Following on this post from yesterday on a troubling growth sector in the burgeoning prison industry, Doug Berman points to this daunting Boston Review piece by Glenn C. Loury, the Merton P. Stoltz Professor of the Social Sciences in the Department of Economics at Brown University. Loury reviews the increasingly brutal nature of punishment in American society:
Crime rates peaked in 1992 and have dropped sharply since. Even as crime rates fell, however, imprisonment rates remained high and continued their upward march. The result, the current American prison system, is a leviathan unmatched in human history.
According to a 2005 report of the International Centre for Prison Studies in London, the United Statesówith five percent of the worldís populationóhouses 25 percent of the worldís inmates. Our incarceration rate (714 per 100,000 residents) is almost 40 percent greater than those of our nearest competitors (the Bahamas, Belarus, and Russia). Other industrial democracies, even those with significant crime problems of their own, are much less punitive: our incarceration rate is 6.2 times that of Canada, 7.8 times that of France, and 12.3 times that of Japan. We have a corrections sector that employs more Americans than the combined work forces of General Motors, Ford, and Wal-Mart, the three largest corporate employers in the country, and we are spending some $200 billion annually on law enforcement and corrections at all levels of government, a fourfold increase (in constant dollars) over the past quarter century.
Never before has a supposedly free country denied basic liberty to so many of its citizens. In December 2006, some 2.25 million persons were being held in the nearly 5,000 prisons and jails that are scattered across Americaís urban and rural landscapes. One third of inmates in state prisons are violent criminals, convicted of homicide, rape, or robbery. But the other two thirds consist mainly of property and drug offenders. Inmates are disproportionately drawn from the most disadvantaged parts of society. On average, state inmates have fewer than 11 years of schooling. They are also vastly disproportionately black and brown. [. . .]
Despite a sharp national decline in crime, American criminal justice has become crueler and less caring than it has been at any other time in our modern history. Why? [. . .]
My recitation of the brutal facts about punishment in todayís America may sound to some like a primal scream at this monstrous social machine that is grinding poor black communities to dust. And I confess that these brutal facts do at times incline me to cry out in despair. But my argument is analytical, not existential. Its principal thesis is this: we law-abiding, middle-class Americans have made decisions about social policy and incarceration, and we benefit from those decisions, and that means from a system of suffering, rooted in state violence, meted out at our request. We had choices and we decided to be more punitive. Our society ó the society we have made ó creates criminogenic conditions in our sprawling urban ghettos, and then acts out rituals of punishment against them as some awful form of human sacrifice.
This situation raises a moral problem that we cannot avoid. We cannot pretend that there are more important problems in our society, or that this circumstance is the necessary solution to other, more pressing problemsóunless we are also prepared to say that we have turned our backs on the ideal of equality for all citizens and abandoned the principles of justice. We ought to ask ourselves two questions: Just what manner of people are we Americans? And in light of this, what are our obligations to our fellow citizensóeven those who break our laws?
There is much, much more. Take the time to read the entire piece.
Thats a fascinating piece; to a large part it’s correct. I dare anyone to offer up a viable solution; none is forthcoming. But as well, I take issue with “Its principal thesis is this: we law-abiding, middle-class Americans have made decisions about social policy and incarceration, and we benefit from those decisions, and that means from a system of suffering, rooted in state violence, meted out at our request. We had choices and we decided to be more punitive. Our society ó the society we have made ó creates criminogenic conditions in our sprawling urban ghettos, and then acts out rituals of punishment against them as some awful form of human sacrifice”, we didn’t make this society, we inherited it; we didn’t maintain it, the well heeled corporations, big business, etc. maintain it. And why? Principally because life in America is all about profit and wealth generation for the elites. They can’t profit without a well educated population that feels relatively safe to live in the surrounding community and to come to work to toil to make the rich richer. As well, the “middle class” lives in ever-fear of losing their jobs, hence a new “slave” class of wage slaves who don’t have the time to worry about incarceration rates but who remain dutifully in place safe in the knowledge that they may not be gunned down in the streets. I’m suspicious that anyone who wants to lay the blame for this mess at the feet of the “white” middle class entertains as the proposed solution the levying of confiscatory taxes upon that white middle class in a grand give away. However, the Liberal Elite need to be aware, very aware, of a growing trend among white college educated 20 somethings; they want out! They’ve travelled, they’ve seen it better in places where race doesn’t trump everything and they’ve been educated to follow capital. They don’t see working for the “man” to the benefit of the U.S. as the be all and end all of life. And so, the great pool of taxable individuals is fading with the passing of the high wage boomers.
I have read the article and I find it remarkably poorly argued. The statistics seem cherry picked. For example, he compares incarceration rates to places such as the Bahamas and then gives us the statistics for Canada, France, and Japan without ever bothering to mention the actual crime rates of those countries. Curiously, England is completely ignored.
Loury then claims: ìNever before has a supposedly free country denied basic liberty to so many of its citizensî. Yet, no one is deprived of their liberty without actually, you know, committing a crime. It is not as if we are running around depriving people of liberty because we simply want to deprive them of liberty.
Loury concedes that the higher rate of incarceration has reduced the crime rate, but then throws out an unsupported estimate that only 5%-25% of the reduction is due to incarceration. Throughout his whole paper, he ignores the concept of recidivism. Loury simply asserts that the increase in both the length of sentences and surety of incarceration is punitive rather than protective. Yet, with a reduction in the crime rates, it certainly has turned out to be protective. Loury is basically reduced to muttering that the crime rate would have fallen anyway, but that is mere an assertion without justification.
In the end, Loury simply tells us that it is a bad thing to make the possibility of incarceration for a crime more certain and the length of the sentence has no bearing on the protection of society. These concepts are merely ìpunitiveî. But the only way he can do that is with a false innuendo that these practices have had little or no effect on the crime rates. This all just seems like academic, ivory tower thinking.
The bulk of his paper then descends into more allegations that this is simply a racial problem. There is little or no justification in this paper for arguing that society is going after these criminals simply because of their race. Even if that is the result, Loury simply cannot show that is the motivation. He then wanders off into more racially based arguments, but never really comes back and tells us what his solution would be. Since, he basically has spent the bulk of his paper talking about racial issues, it is hard to take him seriously about this being a prison and incarceration problem.
Houston is an excellent example of a counter argument to this whole paper. Since the advent of the Katrina refugees, the crime problem of New Orleans has migrated to Houston. What is Louryís suggestion? Psychotherapy for the gangs?
Rick
I’m always amused by commentators who won’t acknowledge the obvious: “Crime rates peaked in 1992 and have dropped sharply since. Even as crime rates fell, however, imprisonment rates remained high and continued their upward march.”
That’s right – put criminals in jail, and the crime rate goes down!
Yes, America has an incarceration rate 7.8 times that of France. I also feel also safer walking on the street or riding the subway in New York than I do in Paris.
The American justice system had spent the three decades previous to the ’90’s tolerating and accommodating the violent, rescidivist sociopaths in the population, rather than obligating them to behave themselves if they wanted to stay out of prison. I’m afraid that undoing the cultural damage caused by the “society’s fault” crowd may take another three decades.
Houston is an excellent example of a counter argument to this whole paper. Since the advent of the Katrina refugees, the crime problem of New Orleans has migrated to Houston. What is Louryís suggestion? Psychotherapy for the gangs?
No, I think Loury’s answer would be to ask why are we spending enormous amounts of limited tax revenues to incarcerate non-violent drug and gambling offenders rather than expending those resources on eradicating the more serious crime problems.
Taking your Houston reference as an example, the policy of literally packing local jails with non-violent offenders has continued without abatement while there has been no meaningful net increase in the number of police officers to meet the increased violent crime wave from the Katrina evacuees. Consequently, the allocation of resources to imprisoning large numbers of non-violent offenders has had the perverse effect of preventing Houston from taking actions to protect citizens from violent criminals.
Loury does not dispute that the incarceration of violent criminals reduces the crime rate. His question is at what cost has that decrease been achieved?
Tom,
That is a significantly different question than Lowery addressed. His focus was on punishment being punitive because of both sentencing guidelines and a greater certainty of actual incarceration if found guilty. You have just argued that we may have criminalized too many actions. While that may be a fair argument, that was never argued by Loury. It seems he specifically stayed away from that line of thinking.
Rick
Tom:
I think the most interesting part of this article was the fact that he clearly states:
ìIncarceration begets more incarceration, and incarceration also begets more crime, which in turn invites more aggressive enforcement, which then re-supplies incarceration . . . three mechanisms . . . contribute to and reinforce incarceration in neighborhoods: the declining economic fortunes of former inmates and the effects on neighborhoods where they tend to reside, resource and relationship strains on families of prisoners that weaken the familyís ability to supervise children, and voter disenfranchisement that weakens the political economy of neighborhoods.î
I have been arguing this very issue for the past few years. I have no problem incarcerating a person who has committed a serious crime, but with judges giving probation and shorter jail times to offenders due to prison overcrowding, what is that person to do when they get out? Even if the person has seriously been rehabilitated or has seen the error of his/her ways what prospect does he/she have in becoming a real productive citizen again? With a Felony conviction on his/her record the criminal background checks will disqualify him/her from several positions that would hopefully give the person the ability to lead a productive life. Even if the person finds a business that would give them a second chance, more than likely it is a place that regularly hires convicted Felons and treats them more like slaves than employees, especially if the employment is a condition of the probation or parole. If the person does not find a job, what do you think that person is going to do just to survive? More than likely he/she will commit robberies and steal in order to survive.
Now I canít speak for the French, Canadians, Russians, etc. But having had several conversations on this subject with some Brits I understand the fact that except for the most heinous crimes most people that are incarcerated and released have a chance to get a decent job again and have the opportunity to become a productive citizen. But as of recent reports, even the Brits are starting to tread down the slippery slope of throwing a person in jail and then what happens to them happens to them.
As a society we cannot afford to continue treating people as animals locking them up expecting them to rehabilitate themselves and then when they are released not giving them the prospect of a decent life. If you are one of those who believe that what happens to them happens to them, then you are sadly mistaken as to why a majority of criminals repeat their crimes. If you believe that we should lock them in prison forever, then why donít we just put them to death? That is about what our society has done anyway.
Tom:
I think the most interesting part of this article was the fact that he clearly states:
ìIncarceration begets more incarceration, and incarceration also begets more crime, which in turn invites more aggressive enforcement, which then re-supplies incarceration . . . three mechanisms . . . contribute to and reinforce incarceration in neighborhoods: the declining economic fortunes of former inmates and the effects on neighborhoods where they tend to reside, resource and relationship strains on families of prisoners that weaken the familyís ability to supervise children, and voter disenfranchisement that weakens the political economy of neighborhoods.î
I have been arguing this very issue for the past few years. I have no problem incarcerating a person who has committed a serious crime, but with judges giving probation and shorter jail times to offenders due to prison overcrowding, what is that person to do when they get out? Even if the person has seriously been rehabilitated or has seen the error of his/her ways what prospect does he/she have in becoming a real productive citizen again? With a Felony conviction on his/her record the criminal background checks will disqualify him/her from several positions that would hopefully give the person the ability to lead a productive life. Even if the person finds a business that would give them a second chance, more than likely it is a place that regularly hires convicted Felons and treats them more like slaves than employees, especially if the employment is a condition of the probation or parole. If the person does not find a job, what do you think that person is going to do just to survive? More than likely he/she will commit robberies and steal in order to survive.
Now I canít speak for the French, Canadians, Russians, etc. But having had several conversations on this subject with some Brits I understand the fact that except for the most heinous crimes most people that are incarcerated and released have a chance to get a decent job again and have the opportunity to become a productive citizen. But as of recent reports, even the Brits are starting to tread down the slippery slope of throwing a person in jail and then what happens to them happens to them.
As a society we cannot afford to continue treating people as animals locking them up expecting them to rehabilitate themselves and then when they are released not giving them the prospect of a decent life. If you are one of those who believe that what happens to them happens to them, then you are sadly mistaken as to why a majority of criminals repeat their crimes. If you believe that we should lock them in prison forever, then why donít we just put them to death? That is about what our society has done anyway.