research report research Conviction, Imprisonment, and Lost Earnings How Involvement with the Criminal Justice System Deepens Inequality By Terry-Ann Craigie, Ames Grawert, and Cameron Kimble With a foreword by Joseph E. Stiglitz PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 15, 2020 Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law Black people with no Annual Lost Earnings criminal record earn less LOST EARNINGS than socioeconomically $ 55.2 billion similar white people BY THE NUMBERS FORMERLY IMPRISONED with a record. AMERICANS Black people without a record $39,000 White people with a record $ 372.3 billion CRIMINAL JUSTICE AMERICANS IMPACTED BY $49,000 SYSTEM INVOLVEMENT CONVICTION OR IMPRISONMENT 51.7% Imprisonment People who were imprisoned early in their lives earn about half as much annually as Average earnings socioeconomically loss varies by level similar people of criminal justice untouched by the involvement. 7 MILLION+ 45 MILLION+ criminal justice have been have been convicted 12 MILLION+ system. 21.7% imprisoned of a misdemeanor have been Felony convicted of a conviction felony without without RACIAL DISPARITIES imprisonment imprisonment PERSIST AFTER RELEASE FROM PRISON 16.0% Misdemeanor U.S. FORMERLY conviction POPULATION IMPRISONED And thus People WHITE struggle experiencing LOST to achieve poverty are more INDIVIDUAL financial likely to be 61% 34% WAGES stability imprisoned BLACK 12% 35% People who have been to prison are frequently overlooked by employers ONE IN FIVE LATINO 18% 30% LOSS FOR COMMUNITY AMERICANS WHO HAVE A CRIMINAL RECORD OF SOME KIND OTHER 9% Source: Brennan Center analysis. 1% Table of Contents Foreword ..............................................................4 ABOUT THE BRENNAN CENTER FOR JUSTICE Introduction ...........................................................6 The Brennan Center for Justice at I. The Scope of America’s Criminal Justice System ......................9 NYU School of Law is a nonpartisan law and policy institute that works A. Formerly Imprisoned People ........................................10 to reform, revitalize — and when necessary defend — our country’s B. People with a Felony Conviction Not Sentenced to Imprisonment ...... 11 systems of democracy and justice. The Brennan Center is dedicated to C. People with a Misdemeanor Conviction .............................. 11 protecting the rule of law and the values of constitutional democracy. II. The Effect of Conviction and Imprisonment on Annual Earnings ......14 We focus on voting rights, campaign finance reform, ending mass A. Formerly Imprisoned People ........................................14 incarceration, and preserving our liberties while also maintaining our B. People with a Felony Conviction Not Sentenced to Imprisonment ......14 national security. Part think tank, part advocacy group, part cutting- C. People with a Misdemeanor Conviction ..............................14 edge communications hub, we start with rigorous research. We craft D. Aggregate Annual Effects ..........................................15 innovative policies. And we fight for them — in Congress and the states, III. The Effect of Conviction and Imprisonment on Lifetime Earnings ....17 in the courts, and in the court of public opinion. A. Consequences for Poverty and Income Inequality .....................18 B. Consequences for Racial Inequality . 19 ABOUT THE BRENNAN CENTER’S JUSTICE PROGRAM IV. Policy Recommendations ..........................................21 The Brennan Center’s Justice Conclusion ...........................................................23 Program seeks to secure our nation’s promise of equal justice for all by Appendix A: Literature Review .........................................24 creating a rational, effective, and fair justice system. Its priority focus is Appendix B: Methodology .............................................28 to reduce mass incarceration while keeping down crime. The program Endnotes ............................................................ 34 melds law, policy, and economics to produce new empirical analyses About the Authors ................................................... 42 and innovative policy solutions to advance this critical goal. Acknowledgments ................................................... 43 STAY CONNECTED TO THE BRENNAN CENTER Visit our website at www.brennancenter.org © 2020. This paper is covered by the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs license. It may be reproduced in its entirety as long as the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law is credited, a link to the Center’s web pages is provided, and no charge is imposed. The paper may not be reproduced in part or in altered form, or if a fee is charged, without the Center’s permission. Please let the Center know if you reprint. 3 Brennan Center for Justice Conviction, Imprisonment, and Lost Earnings Foreword merica is approaching a breaking point. For more than four decades, economic inequality has risen inexorably, stunting productivity, weakening Aour democracy, and leaving tens of millions struggling to get by in the world’s most prosperous country. The crises that have rocked the United States since the spring — the coronavirus pandemic, the resulting mass unemployment, and a nationwide uprising for racial justice — have made the inequities plaguing American society more glaring than ever. This year’s intertwined emergencies have also driven These costs come on top of other enormous costs home a reality that some would rather ignore: that the imposed on society by our mass incarceration system. growing gap between rich and poor is a result not just Some states have spent as much on prisons as on of the market’s invisible hand but of a set of deeply universities. The pandemic will make public funds even misguided policy choices. Among them, this ground- scarcer. More money spent on incarcerating more breaking report reveals, is our entrenched system of people will weaken our future, while the same money mass incarceration. Mass incarceration reflects and spent on expanding our universities will lead to a stron- exacerbates so many dimensions of this country’s ger 21st century economy. divides — in income and health, in voice and power, in Mass incarceration has been a key instrument in access to justice, and most importantly, over race. voter suppression, because people with criminal The number of people incarcerated in America today records are deprived of the right to vote in some states, is more than four times larger than it was in 1980, and in many states former prisoners are responsible for when wages began to stagnate and the social safety re-registering once they are released. This undermines net began to be rolled back. We’ve long known that democracy: since poor and Black people suffer from people involved in the criminal justice system — a mass incarceration disproportionately, they will be group that’s disproportionately poor and Black — face underrepresented in our electorate. economic barriers in the form of hiring discrimination Meanwhile, a nationwide reckoning over deep-rooted and lost job opportunities, among other factors. This racial injustice is forcing our country to come to terms report demonstrates that more people than previously with the ways in which these injustices have been believed have been caught up in the system, and it perpetuated in the century and a half since the end of quantifies the enormous financial loss they sustain as slavery. For the past four decades, mass incarceration a result; those who spend time in prison miss out on — with the deprivation of political voice and economic more than half the future income they might otherwise opportunity that is so often associated with it — has have earned. been at the center. It renders economic mobility for so Ascertaining through careful statistical analyses just many Black Americans nearly impossible. how costly the mass incarceration system has been to And yet this moment also brings a historic opportu- the people ensnared by it is a major achievement. These nity. By laying bare the grotesque inequities that under- findings reframe our understanding of the issue: As a gird our society, the upheavals of 2020 have given us perpetual drag on the earning potential of tens of the needed room to profoundly change our course. An millions of Americans, these costs are not only borne ambitious, democratically driven movement to create by individuals, their families, and their communities. a fundamentally fairer and more resilient economy, They are also system-wide drivers of inequality and are based on a renewed and strengthened social contract, so large as to have macroeconomic consequences. is at last gaining traction. But true progress will not That insight is vital today. The unprecedented occur until economic mobility is possible for our most economic contraction triggered by the pandemic, and marginalized and most vulnerable citizens. The urgent the federal government’s botched response, appears policies advocated here are a step toward ending that to be falling hardest on those who were already strug- injustice and building a more prosperous and equal gling, just like in past slumps. When employers cut society. This report shows what needs to be done to back, employees with criminal records are all too often stop mass incarceration. Equally important, it shows the first to be furloughed and the last to be rehired. how to deal with its legacy: the large number of Amer- And while major corporations get billions