Ending Mass Incarceration

THE RIGHT TO VOTE
State Felony and Voter ID Laws by state

Most states in the United states have strict state felony laws that not only prevent parolees from travelling distances, but these laws also act in conjunction with Voter ID Laws to strip former prisoners of there rights. The 13th Amendment makes these laws admissible under the highest Supreme court.

This map displays various variables: voter ID Laws by state based on total prison population and the state felony restrictions based on disenfranchisement rate of inmates, probationers, parolees and exfelons within the state. If you look closely you'll see that many of the southern states like Florida, Alabama, Louisiana and Texas have strict voter Id laws alongside substantial disenfranchise rates for state felons. There is most definitely a correlation between voter id laws and state felony restrictions. However, I was unable to find exist poll data after this past election, but this project could definitely move in that direction to assess if my hypothesis has some validity. This Data was collected from the Sentencing Project.

HOW ARE TAXPAYERS FITTING THE BILL??
Paying up...

Nationally on average, U.S. taxpayers per state paid $32,142 for the upkeep in operation of state, local and private prisons. Here is a map of how each state taxpayer compares to the next based on their state's average annual taxpayer cost for state prisons. In my research looking at data collected from the National Institute of Corrections, I found that New York taxpayers pay taxes that are 87% higher than the national average taxpayer cost per inmate while Delaware pays 3% and Iowa 2%. This of course can be attributed to the no tax policies in some states like Delaware, Montana, Oregon, and New Hampshire. However, Prison facilities whether, state, federal, private, or detention centers are spread throughout the country. Note: The following states: Alaska, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Mexico, South Carolina, South Dakota and Tennesee lightly shaded areas due to the lack of data given to the United States Department of justice's NIC. These states declined, lacked sufficient resources or practiced a different methodology for collecting data on this matter. I used data from the Vera Institute as well as the NIC on taxpayer costs per inmate and state.

Lastly, who is benefitting from keeping prisons open?
Since details of the investments of private companies like the Corrections Corporation of America (CoreCivic) and the GEO Group, Management and Training Corp., and Community Education Centers seemed too confidential for the public to view;this next map is of the private prisons supported by these corporations throughout the U.S.

There are more companies that invest in the private prison industry and it would be interesting to get a hold of the financial data that isn't available to the public. It would also be interesting to look into the functionality of these facilities and their capacities. The Bureau of Justice (BJS) refers to the design capacity as The number of inmates that planners or architects intended for the facility, the rated capacity as the number of beds or inmates assigned by a rating official to institutions within the jurisdiction and the operational capacity as the number of inmates that can be accommodated based on a facility's staff, existing programs, and services. This would be interesting because this maybe a stepping stone into figuring out why the the prison industry has become so lucrative for some and a nightmare for others.

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THANK YOU FOR VISITING!

Advanced GIS Final Project

The Commodification of Mass incarceration

THE RIGHT TO VOTE
State Felony and Voter ID Laws by state

HOW ARE TAXPAYERS FITTING THE BILL??
Paying up...

CONTACT ME FOR MORE INFORMATION