Back to Top
News Intro Text
Mississippi and Texas Leading Gulf South States
Date
News Item Content
<h2>
Mississippi and Texas Leading Gulf South States</h2>
<p>By Alex Mikulich, Ph.D.</p>
<p>&nbsp; &nbsp;&ldquo;Today, a vicious cycle of poverty, criminality, and incarceration&nbsp;<span>traps too many Americans and weakens too many communities&rdquo; said&nbsp;</span><span>U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder in a major policy initiative&nbsp;</span><span>presented last August. He explained that &ldquo;many aspects of our&nbsp;</span><span>criminal justice system may actually exacerbate these problems rather&nbsp;</span><span>than alleviate them.&rdquo;[1]&nbsp;</span></p>
<p><span>&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</span><span>Calling for a new approach to the &ldquo;war on drugs,&rdquo; the attorney&nbsp;</span><span>general lamented &ldquo;our system is broken&rdquo; as &ldquo;too many Americans go&nbsp;</span><span>to too many prisons for far too long and for no truly good law&nbsp;</span><span>enforcement reason.&rdquo;[2]&nbsp;</span></p>
<p><span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</span><span>Seventeen states, supported by the Justice Department and&nbsp;</span><span>leaders of both parties, have directed funding away from prison&nbsp;</span><span>construction toward evidence-based programs and services such as&nbsp;</span><span>drug treatment and supervision, designed to reduce recidivism.</span></p>
<p><span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</span><span>The effort to pursue alternatives to incarceration for low-level,&nbsp;</span><span>nonviolent crimes is one of five key principles of the U.S. Justice&nbsp;</span><span>Department&rsquo;s &ldquo;Smart on Crime: Reforming the Criminal Justice&nbsp;</span><span>System for the 21st Century&rdquo; policy initiative.[3]&nbsp;</span></p>
<p><span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</span><span>Holder praised Texas for investing in drug treatment for&nbsp;</span><span>nonviolent offenders and changes in parole policies that reduced its&nbsp;</span><span>prison population by more than 5,000 inmates in 2012. Similar efforts i</span><span>n Arkansas helped reduce its prison population by more than 1,400. <a href="https://jsri.loyno.edu/sites/loyno.edu.jsri/files/JSQ Fall 2014 Criminal Justice.pdf">MORE&gt;&gt;</a></span></p>
<div>
&nbsp;</div>