Prison Nation Update
Posted on Wed Apr 23, 2008 at 10:03:04 AM EST
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More essential reading from Adam Liptak -- the lead paragraph says it all:
The United States has less than 5 percent of the world’s population. But it has almost a quarter of the world’s prisoners.
The U.S. leads the world in imprisoning its population: 751 people are in prison for every 100,000 in the population. Russia comes in second, with 627 out of 100,000 behind bars. The numbers for England and Germany are 151 and 88 per 100,000, respectively. Why are the U.S. numbers so high?
Americans are locked up for crimes — from writing bad checks to using drugs — that would rarely produce prison sentences in other countries. And in particular they are kept incarcerated far longer than prisoners in other nations.
How is America's "lock 'em up" mentality perceived in the rest of the world? (more ...)
Criminologists and legal scholars in other industrialized nations say they are mystified and appalled by the number and length of American prison sentences. ... “Far from serving as a model for the world, contemporary America is viewed with horror,” James Q. Whitman, a specialist in comparative law at Yale, wrote last year in Social Research.
A good number of people involved in the American legal system feel the same way. Politicians, ever fearful of being labeled soft on crime, not so much.
As Liptak notes, many argue that long sentences equate to less crime, but evidence in support of that proposition is sketchy at best. Is there significantly less drug use now than there was 30 years ago, when politicians declared war on drugs?
Some of the pro-incarceration arguments are misleading. Consider the comments of Paul Cassell, a former federal judge:
From 1981 to 1996, according to Justice Department statistics, the risk of punishment rose in the United States and fell in England. The crime rates predictably moved in the opposite directions, falling in the United States and rising in England.“These figures,” Mr. Cassell wrote, “should give one pause before too quickly concluding that European sentences are appropriate.”
There is a difference between "risk of punishment" and "severity of punishment." The notion that potential burglar, who serves an average of 16 months if convicted in the U.S., would be more inclined to commit burglaries if the average were only 5 months, as it is in Canada, is ridiculous. Potential criminals might be deterred by the risk of being caught, but there's no evidence that they factor the potential length of sentence into their decision-making about whether to commit a crime.
Liptak notes that Canada provides an interesting comparison that suggests ever-increasing incarceration rates have little impact on crime:
“Rises and falls in Canada’s crime rate have closely paralleled America’s for 40 years,” [Michael] Tonry wrote last year. “But its imprisonment rate has remained stable.”<
It's time to reassess the costs and benefits of living in prison nation.
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