on at least three separate occasions, but by 1999 the crowding had backed up to include the county lockup facility. In that year, the population in the county lockup was added to the existing litigation, and later that year the federal court imposed a population cap of 213 on the lockup facility. Two years later, with the mutual assent of the county and the plaintiffs, the cap was raised to 297.