Looking Behind the Locked Door: Prison Law Reform Proposals for the New Administration
by DEBORAH M. GOLDEN
The United States incarcerates a higher percentage of its residents than any other country on earth. One out of every hundred people in this country lives behind bars. One in every thirty men between the ages of twenty and thirty-four and one in every nine black men in that same age group are locked up. This huge—and growing—segment of the American population cannot be ignored by the new Administration.
For the purposes of this paper, incarcerated people in the United States can be divided into two groups: federal and state prisoners. There are over 200,000 people in the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons (“BOP”). The BOP is an agency within the United States Department of Justice, and as such falls under the President’s direct control. The states hold almost 1.3 million people in custody. Through the power of the bully pulpit and through legislation, the Obama Administration can exercise a fair amount of control over state departments of corrections.
