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How Do We Feel about Incarceration?
I’m uneasy about incarceration and believe it raises some serious ethical concerns. As I understand it, we imprison a larger percentage of our population than any other country in the world, and probably any other society in history. I think of them as “the other 1%” because it’s close to 1% of our total population. It seems we should seriously consider why it is so necessary that we lock up such an enormous number of people.
For starters, I know some prosecutors and they seem like fair-minded, conscientious people. They do their jobs. My concerns mostly aren’t on that level, though it does seem that mandatory sentencing and three-strike laws have put some not-very-dangerous people away for some serious time. I have no strong feelings on whether prison is too harsh of a punishment or not harsh enough; it probably depends. One unhappy feature is the fact that forcible removal from your life will always be a much more severe blow to people who already have a life. People who have a lot to lose (jobs, families, homes) will feel it pretty cruelly. People whose lives were already utterly empty and miserable may even welcome the prospect of at least getting three squares a day. In general, incarceration will be a much harsher punishment for generally-good people than for generally-bad ones. That’s definitely non-ideal.
That’s also a factor on the level of deterrence. The threat of incarceration will do a lot more to deter already-functional people from committing crimes, but of course, they were much less likely to do so in any case.
Despite that, on the public safety front, I think incarceration been reasonably effective, and this is really why we continue to use it so heavily. There are always horror stories about bad people who are given a slap on the wrist and sent forth to rape and murder again. But the dramatic upswing in incarceration rates (which mostly happened in the ’80s and ’90s) did correspond to a significant reduction in crime. It turns out that locking up disturbed, vicious and dysfunctional people is an effective way to stop them from hurting others, and our society has a lot of messed-up people. That being the case, it seems unlikely that our inmate population will be significantly reduced in the near future, unless we decide we’re too broke to afford public safety.
I care about public safety, but my ethical concerns spring from a few considerations. First of all, I think we’re using incarceration as something of a bandage to cover up the other deficiencies of our society. For a number of reasons (the welfare state, broken family structures, high unemployment among the less-educated, etc.) we have a high proportion of broken and dysfunctional citizens in our society. Rather than face up to those problem children, we lock up them up so that nice people like me don’t have to deal with them.
And it’s quite true that I don’t want to deal with them, certainly not as a threat to my family’s safety. I’m not naive about how bad those people can be, nor am I suggesting that criminals don’t deserve to be punished. They do. In fact, they need to be punished, for their own good as well as society’s. But it’s also the case that our wider social failures are creating a much larger class of “likely inmates” than we really should have. Any sociologist could look at a printout of basic statistics on every newborn in the maternity ward (or, more accurately, on that child’s parents and home situation) and give you decent odds as to whether or not that kid will end up in jail. Figuring out how to lower those odds is a lot tougher than just building more prisons, so we’ve been lazy by relying on the latter.
Of course, the final problem with prisons is that they do a poor job on the rehabilitation front. We call them “correctional facilities” but our recidivism rates would suggest that they don’t do as much correction as we might hope.
It’s not so much that we don’t try at all. We offer psychiatric treatments, educational programs and vocational training. That’s all good, but in a lot of ways, incarceration is poorly suited to rehabilitating people. One of its most significant effects is to erode people’s ties with their natural communities (such as families and friends) and diminish their capacity to function as responsible individuals in a free society. In a limited number of cases, that “break” with the old life might be a good thing, if the circumstances were sufficiently awful. But prison obviously isn’t doing a great job habituating people to be thriving citizens after they come out (which, let’s remember, the overwhelming majority eventually do). The “inmate class” is itself an American demographic now, from which some people can never fully escape, no matter what the parole board might rule.
It is also probably true that within prison itself, the goal of rehabilitation takes a pretty distant second to the goal of “managing” inmate populations. It’s hard to blame anybody for this; quite obviously, ensuring safety within prisons (both for guards and other inmates) is a challenge. It’s chilling to read, for example, how liberally we use solitary confinement to keep possibly-dangerous people from posing a threat to anyone. I’m pretty open to the suggestion that extended solitary confinement is significantly crueler than capital punishment. A non-trivial number of Americans have spent years locked in isolated cells with almost no human contact. That bothers me. What we’re basically saying is that we’re uncomfortable with the state killing dangerous people, so instead we’ll just ensure that their lives are as empty and devoid of meaning as a human existence could possibly be.
On some level it’s probably fair to say that we rely on incarceration because 1) we want bad people off the streets, and 2) we’re too squeamish for any other “serious” punishment. The first reason is compelling, but speaks to larger social problems that should concern us deeply; the second reason just isn’t very good at all. And without suggesting that we should abolish prisons entirely (which would be going too far) I at least think we should ask ourselves: if locking millions of people up seems to us like an unavoidable necessity (which it hasn’t been for any other human society ever), what does that say about our civilization?
Published in General
Yours is an excellent summary of the situation. And your concerns are mine as well.
To the point about recidivism: our high recidivism rate may just be an indicator that our system is pretty good at determining who needs to be in prison in the first place.
Your general rate of Antisocial Personality Disorder in the population is about one percent; in prison it’s 20-30%. These are people without human empathy and an inability to learn moral lessons. Yes, you can cut the prison population, and you’re right about mandatory minimums and three strikes you’re out. But there is always going to be a core of people who have to be contained.
Another point you might think about is the unionization of prison guards, their political, clout, and the lobbying ability of private prison companies, and the interchange of employees between the state depts of corrections, bureau of prisons, and these companies. Are our decisions being made based on public safety, or are we maintaining this system as a jobs program? Certainly in a lot of these middle-of-nowhere prison towns, where other industries have broken down, they look an awful lot like a jobs program.
The world’s population boom started just as the U.S. was coming into existence, so it shouldn’t be terribly surprising that in raw numbers, we have more incarcerated prisoners by many multiples than past societies.
Further, the Modern United States is safest place to live, in the safest time in the world’s history. I doubt our high incarceration rate is coincidental to this situation.
Finally, just about every culture that came before us was far more willing to execute those who refused to follow basic laws such murder. After the previous discussion we all had on the death penalty, I think it’s clear that few of us are eager to dramatically increase the number of people we are executing. Exile to a foreign land is not an option as it once was, so what is the alternative to incarceration?
Aside from minor drug offences, which I don’t think should carry any prison sentence, I don’t think a high prison population is a particularly negative statement on our society.
Here, I have a problem with your argument. I really don’t believe that society creates criminals, or that poverty does either. Yes they are correlated, but I’m convinced that four hundred years of selective immigration has shaped the American character in ways–and I mean genetic ways–that explain who we are better than our social policies. Across the board, Americans are more individualistic, selfish, and risk-taking, and that has extensive good effects on our society. It also means that we’re just more criminal than other, say European countries. We always have been, and I’m convinced we always will be.
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Compounding this is the fact that we have imported from South America, and nurtured and grown here, complete crime organizations that will never assimilate–they are just here to prey upon us. We can’t seem to keep them out (of our country) so we have no choice but to keep them in (our prisons.)
Perhaps we need to reconsider corporal punishment. Its inelegant…. but is it better to lock up a kid for a year and a half for ripping off power tools from barns, or give him a solid flogging.
I dunno.
I “feel” that if we are going to have a society with a high divorce rate yielding legions of fatherless youths then we are going to have a high incarceration rate.
If the latter begins to bother people sufficiently then perhaps they will begin to correct the former. Until such a time apparently society is satisfied with the trade off.
Part of the problem is that every other alternative has been adjudged “cruel and unusual”.
So we put the criminals in hotels.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the Left just abolishes all punishment of real crime and only punishes thought crime.
Call this the “Ronald Reagan Nuclear” problem. According to reports, many defense experts were worried about Reagan, because he had expressed severe misgivings about pushing the nuclear button in the event that the Soviets had already launched an attack. The chief purpose of the nukes was to be a deterrent … but if that purpose had already been rendered moot, then at that moment, what good was killing millions?
Of course, the reasoning is somewhat circular. Nuclear weapons only have deterrence value if you’re going to use them in response to the action you’re trying to deter. But if that doesn’t deter your adversary, your response is just meaningless retaliation.
In the same way, prison’s chief value in stopping crime is deterrence; the criminal doesn’t want to go to jail. But after he’s committed the crime, sending him to jail is much more a signal to the next criminal as proof that you were serious about retaliation, which in turn solidifies the threat value.
But does prison matter for the first criminal? Rehab? Retraining? Not much … and frankly, that’s what makes prison so much to avoid; i.e., the boredom and uselessness of it.
It will never be capable of that; one of the primary reasons for this, according to criminologist Theodore Dalrymple and economist Steven Levitt is that many criminals suffer from untreatable mental retardation (see: infants born with crack addictions and FAS). The point of prisons is to remove these predators from the rest of society and protect our citizens at large. One of the reasons crime has been reduced dramatically since the 1990s is that prison sentences are stiffer and longer and that has had a huge effect upon recidivism. Unfortunately, incarcerated individuals cost taxpayers $25k a year on average but that may be a financial bargain when one compares it to the havoc they wreak when released.
The “social” failures are enhanced by the fiscal subsidization of people who are completely incapable of bearing and raising offspring in a healthy, productive manner. One of the most staggering statistics I have ever read: in addition to a 75% illegitimacy rate, urban ghetto mamas also account for 85% of the abortions performed in this country. I was initially puzzled by this but Dalrymple and Levitt have explained that having one or two children allows you to “live on the check,” but the third and fourth start to create some problems: child care becomes more difficult (grandmothers can’t handle it) and living space becomes an issue.
It is truly unbelievable the damage welfare has incurred upon our country.
Is incarceration the most effective punishment irrespective of the type or severity of the crime? Has it become a one-size-fits-all sentence? If so, should it be?
Is it cost-effective? Could it be made more so? Does it become less cost-effective as the population grows and inmate care expenses increase?
Does its effectiveness depend upon the efficiency of criminal trials and appeals?
What are the studied effects of long sentences versus short ones?
Is it harsher or more lenient to inflict pain without injury (corporeal punishment) and then release the prisoner than to lock him in a concrete cage for months or years?
What are the effective alternatives to imprisonment? On what conditions do they rely?
What would be necessary to better separate “hard” criminals from lesser offenders?
Why do we allow inmates correspondence and visitations? Should the prisoner’s ties to the outside world be strengthened or weakened?
What are the roles of prisons and how are they prioritized? Can and/or should reparations be made to the victims of prisoners? Should prisoners be forced to work?
Why do we prefer life sentences to execution? Is it only fear of erroneous convictions?
Have the values of Americans, as they relate to prisons and criminal justice, changed since the founding of our nation? How so?
I would love to see the penal systems and judicial systems revised from the ground up, beginning with questions such as these. I’m not holding my breath.
I’m pretty confident that family structure and related factors are hugely relevant. Boys without fathers in neighborhoods with few intact families are dramatically more likely to end up incarcerated than the average citizen. There could be a genetic component but I’m pretty sure it’s not just that. As far as alternatives go, I would be willing to think outside the box a little. Corporal punishment, more halfway-house type situations. And what if we could do something a little more similar to banishment, in which people were relegated to island colonies with more minimal regulation? Probably don’t stick the really violent psychopaths there (lest we recreate Lord of the Flies) but Embezzlers’ Island? Crack-users’ Cove? Worth thinking about.
I remember reading that in some areas of the world there is corporal punishment, such as caning. I remember reading that many of those people experiencing corporal punishment didn’t come back for seconds.
This contrasts with prisons where inmates are badly abused by other inmates, creating a new and continuing issue with the inmates’ perception of others, such as who might be a plausible victim whether inside or outside of prison. To be measuring people like that continually is not a good thing since people should not all be seen as marks all the time by anyone.
If a good caning would reduce recidivism, then perhaps a good caning would be a good way to change behavior for the better; and avoid the costs of imprisoning a lot of people.
My own impression is that imprisonment – while sometimes necessary – is for many of the inmates cruel and unusual punishment.
I don’t disagree with this, but how do we explain that crime has steadily been decreasing since colonial times, when there were plenty of intact families?
Seems likely that we have just gotten better at catching and incarcerating that percentage of the population that isn’t going to obey the law.
Frank Soto: #15 “Seems likely that we have just gotten better at catching and incarcerating that percentage fot he population that isn’t going to obey the law.”
I am under the impression that a lot of crime goes unpunished because no one is caught.
True, however that has been the case for all of human history. It would seems that we are better at it than most.
Practice makes perfect.
You cannot address this issue without considering the late Prof. William Stuntz, who, had he not died too young, probably would have been an occasional poster at Ricochet.
Here are a couple of references; note that he believed that prosecutors and distant authorities have too much power (there are also too many Federal crime laws). Even liberals such as Mark Kleiman have some smart ideas here. Note Michael Barone’s comment about the Irish 100 years ago- you would not have wanted to live in the Bowery of NYC around the time of WWI. But never leave Heather Mac Donald out of the discussion.
The key is that there is not one neat answer- and that is where we go wrong. The Right says “lock ’em up” and the Left says “let ’em out”. The potheads say “Eliminate crime, make drugs legal!”
Instead, let’s be smart. Stuntz, Mac Donald, and Kleiman don’t really disagree- the approaches are compatible, rightly applied.
Easy to say; nearly impossible to do: legalize drugs.
Even more: eliminate victimless crimes of all stripes.
We can’t look at this problem fairly without addressing the mental health issues. The American prison system is now the largest provider of mental health care in the world, with over half of all inmates being diagnosed with at least one mental illness.
The closing of the mental institutions and the “reforms” in involuntary commitment law in the 60s and 70s created a system in which the only way to force someone get the treatment they need is to wait until they commit a crime and incarcerate them.
Solve that problem, and the prison population will go down.
How Do We Feel about Incarceration? Mine or somebody else’s?
OK, levity aside, let’s examine one issue and find the elephant in the room.
LU: As I understand it, we imprison a larger percentage of our population than any other country in the world…
ME: There is no country on earth with a more culturally diverse population. Socialists love to look at our failures and point to the Nordic countries as paragons. Yet, as I pointed out in the “Silhouette Man” thread, those countries are 95% culturally homogeneous.
Instead of incarcerating their cultural malcontents (i.e. militant Islamists) they’ve effectively ghettoized them. (Although some of it is self-segregation, I’m sure.)
But instead of creating “no-go zones” for the general population (although some areas of Chicago are getting close) we choose to get the perps off the streets.
To put it more elegantly than I can, listen to the lament of a liberal white public defender, “These men live in a culture with no expectations, no demands, and no shame.”
Read the whole thing: Confessions of a Public Defender (HT/Small Dead Animals)
As noted at Marginal Revolution that chart does not take into account demographics and is thus rather misleading. Rates of serious violent crime for 18-21 year olds are 17 times higher than for persons of age 65 or older.
How many 65 year citizens did we have in colonial times compared to 18 year olds”
As your link states, “some” correction is needed to the result. It acknowledges the drop as real and welcome.
As I mentioned earlier, mental health is a huge problem, but I don’t agree that treatment is the answer. Too many of these prison cases are irreparable because of the biological damage incurred upon offspring affected by substance abuse in the wombs of derelict women.
I continue to abide by the old adage “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” so again, I think the best way to prevent is to stop subsidizing, but that requires a true understanding of the nature of human incentives.
Yes, maybe quite of few of the incarcerated mentally ill should remain held against their will in buildings far away from other people. But I think it would be better if those buildings were staffed by doctors and orderlies, and that they were sent there before an innocent person is murdered because a schizophrenic thought they were a demon, or a killed in a car wreck because a bipolar person was too manic to obey traffic laws, or before a mentally ill person is incarcerated for self-medicating, or any of the other reason that the mentally ill end up in prison. That seems far better for both them and us.
The percent size is no indicator of how good or bad we are as a society. It is merely an indicator of how many people commit crimes and are punished after they are convicted.
The number one priority for departments of corrections should be the safety of the inmates, rather than the comfort and freedoms of the inmates.
Strictly controlled movements and schedules, and ample humane discipline, would reduce the rates of prison rape, assault, and homicide.
If I were ever unfortunate enough to be incarcerated, I would much rather have my liberties constrained in the name of safety and order, and to know that guards will protect the inmates against the real scumbags.
Once the inmates are running the joint, it’s time to start over.
In order for exile or banishment to be effective punishments, one must have a strong sense of what citizenship is, and one must respect and carefully guard borders. Quite simply: one must be thoroughly willing to ostracize (and enforce it, cruelly if necessary). One must do so with clear, grey-eyed dispassion, and not waiver.
Open borders and the free flow of labor, therefore, are incompatible with exile as a punishment.