What has become of the former inmates of these institutions? In 2020, 226,000 people were incarcerated in 110 Federal prisons, and 1,291,000 in 1,833 state facilities. Today, America’s “prison population” – in the sense those words used to mean – is under 10,000 and continuing to decline. A much larger number – around 150,000 – are enrolled in some kind of correctional program. These include supervised and self-supervised therapeutic programs, community and compensatory service programs, supervised home confinement, voluntary residence in Separation Communities, and full release with monitoring. Involuntary confinement is reserved for the relative few with persistent and compulsive patterns of violence or other destructive behaviors.

Last July, World Story looked at 75 personal stories, to see how former prison inmates – and new violators  – have fared under these programs, comparing recent recidivism rates to the former post-incarceration rates. See full story here. To learn more about the new correction programs, see our recent feature, Revitalization Replaces Retribution: The New Take on “Crime” and “Punishment”.

And what of the facilities themselves? It’s not easy to find good uses for facilities that were designed to confine human souls in a way that is now considered by most people to be cruel, barbaric, and counter-productive to the public safety. Of the former Federal and state prisons:

• 25% have been demolished
• 31% have been converted for storage or various public works facilities
• 7% were recommissioned to house Separation Communities
• 5.5% have been converted to secured medical research and/or quarantine facilities operating under auspices of the Community Medical Research Initiative
• 0.8% (15 former supermax facilities) are currently in use as toxic waste storage facilities, with plans in place for eventual decommissioning as the waste products decay into safe by-products or environmentally benign means are found to neutralize them
• 0.5% (9 former supermax facilities) have been converted to nuclear weapons storage, to be demolished after the weapons have been completely dismantled and nuclear materials stored in smaller and more specialized facilities
• 0.1% (2 facilities) became historical museums on the model of California’s Alcatraz
• The remaining 30% are idle and still pending review

Related stories:

• Vanishing Recidivism: Why go back when there really is a better way forward?
• Revitalization Replaces Retribution: The New Take on “Crime” and “Punishment”
• America redefines “crime”: It’s no longer based on economic status