A majority of people incarcerated in local and county jails are there for nonviolent minor offenses and have been imprisoned for long periods of time because they are too poor to post bail, according to a new report by the Vera Institute of Justice, "a nonprofit center for justice policy and practice."
The study, titled "Incarceration's Front Door: The Misuse of Jails in America," reveals that even though violent crime has declined by almost 50 percent over the past two decades, annual admissions to local jails have nearly doubled to 11.7 million, reported The New York Times.
Local jails are filled with prisoners suffering from mental health issues and drug addiction who have committed minor offenses such as shoplifting, evading subway fares and driving with a suspended license. The study found that about three quarters of detainees were there for nonviolent crimes.
"Underlying the behavior that lands people in jail, there is often a history of substance abuse, mental illness, poverty, failure in school, and homelessness," the study found.
While 68 percent of inmates had a history of substance abuse, the drug treatment programs provided were severely underfunded, and 83 percent of inmates with mental health problems were not treated while in custody, according to the study.
"Nationally, African Americans are jailed at almost four times the rate of white Americans despite their making up only 13 percent of the U.S. population," the study said. "Locally, disparities can be even starker: in New York City, for example, blacks are jailed at nearly 12 times and Latinos more than five times the rate of whites."
In addition to a spike in jail admissions, the average length of stay behind bars has increased to 23 days, up from 14 days three decades ago.
"We are punishing people for their poverty," Nick Turner, executive director of the Vera Institute, told CBS MoneyWatch. "When we looked at the data, we found 75 percent of the population of people in jail are awaiting trail and are there for nonviolent offenses. That is mind-boggling when you think the country spends $22 billion on jail populations."
Instead of improving public safety, the report noted that taxpayers end up being stuck with the financial burden of providing health care for inmates and pensions for jail staff.
The study also found that local jails admit nearly 19 times the number of people who go to state and federal prisons each year - 11.7 million for local compared to 631,000 state and federal.
"Jails have lost sight of their intended purposes," Laurie Garduque, director of the MacArthur Foundation's Justice Reform program, told CBS. "It's not supposed to be a place where people languish because they can't make low-level bail or can't pay their traffic tickets."
