What are the Causes Behind Prison Overcrowding?

So, we see that Prison Overcrowding is a problem and that we should care about it, but why exactly is it happening? What is it in America that is causing prisons to swell to such massive sizes? Well, back in the 1970s, crime was a big concern, partly because Richard Nixon made it a political issue, a national political issue, for the first time ever (pg. 127 2008 Mays and Ruddell). This caused Congress to act and “get tough on crime”, which started our rather steady incline of increasing incarceration numbers year after year, regardless of crime rate. Around 1970 our imprisonment rate was comparable to most European nations, but now our imprisonment rate per capita is seven times higher than that of other first world industrialized nations.

Mays and Ruddell note that there are a large number of drug offenders behind bars, perhaps pointing to them as one of the causes for such high numbers. However doing the math, they show that even if we subtracted all the drug offenders from the system, we’d still have 1, 624, 864 prisoners, or an incarceration rate of 548 per capita, which is still five times greater than most other nations, with Russia as a notable exception. So, the War on Drugs did have an impact, pushing us from around 548 to 770.

Byron Williams suggests a multitude of sources are to blame for Prison Overcrowding, focusing his efforts on California’s prisons. Williams states “Our failure to confront issues of drug addiction, mental health, and immigration makes the prison system simultaneously the last resort and the first choice.” Williams also mentions California’s aging prison population noting that “California’s prisoners are aging and taxpayers are paying for their medical care”, imploring us to ask ourselves why we are keeping the elderly locked up. All of these are good points and bring us closer to realizing how our prisons became overcrowded in the first place.

As for the Elderly and why we have them locked up, we need only look at various tough on crime legislation such as Three Strikes and You’re Out, mandatory minimum sentences, and truth in sentencing policies. Three Strikes and You’re Out is an amendment to the California constitution which can get an offender life without parole if they commit one violent felony, along with two other felonies. The fallacy in the law is the latter part of it, which can lead us to cases like Ewing v. California, where a man was convicted of his third felony and sentenced to life in prison after stealing three golf clubs worth an estimated $1200 or so. Is that really accomplishing the intended result of getting violent offenders off the streets? Yes, he did commit a violent felony, but Three Strikes makes no mention of how long ago that felony had to occur. Consider that someone could get sentenced to life for committing a violent felony in their youth, than another felony somewhere along the way, and later in their 40’s get sentenced to life without parole for something that would barely get them a year in jail. Were three strike legislation limited to three violent offenses, I would see it as more agreeable, perhaps still excessive, but understandable nonetheless. Unfortunately this is not the case.

However, we also need to consider that these laws were mostly enacted after we had already seen a large growth in the prison population, so while these specific laws I’ve talked about are certainly helping the cause of prison growth, they are not the only reason we got to where we are today. The 1970s and 1980s both saw a rapid growth of prisons, but were mostly before the time of mandatory minimums, truth in sentencing, and three strikes laws. This does not mean that there was not legislation enacted to stiffen sentences for offenders or bills that were passed that appeared on the surface as tough on crime. We went from indeterminate sentencing before the 1970s, to mostly determinant sentencing. This means that judges were stripped of most decision making when it came to sentencing. They were no longer capable of making and altering decisions based on mitigating factors such as first offense or strong connections to the community.

Ultimately, it has been the turn toward the Crime Control model, which believes in incapacitation and retribution more so than it does rehabilitation that has led to a lot of the underlying causes of prison overcrowding. We do not make enough attempts to better our prisoners, to prepare them for life outside prison after a long stay, to rehabilitate them. If we are to solve this problem, we have to get the recidivism rate lower. Prison can not simply go on as a revolving door for so many Americans, they deserve better.

Sources: Mays, G. & Ruddell, R. (2008) Making Sense of Criminal Justice: Policies and Practices. New York: Oxford University Press.

Williams, B. (2007, July) California Prison Crisis Product of Long Term Neglect. Retrieved February 23rd, 2010, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/byron-williams/california-prison-crisis-_b_58267.html

Why should you care?

Why should the American people care that prisons are overcrowded? Isn't the answer just to build more prisons? Well, I'm going to attempt to explain to you why prison overcrowding is an epidemic and why America Should take a hard look at sentencing and examining why we have overcrowded prisons. This problem will get worse unless we deal with the underlying causes. Why are our prisons overcrowded? Do they all deserve to serve the time they’ve been sentenced too?

America has the largest prison population in the world. In 2005 we had approximately 2.2 million individuals incarcerated. This is a growing trend. We have seen 33 consecutive years of continuous growth in our prison population (Sentencing Project). The United States’ incarceration rate per 100,000 is also the highest, with 737 per 100,000. Keep in mind that the United States has seen a decline in crime since the 1990s, yet our prison population continues to rise. In fact, we've seen a rise of over 50% in our prison population since 1991 despite this falling crime rate. So the answer as to why more are incarcerated now than ever before is not because more people are simply committing more crimes. It is far more likely that there is not one answer, but a complex series of answers that would explain why we are in our current predicament.



California's prison population in particular is in bad shape. The state has been ordered to reduce its prison population by 40,000 by August 2011. California has released 6,500 prisoners. This was estimated at saving the state $100 million in a single year. Think about that for a second; $100 million in a single year for 6500 prisoners. California currently has 150,000 prisoners (NYTimes). That's an average of about $15,000 per prisoner per year. Our prison population is costing us $2, 250, 000, 000. That’s 2.25 Billion dollars per year. That is a massive amount of money that could be better spent on something like education or infrastructure or to keep California from becoming the first failed state.

Prison overcrowding also puts pressure and added and cost on communities. Many people of color are stuck in what seems to be a cycle of prison, with 1/8 African American's age 25-29 being in prison (Sentencing Project). That is shockingly high and we need to address that this could be affecting the next generation of kids by depriving them of male role models. There are thousands out there going without a father due to the high incarceration rate.. I am not advocating we simply release criminals to go be dads, but it doesn't mean we can't take a look at this issue and see if there's something we could do to help fix it.

For the record, I am by no means advocating we release all prisoners or make ourselves unsafe in the release of convicts. We do, however, need to take a serious look and decide if locking up all these people for the length of time they are locked up for is actually necessary. There are improvements to be made without compromising our safety. For example, do we really need to keep some of our aging convicts in Prison? Are 60 or 70 year olds really presenting a danger to the community if they are released?

There you have it, not only is it costing us money to house so many prisoners and make sure they receive adequate care (and no, simply denying them health care is not a way to solve this problem), but it is also having a large effect on different communities throughout America who grow up without male role models. This is a problem that is 20 years or more in the making and we are long past needing to find ways to fix it.


Sources:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/05/us/05calif.html
http://www.sentencingproject.org/doc/publications/inc_newfigures.pdf
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/byron-williams/california-prison-crisis-_b_58267.html