As of last Thursday, the United States, land of the free, is on record as the world’s leader in imprisonment. A report released by the Pew Center last week calculated that 2.3 million Americans are behind bars, about one percent of our adult population. Russia and the former Soviet Union countries follow, while the northern Europeans – Sweden, Finland and Denmark – imprison only around ten percent of our number. We’re also a major player in executions, killing more of our citizens per capita than such tasteful governments as those of Syria and Sudan.
All of these shocking statistics, though, must come with some qualifications (as do all shocking statistics, I find). Ranking us below regimes like China’s is difficult, due to the trouble in getting accurate information on how many people they incarcerate. And while we might “officially” execute more people than Sudan does – something we should probably stop doing, no doubt – it must be acknowledged that many of the tragic deaths in Darfur could probably be added to Sudan’s number.
Further, the sheer number isn’t enough to evaluate the “oppressiveness” of a country’s prison policies. While we might lock up the most people, it could be argued that we do so with more respect for some kind of substantive due process and civil rights than more repressive regimes do. And while we’re undoubtedly efficient at killing people who have been convicted of murder, many countries use execution as an explicit means to eliminate political enemies and minority ethnic groups.
Nonetheless, it is important that we look at our incarceration numbers with concern. It does appear, by some accounts, that our increased incarceration rate has corresponded nationally with a drop in crime rates. Yet this has more trouble translating to the state level, as many states that have thrown more of their residents in jail have had trouble keeping control over their crime rate. Some states have even experienced significant drops in crime despite having released more of their prison population than other states. This is not to suggest that we could reduce crime by freeing criminals. But it does point out that it may not be as simple as “increasing incarceration means decreasing crime.”
As primitively “fun” as it may be to lock up the sinners and whatnot, it is also incredibly expensive. Oregon spends more of its general fund on corrections than does any other state – a number that has increased 4.6 percent in the last 10 years. These numbers are rising fast across the country. Statistics suggest that, inflation adjusted, nationwide spending on prisons has more than doubled from roughly $19.4 billion (today’s dollars) in 1997 to $44.1 billion last year. Each prisoner, it is estimated, costs taxpayers about $24,000 per year (compared to $8,700 invested per student on schools).
Why so much imprisonment? In the United States, we tend to use incarceration as an indirect answer to many social problems: drug addiction, mental illness, poverty. This is not to say that the crimes of criminals are by any means “excusable” due to their circumstances. Criminals are still responsible for their personal actions and should be held accountable. But for those of us who aren’t just interested in the satisfaction of casting the first stone, and would actually like to see fewer homes broken, fewer women raped, and fewer people killed, the policies that result in widespread incarceration and their relation to crime rates must be critically examined.
Drug addicts, for example, cycle through prisons at an alarming rate. As recently as 2004, state prisons incarcerated 249,400 criminals for drug offenses, roughly 20 percent of all state prisoners. This doesn’t even include federal prison numbers, where more than half are incarcerated for drug offenses. It is estimated that every dollar invested in the treatment of drug addiction returns $4 to $7 to taxpayers in the reduction of drug-related crime. I’m not a financial expert, but if I could get a 400 to 700 percent return on my investment, I’d take it.
And putting the practicality of a Puritanical drug policy aside, a better question might be the ethicality. Drug addicts are not simply criminals in the classic sense. It doesn’t work, statistically or ethically, to “punish” them for a serious disease. Even some of the staunchest advocates of drug addiction “punishment” have ended up being users and abusers themselves, making clear that recognizing the fear of punishment for the “crime” of drug addiction seems no deterrent to “committing” drug addiction.
With so much money being spent treating the ills of society by locking them up in our prisons, and with our incarceration rate so high, it’s well past time to consider more effective, more productive and more ethical means of driving our crime rate down. It isn’t about letting criminals off easy: It’s about keeping them from hurting others in the first place.
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