Statewide – The numbers show a unique trend when it comes to the number of prisoners in jails or prisons.
The number of inmates in state prisons dropped by about 3-percent last year in 2021, to 12-percent in 2020. But the number of people in prison has increased by 12-percent Jessica Hess, a researcher at the Vera Institute who assisted the study’s authors, told IndiePolitics that the state has the largest prison population in rural areas.
“There are some basic things that have driven the rural prison population and the small town prison population,” he said. “First, surprisingly, pre-trial detention.”
This is when someone is arrested and when they go to trial. This is the period that usually posts bail for getting out of jail. But, Hess says the problem is that often, people can’t afford bail.
“You know, when a court grants bail which is too much for people to pay and they either spend months or weeks in jail until their family can spend the money together, or they stay there until their case is over, it means they effectively They are being held hostage despite their right to bail, ”he added.
He added that rural parts of Indiana are not well connected to places to help habitual drug offenders get the help they need to clean up, so the only option for many is to keep them in jail away from access to drugs. Hess said it not only raises prison rates but also affects the finances of an individual county.
In the same note, he said the counties are building larger prisons to facilitate higher rates of incarceration. There is a cost to these larger prisons, which is set aside for construction costs as opposed to efforts to tackle drug abuse.
Hess said their study found that there was no correlation between low-crime rates in the United States and longer prison terms.
The post More Hushiars are in jail, but fewer Hushiars are being sent to jail, first appearing on 93.1FM WIBC.