Prison Nation - U.S. Citizen - Unnecessarily Suffering citizen and enemy of the state -freely deluded to imagine otherwise." As defined in FUNKTIONARY. 

Neely Fuller explains that the System of White Supremacy (Racism) is in function, a prison system designed to unjustly confine, restrict, subjugate, and in other ways mistreat Non-white people for the comfort, convenience and pleasure of white people. [MORE] The operating system [os] of white supremacy requires system updates particularly at times when the victims begin to actually see their chains or gain overstanding of their oppression. Mr. Fuller calls these updates the refinement of racism/white supremacy. The disproportionate over-incarceration problem has been an obvious reality to a growing number of non-white victims. To avoid belief destruction, the vested interests must close this window - as it may enable sight of other realities. 

From [HERE] In 2017, the U.S. prison population dropped below 1.5 million people for the first time since 2004, according to a new report by the nonprofit Vera Institute of Justice. A decline in several states with large prison populations, including Maryland, Louisiana and Illinois, is responsible, along with a drop in federal prisoners.

Maryland saw the largest drop, with 1,916 people exiting state custody, representing a 9.6 percent decrease, according to the report. Louisiana and Illinois, each with larger populations, lost 1,943, or 5.4 percent, and 2,230, or 5.1 percent, respectively. Although the prison population in each state has been declining for several years, between 2016 and 2017, Maryland and Louisiana experienced the largest single year decreases in their prison populations in a decade.

Researchers credit sentencing and other criminal justice reforms that have passed in each of the states in recent years for the decline. Yet, despite the declines in Louisiana and Maryland, some lawmakers are pushing to scale back some of the law changes, citing rising violent crime rates.

In 2016, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, signed the Justice Reinvestment Act into law, calling it “the largest and most comprehensive criminal justice reform to pass in Maryland in a generation." The bill reduced sentences for some low-level drug crimes, eliminated mandatory minimum sentences and improved parole and probation policies.

The new legislation was the result of several years of research and advocacy led by Pew Charitable Trust and the Bureau of Justice Assistance. In 2006, BJA and Pew launched the Justice Reinvestment Initiative to help states reduce their swelling prison populations. Since 2007, 34 states have adopted new legislation developed through the initiatives.

Louisiana also signed on. In 2017, Louisiana Gov. John Bell Edwards, a Democrat, signed into law a series of bills that some have been hailed as the most comprehensive reforms in the state’s history. For years Louisiana has had the highest incarceration rate in the country. With the new legislation, which reduces penalties for repeat offenders, offers more alternatives to incarceration, and reduces maximum penalties for drug crimes, the state is poised to shed its long held title. Some of the effects of the legislation were felt almost immediately when nearly 2,000 inmates were released from prison in November due to a change in the way the state calculated prisoner’s good time.

In 2015, Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner signed an executive order creating a commission on criminal justice and sentencing reform. The commission was tasked with understanding the main drivers of incarceration in the state and proposing reforms to reduce the population by 25 percent by 2025. At the start of 2017, Rauner signed several measures to achieve his goal, including eliminating mandatory minimums for some crimes.

The report’s authors hope the timely snapshot of the country’s prison population—gathered from state corrections websites and interviews—can help continue to move the needle on criminal justice reforms. The federal Bureau of Justice Statistics releases official data on state and federal prisoners every year, which includes detailed demographic information, but the 2017 data won’t be available until the end of 2018.

“There is a lot of talk about reform in states where the prison population is still growing,” said Jacob Kang-Brown, one of the report's authors. “For these states it is important to know that many places that are seeing success aren’t driving up the crime rates.” [MORE]