Why Are Prisons Overcrowded?

-- By AlexKonik - 14 Feb 2012

We are defined by what we do. Our criminal legal system is defined by what it enforces – not the ideals that we teach in our law school criminal law courses, our college Political Science departments, or high school government classes, or our grade school Social Studies lessons. Historians will not look to our civics lessons, the teachings of our churches, or our presidents’ speeches to learn our society’s values. They will look to our practices.

It is with this understanding that we should look to our criminal justice system and answer: Do the results we see reflect our desires?

We learned in 2010 that prisons in California have become crowded to a degree that violates the Eighth Amendment to the US Constitution. How could this happen? What has caused our prisons to become so stunningly overcrowded?

1. There aren’t enough prisons
2. There are too many criminals
3. There are too many laws

If we take seriously the effects of and not only the ideology behind confining large segments of our population, we must acknowledge that the answer is “c.”

We are doing all money can by to address “a.” The number of prisons is on the rise, with the vast majority of the growth coming in the form of privately owned and operated prisons. The number of prisons under court order to limit population fell 70% from 2000 to 2005; it seems that Plata-type pleas are being heard. If “a” is the problem, a few more years of vigorous prison growth should ease our minds. In fact, the only prison metrics that fell from 2000 to 2005 are medium security and community-based public facilities.

In 2010 there were 0.6% fewer people in prison than in 2009, the first annual fall in prison population since 1972. According to the Department of Justice, this was mostly the result of a decrease in state prison admissions. It was not due to an increase in release rates, and it certainly wasn’t helped by the increase in the federal prison population. This small drop in population is certainly interesting, but focusing on it misses the larger trend that 1 in 201 American residents are in prison, with the average time served at about two years.

We recognize that some people must be in prison because they are very violent and a continual danger to their communities; or they have done something very wrong that deserves punishment; or maybe we need to appear tough on crime; or we believe that prison is the best place to reform a violent mind. Our society’s seldom questioned ideology has us believe that we must deprive some people of liberty, even if we are hesitant to do so. We must understand that it is a necessary part of society; those people are sick. Once we have convinced ourselves of this, it is best not to think of it and just fund the private companies who build jails to hold our outcasts.

This ideological belief is useful; we cannot have murders roaming the street looking to kill again. Our justifications work well to protect ourselves from violent crimes, and to a lesser extent property crimes.

But violent and property crime rates have been steadily falling since 1992 while incarceration rates have been on the rise (10% increase from 2000 to 2005).

What type of behavior is being punished by prison sentences such that 1 in 201 American residents are held captive in prison (this excludes jail and other corrections)? And once we know, what story can we tell ourselves to approve of our own actions, to approve of what we fund and not only the great ideology we would like attributed to ourselves?

Our prison population has been exploding due to penalty enhancements like three-strikes and mandatory minimum rules, a growth in criminal offenses in the U.S. Code, an increase in the rate of juveniles prosecuted as adults, and an overwhelming focus on non-violent drug offenders.

Nonviolent drug offenses make up 51% of the federal prison population and 18% of state populations, about 340,000 residents, or 1 in 900 US residents. These are the reasons that the U.S. boasts the highest incarceration rate in the world, and continues its growth as violent crime rates fall.

When we pay a tax, we do not think of the prisons we fund. But this is what we do, whether or not we can justify an ideology behind it.

-- AlexKonik - 14 Feb 2012