The vast number of incarcerated people suffer from under-education. Formerly incarcerated people are nearly twice as likely to not have a high school diploma as the general population. While many people in prison obtain a GED, people with traditional high school diplomas earn more than people with GEDs by 33%. And until 2023, people in prison were ineligible for Pell Grants, a form of federal student aid.

Only 35 percent of state prisons offer college-level courses to people in prison, reaching only 6 percent of incarcerated individuals nationwide.

Each year in prison takes an estimated 2 years off an incarcerated individual’s life expectancy. On a national scale, if not for incarceration, the U.S. life expectancy would be five years higher.

Incarcerated individuals are disproportionately affected by chronic health conditions, mental illness, and substance use disorder.

Researchers have even theorized “Post-Incarceration Syndrome,” which, like PTSD, covers unique symptoms of trauma faced by formerly incarcerated individuals as a result of life in prison, where they are isolated from their families and communities, deprived of autonomy and purpose, live in overcrowded, neglectful and unsanitary conditions, and face routine exposure to violence.

The standard of incarcerating people with substance use disorder without providing recourse is dangerous—the demand for drugs in detention settings to cope with the stress of incarceration has worsened existing substance use disorders and has led to an increase in overdose deaths within prisons. From 2001 to 2018, overdose deaths in state prison have increased by 600%, with 2018 having the highest recorded rate of inmate overdose deaths since the government began collecting data twenty years ago.

While some jurisdictions have passed laws preventing employers from discriminating based on criminal record, many have not and there is a need for more effective laws in this area.

The relationship between criminal records and access to occupational licenses (e.g., barbers, cosmetologists, nursing assistants) is complex and varies across states.

Incarceration depresses earning potential over one’s lifetime and is more pronounced for Black and Latino people.

79 percent of formerly incarcerated people and their families surveyed reported being denied housing due to a criminal conviction, and formerly incarcerated people are 10 times to 13 times more likely to experience homelessness than people who have not been incarcerated.

In 2021, two out of five people returning to New York City from prison went directly to a shelter. People inside the “prison-to-shelter pipeline” say cycling through the criminal legal and shelter systems is destabilizing and dehumanizing as they attempt to reenter society.

The use of background screenings by over 90% of private landlords during the tenant screening process can lead to discriminatory denials of access to housing for people who are otherwise qualified tenants.

For example, in Ohio, employees lose access to disability leave benefits if convicted of a felony.

People may lose federal social welfare benefits, such as Social Security, and food benefit programs, if convicted of a felony drug charge. Individual states can waive this policy, and many, such as New York, Oklahoma, and Washington, have. However, many states have not, especially in the Southeast.

Loss of the right to vote while incarcerated, and in some states permanently.

A patchwork of state felony disfranchisement laws, varying in severity from state to state, prevent millions of people with felony or misdemeanors on their records from voting. In Mississippi, individuals convicted of certain felonies must obtain a gubernatorial or legislative pardon. Meanwhile, Floridians must complete their sentence, which includes payment of all fees and restitution. In these states and others, it is difficult for formerly incarcerated people to restore their right to vote.

People with convictions are often barred from serving on juries. This disproportionately affects people of color, almost 80% of people with convictions in NYC are black or Latino.

For example, a family with an incarcerated father has a 40% greater chance of experiencing poverty.

The legacy of incarceration and a criminal record not only affects an individual’s lifetime earnings, but also affects their family’s financial future and intergenerational earnings.

Forty-seven percent of the approximately 1.25 million people in state prison report having children under 18, and 19% of those children are four years of age or younger.

Children of incarcerated parents are, on average, six times more likely to become incarcerated themselves.

Children of incarcerated parents are also more likely to face psychological problems, such as depression.

For example, it costs over $3,720 a month to house a person in an emergency shelter in NYC, about $5,900 a month for an entire family, and about $45,750 a month (about $550,000 a year) to detain a person at Riker’s Island, many of whom are detained for longer periods due to lack of housing.

Research has repeatedly shown that supportive housing programs produce superior outcomes for individuals and cost less too.

In many states, people from cities are incarcerated in prisons in rural areas. This incarcerated population is then counted as part of the rural area’s population, increasing the rural community’s access to government resources and political capital at the expense of urban communities.

Some states, such as Pennsylvania and Nevada, have passed laws limiting prison gerrymandering, while others, such as Wisconsin and Georgia, still allow the practice.

Federal prisons undercount and undertreat prisoners with significant mental health needs. This is a problem in part due to prisons being in mostly rural locations as many rural communities do not have a local psychologist or psychiatrist.

If they do not already have serious mental health needs before incarceration, victims of mass incarceration are more likely to develop mental health disorders due to incarceration. This is especially true for incarcerated Black men.

Law enforcement officers have become the first-line responders to mental health emergencies. Police also often respond with violence to individuals experiencing mental health crises.

“High levels of imprisonment in communities cause high crime rates and neighborhood deterioration, thus fueling greater disparities.” This cycle has a disproportionately negative impact on people who are Black.

A three-year study of men leaving Illinois state prisons found that those who managed to find their own stable homes within two months of release were three times less likely to return to prison than their studied cohort who found housing within 16 months of release, and they continued to be less likely within three years of release. 

People who have been incarcerated and return to live in neighborhoods with high rates of poverty and transiency are more likely to recidivate. (Enterprise Community Partners, personal communication, 2021)

When incarceration rates are already high in a community, more incarceration may increase crime.

In Detroit, a 2003 study found that 41 % of prisoners from Wayne County, Michigan, returned to only eight zip codes in the city of Detroit. Most of those zip codes had experienced significant disinvestment and economic distress.

In Chicago, concentrations of high incarceration rates were found in the city’s West Side and South Side neighborhoods – and these concentrations have held constant for more than two decades. In fact, there are blocks in Chicago’s West Side “where nearly 70 percent of men between ages 18 and 54 are likely to have been subject to the criminal justice system."

In Los Angeles, nearly half (46 %) of the city residents arrested by the LAPD Metropolitan Division between 2012 and 2017 resided in just two city council districts. In 2019, a similar analysis revealed that L.A. County spent more than $2.5 million to incarcerate Black residents of five specific neighborhoods, including two neighborhoods where the County had spent at least $6.5 million per neighborhood.