How to address a 'jailhouse nation'

Perhaps most of us are familiar with the statistics: with less than 5 percent of the world’s population, the United States holds roughly a quarter of its prisoners: more than 2.3 million people, including 1.6 million in state and federal prisons and more than 700,000 in local jails and immigration pens. Further damning stats: the U.S. incarceration rate has risen sevenfold since the 1970s and is now five times Britain’s, nine times Germany’s and 14 times Japan’s. At any time, one in 35 American adults is in prison, on parole or on probation. One-third of African-American men can expect to be locked up at some point, and one in nine black children has a parent behind bars.

We are, according to The Economist (June 20-26), a “jailhouse nation.” While many bewail this situation, this article asks how to make America’s penal system less punitive and more effective.

 

 

The first step is understanding the extent of the problem and clarifying what it does or does not mean. Some like to say that the decline in America’s crime rate in the last several decades is due to the increase in incarceration.

While it may be true that “in the 1980s expanding prisons … did help slow the rise of crime by taking thugs off the street,” the article says, “mass incarceration has long since become counter-productive.”

For example, the article points out, the number of prisoners over the age of 50 has more than tripled since 1994. “Many of these people are no longer dangerous, but locking up the elderly—and treating their ailments—costs taxpayers a fortune, typically $68,000 per inmate each year.” In addition, the longer prisoners are inside, the harder it is for them to reintegrate into society.

Prison has had a huge effect on working-class families, especially black ones. “Among African Americans aged 25-54, there are only 83 free men for every 100 women,” the article says. “Men behind bars cannot support their offspring, and when they are released, many states make it preposterously hard for them to find jobs.”

In my volunteer work with people in poverty, I’ve seen that having a felony on one’s record makes it almost impossible to get a job. Employers won’t even consider a person’s application, no matter what the circumstances of the crime or that they have served time for it.

So what does this article recommend?

1. End the war on drugs. In fact, the drug war is ebbing: in 1997, drug offenders were 27 percent of all prisoners; now they are around 20 percent.

2. Amend or repeal rules that prevent judges from judging each case on its merits. State and federal “mandatory minimum” and “three strikes” rules compel courts to lock up even relatively minor repeat offenders for most of their lives.

3. Reduce the prison population. “There are roughly 165,000 murderers and 160,000 rapists in U.S. prisons. If America released every single prisoner who has not been convicted of killing or raping someone, its incarceration rate would still be higher than Germany’s.” But it would be a start.

4. Don’t lock up people for so long. Some 49,000 Americans are serving life without the possibility of ever being released. (In England and Wales the number is 55.) “A 50-year sentence does not deter five times as much as a 10-year sentence (though it does cost over five times as much).” Money wasted on long sentences is not available to spend on catching criminals in the first place, which is a more effective deterrent.

There are reforms happening, but more is needed. The article concludes: “There is no single fix for America’s prisons, but there are 2.3 million reasons to try.” We all can add our voice to needed reform.