The Missing Link: Jail and Prison Conditions in Criminal JusticeReform

AuthorAndrea Craig Armstrong
PositionProfessor of Law, Loyola University New Orleans, College of Law
Pages1-37
Louisiana Law Review Louisiana Law Review
Volume 80
Number 1
Fall 2019
Article 6
3-3-2020
The Missing Link: Jail and Prison Conditions in Criminal The Missing Link: Jail and Prison Conditions in Criminal
JusticeReform JusticeReform
Andrea Craig Armstrong
Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.law.lsu.edu/lalrev
Part of the Law Commons
Repository Citation Repository Citation
Andrea Craig Armstrong,
The Missing Link: Jail and Prison Conditions in Criminal JusticeReform
, 80 La. L.
Rev. (2020)
Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.lsu.edu/lalrev/vol80/iss1/6
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Reviews and Journals at LSU Law Digital
Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Louisiana Law Review by an authorized editor of LSU Law Digital
Commons. For more information, please contact kreed25@lsu.edu.
337366-LSU_80-1_Text.indd 7 11/27/19 9:28 AM
The Missing Link: Jail and Prison Conditions in
Criminal Justice Reform
Andrea Craig Armstrong*
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction...................................................................................... 1
I. Criminal Justice Reform Consensus?............................................... 4
A. Justice Reinvestment Initiative and Associated Reforms .......... 4
1. Louisiana’s Justice Reinvestment Initiative ........................6
B. Beyond Diversion and Re-entry .............................................. 10
1. Diversion........................................................................... 10
2. Re-entry............................................................................. 12
II. Prison and Jail Conditions.............................................................. 14
A. Violence and Trauma............................................................... 17
B. Medical and Mental Health Care .............................................19
C. Solitary Confinement............................................................... 22
D. Social and Economic Isolation ................................................ 25
III. Rethinking Jails and Prisons .......................................................... 30
A. General Strategies.................................................................... 33
B. Specific Strategies ................................................................... 35
Conclusion...................................................................................... 36
INTRODUCTION
Jail and prison conditions matter because they are involuntary homes
for millions of people without meaningful public oversight, transparency,
or accountability. Although there are differences between jails and prisons
Copyright 2019, by ANDREA CRAIG ARMSTRONG.
* Professor of Law, Loyola University New Orleans, College of Law. Yale
(J.D.); Princeton (M.P.A). Sincere thanks to Caitlin Newswanger for her
tremendous research assistance and to the Louisiana Law Review Board and the
Pugh Institute for Justice for hosting this symposium on “Criminal Justice
Reform.”
337366-LSU_80-1_Text.indd 8 11/27/19 9:28 AM
2 LOUISIANA LAW REVIEW [Vol. 80
under the law,1 the conditions experienced are often similar for the person
caged, whether that person is pre-trial or convicted. Current criminal
justice efforts in Louisiana, consistent with national trends, have
prioritized diversion and re-entry and failed to address the actual
conditions of incarceration. The failure to pay attention to conditions of
confinement underminesand raises questions aboutour commitment
to criminal justice reform.
At any given moment in the United States, approximately 2.3 million
people are behind bars, at least a quarter of whom have not been convicted
of a crime.2 Approximately 10 million children in the United States have
experienced life with a parent in jail or prison.3 The rate of incarcerated
women has grown 14 times since 1970.4 The punishment of incarceration
also falls disproportionately on Black and Brown communities: one in
three [B]lack men born today can expect to be incarcerated in his lifetime,
compared to one in six Latino men and one in 17 [W]hite men.”5 Louisiana
leads the way, placing second in the nationand the world for
incarceration rates in 2018, but it ranks last nationwide in all the
meaningful categories: health care, infant mortality, economy, education,
and infrastructure.6
1. See generally Margo Schlanger, The Constitutional Law of Incarceration,
Reconfigured, 103 CORNELL L. REV. 357 (2018) (arguing that legal standards to
evaluate use of force in pre-trial Fourteenth Amendment detainee cases should
also govern use of force in convicted prisoner Eighth Amendment cases).
2. Peter Wagner & Wendy Sawyer, Mass In carceration: The Whole Pie
2018, PRISON POLY INITIATIVE (Mar. 14, 2018), https://www.prisonpolicy.org/
reports/pie2018.html [https://perma.cc/ZSD5-XB2C].
3. BRYCE PETERSON ET AL., URBAN INST., CHILDREN OF INCARCERATED
PARENTS FRAMEWORK DOCU MENT (2015), https:/ /www.urban.org/sites/default
/files/publication/53721/2000256-Children-of-Incarcerated-Parents-Framework-
Document.pdf [https://perma.cc/7GYG-TS5J].
4. ELIZABETH SWAVOLA E T AL., VERA INST. OF JUST., OVERLOOKED:
WOMEN AND JAILS IN AN ERA OF REFORM (2016), https://www.vera.org/down
loads/publications/overlooked-women-and-jails-report-updated.pdf [https://perm
a.cc/7DX 4-V4VS].
5. Elizabeth Hinton et al., An Un just Burden: The Disparate Treatment of
Black Americans in the Criminal Justice System, VERA INST. JUST. (May 2018),
https://storage.googleapis.com/vera-web-assets/downloads/Publications/for-the-
record-unjust-burden/legacy_downloads/for-the-record-unjust-burden-racial-dis
parities.pdf [https://perma.cc/2FBC-5S4V].
6. Peter Wagner & Wendy Sawyer, States of Incarceration: The Global
Context 2018, PRISON POLY INITIATIVE (June 2018), https://www.prisonpolicy
.org/global/2018.html [https://perma.cc/KU3W-RUSN]; Louisiana Rankings and

To continue reading

Request your trial

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT