The US has the highest number of prisoners in the free world, seconded by China and Russia.
In this country one in every 32 Americans was either in jail, on probation, or on parole at the end of 2005, this according to a study by The International Center for Prison Studies at King's College in London.
The rate in this country is 737 people per 100,000 while most industrialized nations range somewhere around 100 per 100,000. Our prison population has almost doubled in the last ten years. Why?
These figures should raise some serious questions because as we have jailed people for insignificant crimes and leaned away from the initially more difficult, but in the long run less expensive rehabilitate-educate option, we do nothing more than perpetuate the cycle. To give the prisoners we have an education and a chance at life is ultimately cheaper, and it does work.
We need not incarcerate the poorer less educated among us for offenses from which their well off counterparts, with expensive lawyers, are easily excused. We need to give them a chance.
Five percent of the world population but twenty percent of the worlds incarcerated?
The war on drugs is probably the single largest cause of this disparity. It does nothing but ceate more and more hardened criminals as it perpetuates crime. These figures should inspire a search for real solutions; it seems pretty clear the path taken over the last ten years, a path which left rehab lying in the dust in favor of incarceration, hasn’t worked. The message "payback is hell” has done nothing but increase the prison population, turning non violent rehabilable first time offenders into violent criminals who will be in and out of the prison system for life, at great expense to us and to the people who they perpetrate their crimes upon.
Article comments
1 - wdufkin
If you've ever spent any time actually working with prisoners trying to help them "rehab" you'd realize the problem is not nearly the penal system but rather the upbringing. I only have experience directly with women, however the vast majority of those women have these things are commom:
1. The grew up without one or both parents.
2. They did not graduate from high school and
I don't believe I've ever met a college
graduate.
3. They've been abused sexually and/or physically
and verbally.
4. If they have children of their own those children are being cared for by someone other than themselves even when they are not in jail.
5. Alcohol is as much a contributing factor to their crimes as are illegal drugs.
6. Most often a women will choose to serve her time in jail over actaully reporting to a parole officer! "Nobodies going to tell me what to do." Except her jailers!
7. They typically can not get along with others either inside of jail or on the streets. Anger and selfishness being equal.
8. Given the chance to get out of jail and go to a one year live in program, in a mansion, that rebuilds lives, 99.9% of the women will not have any interest. Why? They have boyfriends and they want the freedom to drink, smoke and take drugs.
Anyone can rehab and change their life for the better! ANYONE that can't CAN'T and there is nothing any program can do to change that. We can not just assume that society would be better served allowing criminals to run free. If their richer counterparts "get off" because they have the money then they also may have a few of the other things like and education and/or a family. Recidivism is reduced by those two important things, assuming that the brain of the individual is not shot through with drug induced brain damage. Generalizations yes, but entirely true from my personal experience.
I live in a community with many troubled young adults. What I've seen first hand is that if you are white and have a daddy you can keep doing stupid things and get away with it. As a society we decide what constitutes a crime and then its punishment. What we need to do apply the punishment equally.
2 - jacob
I recently, and beg forgiveness here I can't remember where, saw a show on some very successful programs on the west coast where the rehab of prisoners was considered paramount.
They said as the commenter above says that the problem is the prisoners past but the rehab gives people who were brought up in bad situation hope they never had before and puts them back into society as functional adults with a future. It was hard work but most of these people did not return to prison they became upstanding members of society.
I think the trick would be to get them right way and educate them. It may not work for all but this program had been very successful. If I find the exact information I 'll let you know.
3 - Arch Conservative
I think that any reasonable person would agree that there is some value in rehabbing some criminals while others are beyond all hope and belong behind bars until they die.
The trouble is differentiating these two groups effectively enough to minimize the harm posed to society at large.
4 - cooper
Besides the fact that I disagree with the premise that there is no wiggle room in the “those who can and those who can't rehab” category, because I think there is some depending on the treatment and a thousand other variables.
The successful programs I have heard of make graduating from high school at least a mandatory requirement of the rehab. The successes they have had have come from those who have gotten an education and all of a sudden do realize they can be something.
I agree totally with the fact of applying the punishment equally. If “Johnny daddy is a big time corporate head” is not going to go to jail for selling pot, nor should "Johnny whose daddy is a no good bum with no money". Under any circumstance.
Using the lower socioeconomic level of society as political pawns is unaccpetable and it what has been happening for years, and with dire results.
The defeatist attitude so prevalent is part of the problem.
I do agree though when you are dealing with things such as child sexual / psychological abuse things get extremely complicated.
Surely there are professional who can do more than pontificate from an academic standpoint as to which prisoners are rehab-able. Sure some mistakes will be made, but they can't bring about a situation any more bleak than the one we already have.
5 - Maurice
I have had way more experience with the legal system than I ever wanted to. My youngest sons have both spent time locked in JuVee this year. The effort trying to rehad them has been tremendous. Our probation officers call and visit regularly. They (the P.O.s) insist the boys are involved in group activities (work, NA, AA, church groups) daily. There are 2 pysch hospitals within walking distance of the court (which ajoins the JuVee lockup). The court orders pysch evals before sentencing.
My brother in law was recently released from federal lockup and the treament is similar for him. His PO visits regularly and insists that he attend the AA/NA classes and self respect seminars.
The punchline for me is the legal system does a hell of a job trying to help people get their lives back in order.
6 - Mohjho
Prisons are big business. I wonder if most prisoners add more to the economic condition of the nation by being in prison than the same people out of prison. If it takes 60 to 80 thousand dollars to house a prisoner, and the same prisoner only contributes 20 to 40 thousand dollars to the economic pool when out of prison, then maybe large prisons add to the health of an economy.
Kind of like a harsh welfare system. And think of the lobbyists, consultants, lawyers and other tax suckers that need jobs to pay bills and raise respectable families. Maybe we sacrifice a percentage of our population to prisons in order to sustain our freedoms and way of life.
This is just something that has been bugging me for a while. I have no idea if these numbers represent reality, maybe Dave can do the numbers to verify. It seems our collective moral conscience simply follows big money.
7 - Maurice
Mohjho,
with all due respect please read this short article by Walter Williams. Don't be offended by the title.
8 - Clavos
Well written article, Cooper.
But I would have liked to have seen some statistical data comparing the recidivism rates of the general prison releases vs the the same for rehab programs considered to be successful.
Global figures of both would be useful in judging whether these programs really work.
I also think that we're jailing too many people for offenses which shouldn't be punished with jail time.
9 - Mohjho
Good article Marice, but it really doesnt address the situation nor does my prison suggestion represent the 'broken window fallacy'. For instance, the article uses a vandal as an example. The thought that the act of vandalizing creates a positive economic benefit is perceived as absurd in the article. But what if you take the vandal and put him in prison, you take him out of the destruction business in into the prison business.
The article uses the terms of the seen and the unseen of an economic situation. The unseen in this case is the destruction from the vandal that did not happen since he was put in prison. The seen being the benefits of the prison industry and the benefits of the lobbies to politicians doling out tax money from his incarceration.
Your article in no way shows just why the act of destruction can not have a positive economic benefit, it only calls it absurd and 'lunacy'. It does not show how this is so.