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