How Many Americans in Prison Is Too Many?
I'm not going to quibble with the success in public safety achieved by incarceration. But if compassionate conservatism means anything, it should mean support for research and experimentation to discover if maybe after all there is something that might work even a little better than writing off as valueless the lives of 3 million fellow-Americans, disproportionately minority and especially disproportionately black.
I wouldn't describe myself with as loaded and dated a phrase as "compassionate conservative" -- especially when it comes to prison policy, where even coolly dispassionate people on the right of center have good reason to ask themselves how to halt and reverse the political, moral, and economic corruption at the dark heart of our incarceration system. From the raw numbers to the growing strength of the prison guards' lobby to our revoltingly casual and cynical attitude toward prison rape... from the sheer costs of keeping millions in 'the system' to the way we're making it too difficult for criminals ever to escape that system and reintegrate successfully into law-abiding society... it's time to change the game -- not simply for the sake of the imprisoned, but for the sake of the rest of us, too.
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Jun '10
Re: How Many Americans in Prison Is Too Many?
Remember when prisons were known as reformatories? It was a nice sentiment that utterly failed. I think the idea still has merit, but the devil is in the details as they say. It seems to me that what's needed is a moral and ethical reformation of those incarcerated which is properly the job of clergy. Perhaps more churches should get involved by sponsoring prison ministries. This is a deeply complex issue of many facets, but religion certainly has a role to play.
May '10
Re: How Many Americans in Prison Is Too Many?
James Poulos - You are succumbing to what the late Michael Chrichton used to refer as the "wet streets causes rain" form of journalism. You have cause and effect all bass-ackwards.
America's prison system does not cause millions to be incarcerated. Half of young black men don't even finish high school, let alone go to college. Their cultural and political leaders push a sense of entitlement bereft of individual responsibility and assigns "Uncle Tom" status to anyone who achieves anything outside of their approved methods (athletic, artistic or civil rights/political advocacy).
What can any conservative, compassionate or cold, do to change the culture of black America? They have to want to get an education. They have to want to rebuild the black family so young boys don't grow up fatherless. They have to want to accept personal responsibility. It is not a gift we can make to them.
Re: How Many Americans in Prison Is Too Many?
Ah, very interesting, Paules. I hadn't thought of it, but that's an obvious arm of outreach to encourage and pursue. This is another issue that has vexed me for many years, as I am one of those people who is pro-life and anti capital punishment. Seems perfectly compatible, these views, to me, but apparently not to others. Anyway ... does anyone out there have any good ideas on this topic, James? Remember Obama's big (and successful, I might add) push for volunteerism? Repubs/Conservatives might want to try to do something along those lines. A relative of mine was very active in 12-step programs that went into prisons. The stories I heard about that were both deeply troubling and deeply uplifting. I believe wholeheartedly in rehabilitation for most* criminals. (I also worry that our criminal justice system is deeply flawed, but that's another animal.) *As a sort of off-topic thread, I wonder if anyone can convince me out of the belief that it is impossible to rehabilitate pedophiles.
May '10
Re: How Many Americans in Prison Is Too Many?
Between Chuck Colson and his Prison Fellowship Ministry born of his own incarceration, and the legal research of Prof. Bill Stuntz, the finest conservative professor at Harvard law, I am completely with James on this. Not only do we not make the necessary distinctions in the prison populations, we send in jihadist recruiters in the form of radical chaplains. Nurture and hatch our own home-grown terrorists.
This is a subject that a conservative administration should look at with a commission that has solid membership. The key is that it is done by the Right, avoiding the wacky sentimental nonsense of the touchy-feely therapy lobby. Helen Smith should be the first member appointed.
Jul '10
Re: How Many Americans in Prison Is Too Many?
Too many laws, not enough freedom. How many are incarcerated on drug charges only?
Re: How Many Americans in Prison Is Too Many?
I agree with all this, EJ. Prison does not cause incarceration. Our prison system does, however, harden the criminals it incarcerates. It perpetuates a criminal culture, a criminal economy, and a politics that has to pander to interests which lord over and profit from that culture and that economy. Our prison system perpetuates and rewards prison gangs and views rape in a way that's permissive at best and enthusiastic at worst. Prisoners who emerge from this hellish environment -- where a rotten culture is only made worse by amenities like television and weightlifting facilities -- often come out implacably opposed to civil society. Those who aren't are turned way from the jobs they need to become good citizens again. This isn't about charity. It's about American civilization.
May '10
Re: How Many Americans in Prison Is Too Many?
I see the jobs issue as key. How on earth does one get a job as a felon? I think that once someone has served their time, they should not have a record chasing them around. Should a theft by receiving charge (I am driving someone's car and it is stolen and I did not know it), haunt me for the rest of my life? Should the fact one of my friends shoplifted a mere $100 worth of goods mean I am a felon forever?
The system is messed up from top to bottom. What Americans want are violent types, the real dangerous ones, removed from society. Let the laws reflect that. For the other stuff (including drugs), we should have a different system. I am not sure what that looks like, but I know that we destroy too many lives because we end their chances to repent and do better later.
On rape, I think this is wrong, and the people running the system should be held criminally responsible when it happens. Let's see how little they care if letting it happen results in them in that situation.
Re: How Many Americans in Prison Is Too Many?
If I look in a jail and see a bookie, a prostitute and a pot smoker, I feel like I'm wasting my money on the jail because I can keep my family safe from all three on my own.
Free country? I don't feel so free when they government is taking my money to keep those three in jail.
May '10
Re: How Many Americans in Prison Is Too Many?
I mean no disrespect to the importance of this discussion or your own conviction James, but this particular tidbit looks like something I might read in the pages of the NYTimes ;-)
Agreed. I have NEVER understood how prisons, which have all the unlimited powers of a police state, could be so lawless.
For those of us that live in California, this is the real message. We have run out of money and need to make some difficult choices. One of those has got to involve reducing the obscene amount we spend keeping people locked up.
May '10
Re: How Many Americans in Prison Is Too Many?
Many good points. Culture in poor neighborhoods is a cause, though our prison system tends to make criminals worse. ~Paules is right to turn to clergy (and lay religious organizations), which have had significant success across the country in rehabilitating criminals and giving hope to prisoners. The permanence of felon penalties (not just having to list it on job applications, but also not being able to ever vote again) is another problem.
To all of this, I would add that we are wrong to use prison as a one-size-fits-all punishment. My district's Congressman Ted Poe handed down many inventive and effective sentences as a judge (2nd-to-last paragraph).
Also, Americans' abhorrence of corporal punishment is a foolish consequence of hedonism. How can anyone logically believe it is more humane to lock someone in a concrete cage for years and label them a felon for life than to physically injure someone in a way that is completely healed within weeks and lets the criminal return to life? Hell, these days, we can even hurt someone without causing physical scarring. Why, if not hedonism, does physical pain trump all (and so is off-limits) in our society?
Jun '10
Re: How Many Americans in Prison Is Too Many?
Every once in awhile you'd see this headline: "Prisons full, even with crime rates way down." If the headline doesn't make you laugh, you may have a job waiting for you in mainstream journalism.
May '10
Re: How Many Americans in Prison Is Too Many?
By the way, one reason religious rehabilitation programs are so effective in prisons is because the prisoners can continue the treatment themselves. In many prisons, the prisoners have created their own daily prayer services.
One way you can help prisoners is simply by visiting or writing letters. Many never get better because society tells them they are worthless and that they can never rejoin. Just knowing someone cares about them can make all the difference.
Many criminals come from broken families in which they never experienced unconditional love. When one does not know what it's like to be cared about in spite of behavior, it's easy to shrug off the world and live an apathetic, selfish life. I've known people raped by their own fathers and grandfathers. More than anything, these individuals need to know that love can be genuine and constant. They need to know they always matter.
Ursula, I've read that pedophiles do relapse overwhelmingly. But I wonder if their therapy focuses on changing their desires or changing their behavior. I doubt that any impulse is by nature beyond resistance.
Re: How Many Americans in Prison Is Too Many?
As I say elsewhere today, I like David Frum a lot. Don't agree with him on a lot of stuff, but he's a wonderful guy. However, this phrase leapt out: "But if compassionate conservatism means anything, it should mean support for research and experimentation..."
That's just the problem. "Compassionate conservatism" doesn't mean anything. Never did.
As far as prisons go, what we've got clearly isn't working. But maybe it's not working the same way that public schools aren't working -- we've lost the ability and the vocabulary to demand certain standards, as a society. Prisons now are, in a way, like really awful public schools, with no order, no discipline, no expectations, hidebound by a bureaucracy and work rules and faddish theories.
May '10
Re: How Many Americans in Prison Is Too Many?
Here is Prof. William Stuntz's article on young prison populations and justice under the law. The next link is one of his Weekly Standard pieces comparing Obama's (bad) approach with Lincoln's (good) methods.
http://www.harvardlawreview.org/issues/121/june08/stuntz.pdf
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/016/333vbwwm.asp
May '10
Re: How Many Americans in Prison Is Too Many?
Rob Long: As I say elsewhere today, I like David Frum a lot. Don't agree with him on a lot of stuff, but he's a wonderful guy. However, this phrase leapt out: "But if compassionate conservatism means anything, it should mean support for research and experimentation..."
That's just the problem. "Compassionate conservatism" doesn't mean anything. Never did.
As far as prisons go, what we've got clearly isn't working. But maybe it's not working the same way that public schools aren't working -- we've lost the ability and the vocabulary to demand certain standards, as a society. Prisons now are, in a way, like really awful public schools, with no order, no discipline, no expectations, hidebound by a bureaucracy and work rules and faddish theories. · Jul 14 at 9:31am
Crap. My answer to the public school system is to go phase in a totally voucher based program. I have nothing on a wholesale replacement of the Justice system. I am for Drug and Mental Health courts though.
Re: How Many Americans in Prison Is Too Many?
Overcriminalization is surely a significant contribution to the problem. We have a War on Drugs with all its para-military connotations, strict liability statutes and regulations for morally neutral, adminis-trivially defined "crimes," together with mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines. The political urge to be seen "doing something" about a social ill, over time is seriously compromising liberty in the US.
A good book on the topic is One Nation Under Arrest.
May '10
Re: How Many Americans in Prison Is Too Many?
James, I wanted to put some thought into this before I responded to your latest:
I still maintain that the culture on the outside has to change before you can do anything about the culture on the inside. You can not "reform" anyone who has been raised to believe that he is the victim, not those he committed his crime against.
As for those who can't get jobs maybe we need a system like witness protection. Promise those that exhibit good behavior new identities. They would only be flagged for professions that require an FBI background check.