Pubdate: Thu, 08 Aug 2002 Source: Economist, The (UK) Copyright: 2002 The Economist Newspaper Limited Contact: http://www.economist.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/132 Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/prison.htm (Incarceration) A STIGMA THAT NEVER FADES America May Want to Rethink a System That Creates So Many Hardened Criminals At the end of August, Mike, a 31-year-old Latino from Chicago's south side, will walk away from prison a free man. Again. This is his second long prison term for dealing in drugs and stealing cars; he has been in and out of jail a dozen times. He will be released into the same community where he has found trouble so many times before; he will attempt to reunite with his five children born to several different mothers. "Nothing really scares me about leaving," says Mike. "It's just the thought of coming back." America's incarceration rate was roughly constant from 1925 to 1973, with an average of 110 people behind bars for every 100,000 residents. By 2000, however, the rate of incarceration in state and federal prisons had more than quadrupled, to 478. America has overtaken Russia as the world's most aggressive jailer. When local jails are included in the American tally, the United States locks up nearly 700 people per 100,000, compared with 102 for Canada, 132 for England and Wales, 85 for France and a paltry 48 in Japan. Roughly 2m Americans are currently behind bars, with some 4.5m on parole or on probation (the probationers are on suspended sentences). Another 3m Americans are ex-convicts who have served their sentences and are no longer under the control of the justice system. Christopher Uggen and Melissa Thompson, sociologists at the University of Minnesota, and Jeff Manza, a sociologist at Northwestern University near Chicago, have done rough calculations suggesting that some 13m Americans--7% of the adult population and nearly 12% of the men--have been found guilty of a serious crime. Not all of these have been behind bars but, legally speaking, the felony conviction is the crucial distinction. American job applicants are asked whether they have been convicted of a felony, not whether they have served time. And the figures for some parts of the population are much higher than the overall averages. Roughly one in five black men has been incarcerated at some point in his life; one in three has been convicted of a felony. How Did It Happen? The imprisonment rate is tied to the crime rate. America has a high number of violent criminals, particularly those who use guns; America's homicide rate is five to seven times higher than the rate in most industrialised countries, according to Marc Mauer of the Sentencing Project in Washington, DC. But America is also "tough on crime". For similar offences, an American convict is more likely to go to prison and to draw a longer sentence than his European peer. America has taken a particularly punitive approach to its drugs problem. The incarceration rate for drug offences was 15 inmates per 100,000 adults in 1980; by 1996, it was 148 inmates per 100,000 adults. This keenness to lock people up is matched by a complete lack of interest in them when they get out. Which they do--and faster than you might think. The average prison sentence is still only 28 months. Two-fifths of state prisoners will be released in the next 12 months. Conwanis, a 26-year-old black man with two children, will leave prison in October after serving a three-year sentence for drug and guns offences. He failed to graduate from high school, and he also failed a high-school equivalency exam in prison that would have earned him a diploma. But he is clean of drugs (with tests to prove it) and he has been working 12-hour shifts in a transitional job at a Country Kitchen restaurant. "I can't continue to come in and out of jail," he says. It would be better for everyone if he made something more of his life this time. - --- MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager