PRISON REFORM

It's time to end mass incarceration...

TSDLYB Lifeskills Intervention Program was accepted as an official program in the Arizona Department of Corrections in 12/2016. We are independently in 168 prisons across the country. We are now implementing the programs in the Maricopa and Pinal county jails in Arizona. We are working to educate and make a difference for those who are willing to learn the tools for success and make the decision to change.

VIDEO - Maricopa City Leaders speak about TSDLYB Lifeskills Program

The United States locks up more people than any other country, at a rate more than five times higher than most other nations.

We spend about $82.4 billion every year — not to mention the significant social cost — to lock up nearly 1% of our adult population. This report offers some much-needed clarity by piecing together this country’s disparate systems of confinement. The American criminal justice system holds more than 2.3 million people in 1,719 state prisons, 102 federal prisons, 901 juvenile correctional facilities, 3,163 local jails, and 76 Indian Country jails as well as in military prisons, immigration detention facilities, civil commitment centers, and prisons in the U.S. territories. And we go deeper to provide further detail on why people are locked up in all of those different types of facilities.

While this pie chart provides a comprehensive snapshot of our correctional system, the graphic does not capture the enormous churn in and out of our correctional facilities and the far larger universe of people whose lives are affected by the criminal justice system. Every year, 641,000 people walk out of prison gates, but people go to jail over 11 million times each year. Jail churn is particularly high because most people in jails have not been convicted. Some have just been arrested and will make bail in the next few hours or days, and others are too poor to make bail and must remain behind bars until their trial. Only a small number (187,000 on any given day) have been convicted, generally serving misdemeanors sentences under a year. With a sense of the big picture, a common follow-up question might be: how many people are locked up for a drug offense? We know that almost half a million people are locked up because of a drug offense. The data confirms that nonviolent drug convictions are a defining characteristic of the federal prison system, but play only a supporting role at the state and local levels. While most people in state and local facilities are not locked up for drug offenses, most states’ continued practice of arresting people for drug possession destabilizes individual lives and communities. Drug arrests give residents of over-policed communities criminal records, which then reduce employment prospects and increase the likelihood of longer sentences for any future offenses. Other surprising findings include: 99% of jail growth over the past 15 years was in the detention of people who are presumed innocent. While law enforcement continues to arrest more than 1 million people each year for drug possession, the numbers in The Whole Pie show that ending mass incarceration will require rethinking not just the war on drugs, but also our society’s response to violent crimes. The juvenile justice system locks up 7,200 youth whose “most serious offense” is not even a crime. 6,600 children are locked up for “technical violations” of their probation, and 600 for “status” offenses which are “behaviors that are not law violations for adults, such as running away, truancy, and incorrigibility.” 57,000 people are locked up for criminal or civil immigration offenses, and ICE detention numbers are growing.

Locked Up Arizona: A look at the state of Arizona’s criminal justice system

Arizona prisoners to access program for rehabilitation, reducing recidivism