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There are too many people in Jail!
Posted at: Aug/15/2012 : Posted by: mel
Related Category: Society, Watching America,
The United States leads the world at incarcerating its own people. As a percentage, we lock up more of our own citizens than any other country on earth. This growing population includes an increasing number of nonviolent inmates for longer and longer sentences. As budgets become tighter and tighter, federal, state and local programs including education are forces to sustain more cuts to keep all these people locked up. The United Stated is currently reported to have less than 5% of the world’s population and we currently have approximately 2.3 million criminal of various types behind bars. China has a population that is four time that of the United States, yet they only have a reported 1.6 million people in prisons. Statics being what they are, this is all about criminal behavior. I suspect that China has an additional 2-300 hundred thousand in administrative detention or re-education centers for their political activities. The most straight forward number is the criminal incarceration rate per 100,000. By this standard America has a solid first place at 751, Russia comes in second at 627, England is 151 and they go down from there. The international median is just under 125. Don’t get me wrong, crime is down in America, but the means concerns me. Until just a few decades ago, other countries would send delegations to the United States to study our criminal justice system, both the courts and the prisons were admired by many countries. Prison sentences in the U.S. have become significantly harsher in recent decades than virtually any country we would like ourselves compared to. Instead, we are considered by some countries to be a “rogue state”, not following the normal western approach to criminal sentencing. The spike in American incarceration rates is a recent phenomenon. From 1925 to 1975, the U.S. rate of incarceration remained stable at around 110 people in prison per 100,000 people. In the late 1970’s the rate began to increase rapidly in response to the various movements to get tough on crime. In general terms, incarceration in a prison is intended to serve 4 functions. Punish the criminal in a manner proportional to their crime. Protect society from known criminals who might continue their illicit behavior. Offer some opportunity for rehabilitation of the criminal. Provide a potential deterrent to someone considering criminal activity. I am sure that at any given time our prison system is accomplishing at least one, and potentially more of these functions. Unfortunately, one of the side effects to prison incarceration is that minor criminals get to share time and space with more hardened criminals, often learning and adopting their skills and behaviors. People who commit nonviolent or property crimes are much more likely to receive prison time in the United Stated than any other western country. The United States is for example, the only advanced country that incarcerates people for minor property crimes like passing bad checks. The biggest area in the prison population growth during the last 30 years has been a result of sentencing guidelines and drug crimes. In 1980 there were roughly 40,000 people behind bars for drug crimes, now that number is nearly 500,000. Locking up all these people causes a great deal of debate. Some argue that it is imperative, as it helps thwart the demand for illegal drugs while also reducing demand. Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey has fought hard to prevent the early release of people in federal prisons on crack cocaine offenses, arguing they “are among the most serious and violent offenders.” Some argue that the users should only be fined as the crime is victimless, and that only the dealers should be imprisoned. As mentioned, one of the biggest factors in our prison population is our longer sentencing. If lists were compiled on an annual admissions to prison per capita it appears that France, England and Italy would actually outpace the United States, but the difference is in the length of the sentence. Burglars in the U.S. serve an average of 16 months in prison, compared with 5 months in Canada and 7 months in England. The longer we keep people locked up, the more our prison population grows. There is also the concern some voice that our criminal justice system is racially bias since our prisons house a disproportionate number of minorities with respect to the population as a whole. While it is true that our prison population is not racially proportional to our general population, this is common to other western countries as well including Canada, Britain and Australia. Most studies have shown this is more a function of social and economic challenges than racial bias. Prison populations actually vary widely across the country. Minnesota incarcerates about 300 people per 100,000, Texas is almost at 1,000 while Louisiana is the highest at 1,138. Maine is the lowest at 273 inmates per 100,000. There is obviously the need to ask from a social perspective why we (the U.S.) want to lock up or punish so many people. There a number of articles written on the subject of which I will share the short version of some theories. • Some argue that it is a function of economies that are more capitalistic which creates a political culture that is less socially democratic than those of most European countries. • Others point to the Protestant religion with its strong Calvinist overtones that have a significant influence on American ideology. Effectively, transgressions need to be punished. • You could look at the American character; self-reliance, independence and being judgmental are part of who we were and who we are. Clearly, America is a tough place to live with a strong emphasis on individual responsibility. There is no doubt that the criminal justice in America is much more political, and more driven by politics than in many other countries. Most state court judges and prosecutor in the United States are elected and are therefore sensitive to public concerns and opinion polls. In the rest of the world, criminal justice professionals tend to be civil servants who are insulated from popular pressures including tough sentencing. The reason I am researching and writing on this subject is because of our Great Recession. I moved to California in 1982. At that time California spent a great deal more on higher education than it did on prisons. 30 years have passed and the balance sheet has now flipped, California now spends a great deal more on prisons than higher education. During just the last 23 years California has built an average of one new prison each year at a cost of nearly $100 million each. During the same time only one new public college was built. This is not just an issue in California; nationwide spending on prisons has risen six times faster than spending on higher education for the last +20 years. Money that could have gone into reducing rocketing tuitions has instead gone to prisons and their inmates. When times are good, it is easy to do everything you ever dreamed of doing. When times are tough, choices have to be made with respect to the limitations of a very tight budget. Higher education is one of the primary ways in which we use public money to stimulate the economy. Our college graduates will leave school to enter higher paying jobs where they will be on average paying higher taxes than their non-college educated peers. Additionally, our college graduates are the primary source of the innovation that drives new businesses and creates job growth for our state and local economy. Clearly, I feel that higher education is one of the best investments that a state can make in its future. Life is about choices. I am a firm believer in locking up criminals and punishing them for their crimes. I am also a very strong proponent of accessible and affordable higher education. Unfortunately, these two items are now in conflict with each other as they compete for the same limited pool of public sector funds. Our tough on crime philosophy of the last 30 years has been effective at reducing crime. Like many things, the pendulum may have swung too far to one side and is now ready for a correction. There are some things I believe we can do to reduce the cost of our prisons and their inmates. Some of these are easy, and some can only happen with a lot of arguing. • Lessen the sentences for non-violent offences, this could include bad check writing, petty theft, drug possession in small quantities, other similar crimes too numerous to list. There is also an argument here that you are reducing the time that minor criminals are exposed to more hardened felons. • Contract and export prisoners to out of state prisons where the cost of incarceration is lower. This would obviously be met with fierce resistance by the prison guards union. This is still a battle we need to fight. • Reduce the pension and other benefits of our prison guards to a level more in line with the retirement benefits available in the private sector. This is another argument that will be met with staunch resistance from the effected union. Ultimately, this is a battle we need to fight and the sooner we do it the sooner it is behind us. • Privatize portions of our prison system. Again, the unions involved will fight this to the Supreme Court, but we can’t afford them any more without major sacrifices elsewhere. I am not saying we should empty the prisons. Locking criminals up protects society, but the business of government should not be too narrowly focused. The 2012-13 proposed California budget spends $9.5 billion on higher education and $8.9 billion on the Department of Corrections (DOC). This sounds good on the surface, but is deceptive. The state has shifted a large number of the non-violent felons to county and local prison along with the related costs. Ultimately we are still spending over $14 billion state wide on prisoner incarceration. Nationally, 55-60% of prisoners are classified as non-violent and are costing roughly $34 billion a year to imprison. Reducing this portion of the prison population by 30% would be $10 billion the states could do more with. Public safety counts, but excessively high sentencing policies are forcing unrealistic pressures on other vital public services. What’s it going to be, prisons or colleges?
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