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For Immediate Release: June 27, 2007 – 12:00 EST Contact: Laura Jones, Phone: 202-558-7974, ext. 307 or Cell: 202-425-4659 or Jason Ziedenberg, Cell: 510-332-6503 New numbers show “alarming growth” in incarceration; Justice Department survey shows biggest increase since 2000 California responsible 1 out of 5 new people in prison last year WASHINGTON – After six years of slowing growth prison and jail populations, new statistics due out Wednesday from the Justice Department show an alarming increase in incarceration across the U.S. According to Prisoners and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2006, a new survey from the Bureau of Justice Statistics embargoed for release noon Wednesday, June 27 the midyear accounting for prison and jail growth found that “in both absolute numbers and percent change, the increase was the largest since midyear 2000.” The new survey showed that about 6 out of 10 people in prison and jail were African American or Latino, and that nearly 5 percent of African American men were in prison or jail. The new survey showed that one out of every five new people added to prison in the United States were in California. “Once again, communities of color are paying for our troubled criminal justice policies,” said Jason Ziedenberg, Executive Director of the Justice Policy Institute. “The population increase in the already overburdened prison system indicates an alarming growth that should not go unchecked. Billions of public safety dollars are absorbed by prison expansion and limits the nation’s ability to focus on more effective strategies to promote public safety.” When considering the growth, JPI points out that: There is little relationship between prison growth and change in violent crime: Coming just weeks after the Justice Department released its preliminary crime statistics for 2006, regional imbalance in the growth of prison underscore how little relationship there is between crime and the use of incarceration. The two regions that experienced the least change in prison populations (the Northeast, +1.7 percent increase, and the South, +1.2 percent) either experienced a decline in violent crime, or marginal change in violent crime.[1] By contrast, the West saw the biggest increase in violent crime of any region (+2.8 percent), and the biggest increase in the use of incarceration (5.2 percent). The Midwestern region also saw an increase in violent crime (+2.1), and prison growth (+3.0 percent). Some states have reduced prison populations and closed prisons, and others have enacted billion dollar expansion plans. Some states and jurisdictions (8 out of 51) saw no growth, or declining prison populations. Maryland, where prison populations have been falling for the last 4 years, recently closed a prison, potentially saving the state tens of millions of dollars. By contrast, 20 percent of new prisoners added last year were in California, where numerous proposals to reduce prison sentences, reform parole, and provide more resources to drug-involved people in the criminal justice system failed to be enacted. California legislations recently voted for multi-billion dollar prison expansion plan. ### The Justice Policy Institute is a Washington, D.C.-based think tank dedicated to ending society’s reliance on incarceration and promoting effective and just solutions to social problems. See www.justicepolicy.org.

For Immediate Release: June 27, 2007 For More Info: Tony Newman, T: (646) 335-5384 Justice Department Report Finds Largest Increase in Prison and Jail Inmate Populations Since Midyear 2000 2.24 Million Behind Bars, Giving the United States the Shameful Title of World’s Number One Incarcerator Prison Growth Persists Despite Growing Public Sentiment for Alternatives to Incarceration; One in Four Locked Up for Drug Law Violations The Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics reports today that the number of people incarcerated in U.S. prisons and jails jumped by 62,037 in the year ending June 30, 2006. That jump represents the largest increase since 2000. There are now 2.24 million people behind bars in this country. The United States continues to rank first among all nations in both total prison/jail population and per capita incarceration rates – with about 5% of the world’s population but 25% of the world’s incarcerated population. The failed drug war policies of 30-plus years are a major contributor to America’s prison population explosion. Approximately 50,000 people were incarcerated for drug law violations in 1980. The total is now roughly 500,000. (This number does not include hundreds of thousands of parolees and probationers who are incarcerated for technical violations such as “dirty urines,” nor does it include non-drug offenses committed under the influence of drugs, or to support a drug habit, or crimes of violence committed by drug sellers.) “Two powerful forces are at play today,” said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance. “On the one hand, public opinion strongly supports alternatives to incarceration for non-violent, and especially low-level, drug law violators – and state legislatures around the country are beginning to follow suit. On the other hand, the prison industrial complex has become a powerful force in American society, able to make the most of the political inertia that sustains knee-jerk lock-‘em-up policies.” The Drug Policy Alliance has played a pivotal role in reforming drug sentencing laws around the country, including Proposition 36 in California, reform of the Rockefeller drug laws in New York, and equalization of crack and powder cocaine penalties in Connecticut.

For Immediate Release: June 27, 2007 On the occasion of the International Day against Drugs (June 26th), Antonio María Costa, the Executive Director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, declared that “for almost all drugs - cocaine, heroin, cannabis and amphetamines - there are signs of overall stability, whether we speak of production, trafficking or consumption.” Yet repression is rising. Stability in this case means that current drug policies place the heaviest burden among those who are already among the most marginalised in the first place: drug consumers and producers of drug-related plants, both in the North and in the South. They experience far more damage from drug policies than from the drugs themselves. Stability means an escalation of law enforcement and repression. Millions of people are in jail or on trial because they have grown, used or possessed drugs or drugs-related plants. Aggressive eradication campaigns of opium and coca have created a humanitarian crisis in resp. Afghanistan and Colombia. Meanwhile, there is no sign that the war on drugs is having any effect on the strength and effectiveness of criminal organisations dealing with drugs. Stability means a war against minorities. In Laos, the internal resettlement of indigenous ethnic communities promoted by international aid agencies, is increasing the mortality rates up to 30% more than the national average. In US, a black person has 5.5 bigger chance of incarceration than a white person, while a Hispanic has 2 times more. In the fiscal year 2005, 53% of all federal powder cocaine defendants were low-level offenders such as mules or street-dealers. Only 12.8% were high-level dealers, as stated by the US Sentencing Commission. Stability means also that opium poppy crops in Afghanistan have boomed; new trafficking routes for heroin and cocaine smuggling have been opened, among others through Africa; the use of opiates is rising in East Europe and Africa, and the use of cocaine is increasing in South America, Africa and Europe; the total potential amount of cocaine has increased from 980 metric tons I 2005 to 984 mt in 2006. UN coca crops estimations seem to be extremely low, while the US Office of National Drug Control Policy states 157,200 hectares of coca crops in Colombia for 2006, the UN presents the figure of 78,000 h. In many countries the use of one drug increases, and of another one decreases. This has been the case for many years. It is probable that levels of use, abuse and dependence have been reached that will stay fairly constant for a long time, with or without repression. The term "stabilization" could have been used many years ago, but it wasn't convenient at that time for UNODC and other authorities to do so. Now, because it is impossible for UNODC to pretend any progress in the war on drugs, the term stabilization is used to hide this failure. Drug users can not be considered just sick or criminal people: we are also citizens. Drug policies cannot be effective without the voice of those affected by them. For more than 20 years, the European Union has committed itself to start a process of dialogue with civil society on future drug policies in Europe, but as yet, it has not been able to establish an effective and professional way to construct a transparent and inclusive structure to achieve this. ENCOD has commented the history of dialogue with citizens in EU drugs policy in: http://www.encod.org/info/IMG/pdf/GPENCOD-2.pdf On the other hand, the year 2008 will be the deadline to “eliminate or significantly reduce” the drug related crops all over the world. This goal was declared by the UN General Assembly Special Session on Drugs (UNGASS) held in 1998. It is time to accept that the current regimen is a failure. It is time to stop the war on citizens which the drugs war has become. It is time to open the door to alternative and pragmatic drugs policies. A world without repression: we can do it. EUROPEAN COALITION FOR JUST AND EFFECTIVE DRUG POLICIES (ENCOD) Lange Lozanastraat 14 2018 Antwerpen Belgium Tel. 00 32 (0)3 237 7436 Mob. 00 32 (0)495 122 644 Fax. 00 32 (0)3 237 0225 E-mail:[email protected] Website: www.encod.org