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US Prison Nation

news.yahoo.com — (Associated Press) WASHINGTON - A record 7 million people — or one in every 32 American adults — were behind bars, on probation or on parole by the end of last year, according to the Justice Department. Of those, 2.2 million were in prison or jail, an increase of 2.7 percent over the previous year, according to a report released Wednesday.

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  • fancypantscz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Aren’t prison sentences supposed to deter crime? An ever growing prison population would suggest that any deterrent purpose of our current justice system is a complete failure.

    However, I don’t see a problem with our justice system. It does a decent job of figuring out who really is a criminal and placing those elements of society in prison. The problem arises when we expect our justice system to somehow deter crime.

    I would argue that the retributive and punishing nature of our current justice system works at cross purposes to deterrence.

    Retribution contributes to cycles of revenge and hate.

    The punishment of large percentages of certain communities and subcultures create a culture of criminality that encourages criminal behavior. Look at the fact that one in 13 black men aged 25-29 are currently incarcerated and then examine the popular black culture. It is not hard to see evidence of the acceptance, normalization and even glorification of cycles of crime and incarceration in the art and entertainment of this subset of Americans.

    The idea that the more bad people we have in jail the better life is for those who do not commit crime is fundamentally flawed. It is naive to think that by simply confining people behind bars that somehow they cease to influence (in mostly negatively ways) their networks of family and friends residing beyond prison walls and that these networks are somehow separate from law abiding people.

    We need to reassess the role justice plays in America and refocus the goal of incarceration away from retribution and punishment and towards rehabilitation. With a vastly improved prison system incarceration could lead to a net positive effect on the larger society. Only then would we simultaneously decrease crime and our prison populations.
  • littlebylittle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Get rid of most MJ Laws. Until we have the balls to stop putting MJ "offenders" in Prison, all else is just BS. I'm not too worried. In 20 years, it will have been done.

    Sad about the Human Suffering between now and then.

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