Discussion Rebuttal
Introduction
The United States has at any time over 2.2 million members of its society behind bars in either state or federal prisons. This number has grown out of control and when compared to the rest of the world, we incarcerate more of our population than any other country. Surprisingly, we are well ahead of Russia and not that far ahead of China. Cullen et al (2017) stated that “the United States accounts for only 5% of the world’s population and yet houses over 22% of the 10 million people incarcerated in the world.” (p 118) You would think that such totalitarian countries like Russia and China would surely incarcerate more than the United States known as the land of the free, home of the brave.
Why We Love Our Prisons
The United States loves placing people in prison. Many countries of the world do not use their prison system in the same manner as does the United States. The general feeling in the United States is that if we lock up those committing crime, they can no longer be a threat to society. What is wrong with this system is that those that commit crime do it for a variety of reasons. We do not take into consideration the “what’s” and “whys” of people committing crime, we assume they are just bad and need to be locked way to protect society from further harm. The problem with this policy is that beyond incapacitation, nothing is done to reduce recidivism. Cullen et al (2017) found that two thirds of those released from California prisons went on to commit crimes and return to prison within two years.
Why is it that we think that mass incarceration is the answer to reducing crime? There is a sense that we reduce crime if we lock up an offender and keep them from committing future crimes. Cullen et al, (2017) found that to measure the effectiveness in reducing crime through incarceration there needs to be a comparison made to how much crime would be prevented if we spent the same amount of money on intervention programs. (p 116) A considered benefit to this mass incarceration approach might be that there is a reduction in crime rates when offenders are locked away and no longer able to commit crimes. But what is the actual cost to benefits ratio?
In the United States our approach to placing our citizens in prisons is very different than that of the rest of the world. Many crimes that will get you a harsh, long, and severe prison sentence here in the United States would not land you in prison in many western countries. An example of this type of offenses is drug related crimes. There are others that the United States will place an offender behind bars and for a long time compared to other countries. According to Cullen et al (2017) “the United States was at the top of the list of countries that incarcerate offenders for the most serious crimes. The United States was found to be the most punitive country for all the crime types.” (p 117)
When policies are driven by politics and not by science and “what works” and “what does not work,” any system can be a failure. In the United States much of our criminal justice policies, and to the point of this discussion, correctional policies are based on what politicians promise to get reelected. They all promise a “get tough” on crime approach because that is what most Americans desire. Who does not want their communities safer for their children? These political promises lead to legislation and new laws and sentencing guidelines. Tougher sentencing means longer prison terms, and this leads to more prisoners lock up in our prisons. During the 1970’s and the 1990’s federal legislative efforts designed to pursue the get tough on crime efforts and promote tougher sentencing offered incentive grant programs for prison construction and expansions to states that adopted such policies. (Neal, 2016)
Unfortunately, these policies that come from policies based on political promises only serve to fill our prison system beyond capacity because that is what we want in America. (Cullen et al, 2017)
Impact on Our Country
This policy or practice of mass incapacitation has come at a very high cost to our country. The more money that must be spent on prisons and taking care of those inmates, the less money there is to spend on other worth while programs. In California, the estimated cost of the prison system is over nine billion a year, or approximately $34,000 per year on each inmate. Cullen et al (2017) stated that “California spent more on prisons and inmates than it did on higher education. That the state spent 10% of its annual budget on prison cost and just 7% on education.” (p. 114) If the United States continues to spend such a high amount of its annual budget on incarceration, the affects of that money not being spent somewhere else in our communities will have a long-lasting effect.
Conclusion
What are the choices that the United States must make for future of corrections and reducing crime? Do we continue to warehouse criminals in mass quantities and build more prisons? Or do we find alternative ways to send our resources to intervene and solve the causes of criminal offending. Other countries have reduced crime and found better answers to these issues than we have. The definition of insanity is repeating the same actions over and over and expecting a different result. It is time for the United States to wake up and realize that we are insane in the way we are dealing with crime.
World Christian View
Crime and criminals have always been a part of this world. We can read many stories in the bible about how Jesus spent time not only with those that followed him, but also with those that did not. Jesus ate with tax collectors and thieves. As our society tries to find answers to the problem of crime and criminals, we must understand that as Christians we need to find a way to keep society safe and still treat our fellow man with dignity and respect and bring them back to Jesus. Jesus wants all of us to treat each other as we would treat him if he were before us. “And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brother, you did it to me.’ (Mathew 25:40) Prisons might be an answer to some forms of crime and criminals, but it is not “the” answer to it all.
References
Cullen F., Jonson C. (2017), Correctional Theory; Context and Consequences Sage Publishing
Neal D., Armin R. (2016), The Prison Boom and Sentencing The journal of legal studies