Ban the box

CBS’s legal analyst Andrew Cohen has been trying to call attention to the growing prison population in the United States.

“(As many as) 2.2, 2.3 million people are incarcerated,” Cohen reports.

That’s just the number behind bars now.

“It doesn’t include the tens of millions of people who have gone through he system and who are affected because they are on probation or parole, or because they can’t vote or carry a gun.”

He says mandatory sentences have pushed the incarceration rate in America higher than Russia and Rwanda, and it’s breaking the bank.

“There are some states that get it – that don’t want to pay the cost of high incarceration and think it’s nuts that they’re paying more for prisons than for schools,” says Cohen.

But politicians find it very hard to argue for shorter sentences – and even harder to take the next step. To do something about that check-box on most employment applications: The one that asks, ‘Have you ever been convicted of a felony?’

“That brings up the question of a sub-issue – the ban the box movement – where you have some jurisdiction that are saying, ‘Enough.’ We’re going to give people a second chance,” says Cohen. “And for all these people, especially nonviolent offenders there really isn’t a second act because they have to check off that box on their employment forms.”

Cohen says there are ways to cut the prison population without increasing crime rates. And with 65 million ex-felons trying to get work, and the taxpayer bill for incarceration now at $7.3 million an hour, there isn’t much choice.