Imprisonment Woes

Individual sovereignty is perhaps the most central principle underlying the founding of our nation. Yet a recent report by the Pew Center on the States shows that over 1 in 100 American adults have lost their freedom and are incarcerated, making the United States the world leader in per capita imprisonment. Defenders of this startling practice maintain that if one in 100 Americans are imprisoned, it is because one in 100 Americans has committed a criminal act that merits incarceration. It seems implausible that this enormous economic and social burden is justified.

Although some argue that high rates of incarceration have led to lower crime rates, comparison with other industrialized nations reveals the fallacy of their argument. High rates of imprisonment have had little effect on the homicide rate in the United States, which remains four times higher than in Western Europe, where preventative measures such as gun control have more effectively reduced violent crime. Rates of other crimes of victimization in the United States are in the mid range of similarly developed nations.

What, then, could explain such a large prison population? Approximately 31 percent of state prison sentences are for simple possession or trafficking of drugs. This is far too many. While the legalization of all drugs—suggested by some as a solution to high rates of abuse and imprisonment—has too many unforeseeable social consequences to be implementable, the justice system must change its attitude towards drug sentencing.

There is little justification for imprisonment on charges related to marijuana, as legalized and strictly regulated marijuana laws in the Netherlands have shown to reduce both rates of drug use and imprisonment. Sentencing structures for other drug offenses should be reconsidered—a 60 percent recidivism rate among inmates shows that imprisonment is ineffective at reducing crime and drug use.

Drug abuse underlies a large proportion of crime, as 29 percent of inmates reported using drugs at the time of their offenses, and 80 percent were users during their lifetimes. These inmates, and society at large, would benefit from a justice system that is not only punitive but that addresses the substratal problems that breed violent crime. While violent offenders undoubtedly should be prohibited from harming other members of society, wasting taxpayer money to house drug offenders at the average annual rate of $23,876 per inmate siphons money from education, employment, and rehabilitation program budgets that target the causes of drug addiction and crime. This is especially true within crime-ridden inner cities.

Inner-city dwellers and minorities are disproportionately victimized by the fundamentally flawed corrections system. The rate of incarceration for adult black males is one in 15—the rate for black men aged 20-34 is a staggering one in nine. Average prison sentences for crack cocaine, 85 percent of which are given to blacks, are 52 percent longer than sentences for powder cocaine, a facet of the structural racism that is exacerbating the inequality of the prison population.

The recent U.S. Supreme court ruling allowing judges to sidestep mandatory minimum drug sentences is a welcome development, but the justice system must undergo further changes to attenuate the rate of imprisonment in our nation. The prison system should be a device for isolating the most violent and dangerous criminals from society, not a replacement for pragmatic solutions of education and rehabilitation for reducing crime.