Pubdate: Wed, 3 Jun 2009
Source: Christian Science Monitor (US)
Copyright: 2009 The Christian Science Publishing Society
Contact: http://www.csmonitor.com/cgi-bin/encryptmail.pl?ID=CFF0C5E4
Website: http://www.csmonitor.com/
Author: Mark Lange
Note: Mark Lange is a consultant and former presidential speechwriter
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/prison.htm (Incarceration)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?199 (Mandatory Minimum Sentencing)

REDEEM THE PRISON GENERATION

Treating Prisoners Like Toxic Social Waste Isn't Working. Here's A Better Way.

San Francisco - They're the least popular constituency in America. 
People we'd rather forget. Last year, a record 1 in every 100 
American adults was in prison. One in every 30 men aged 20 to 34. And 
among black males in that age group? One in 9. Why?

Because America's crime and punishment policies reflect an incoherent 
mix of motives: justice, retribution, vengeance, the illusion of 
expedience, the cruel bigotry of nonexistent expectations. And absent 
decent job training, counseling, and re-entry programs, the system 
only incites violence and invites recidivism.

It's past time to reconsider our approach to prisons, for practical 
reasons - and because it seriously undermines our effectiveness as a 
society and our moral authority with other nations.

With just 5 percent of the world's population, we cage almost a 
quarter of the world's prisoners - a trend that has accelerated 
wildly since the 1970s. If the 2.3 million Americans now behind bars 
joined the 5 million on parole or probation to form a city of their 
own, you'd have a population nearly twice that of Los Angeles. 
Feeling safer yet?

You shouldn't. The last decade's legendary drop in crime may be 
providing a false sense of security. Applying the murder rate as an 
index for overall crime, William J. Stuntz of Harvard Law School 
notes that advances in emergency medicine mean that one-fourth of 
victims now survive murder attempts that would have been fatal in the 
halcyon 1950s. Adjust for that factor, he says, and "a clear picture 
emerges: Outside the South, American cities are at least several 
times more violent than they were in the mid-20th century."

With exceptions (since justice is imperfect), inmates aren't 
innocents, of course. They all had victims, directly or indirectly. 
And many are plea bargainers suspected of more serious crimes that 
couldn't be proved in court. We're certainly right to err on the side 
of safety with violent offenders, drug and human traffickers, 
rapists, anyone guilty of child molestation - where there is no basis 
for trust and no room for error.

But the 10-fold increase since 1980 of incarceration for small-time 
drug use has put half a million people, one-fifth of the total prison 
population, behind bars. While crime comes in degrees, the basic risk 
assessment we apply to every other human enterprise - from military 
interventions to medicine to making children's toys - doesn't seem to 
apply here. Instead, the crudest and broadest possible sentencing 
mandates treat many offenders as domestic terrorists, with little 
regard for the severity of the crime or the risk to society.

Being "tough" on crime should mean getting results. But more than 
two-thirds of released prisoners are rearrested within three years, 
according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Why? Because we 
recycle nonviolent offenders for minor, technical violations of 
probation or parole. Miss a parole appointment? Back to jail.

Mass imprisonment of nonviolent offenders amounts to justice by 
lock-down - and lets government off the hook for results. The only 
stakeholders this system serves are elected officials, including 
judges, who are rewarded for posing as "tough" on crime without 
solving it - and the lobbyists and interests paid to build and run prisons.

We'll pay the prison industrial complex at least $50 billion this 
year to build jails that are essentially crime schools where 
nonviolent offenders are taught violence. That's an average of 
$24,000 a year to make each inmate just go away. What are we getting 
for our money?

For starters, inhumane conditions that are unworthy of America. 
Prisons punish inmates who are addicted or mentally disabled. A 
federal court found that in California a prisoner dies a needless 
death due to inadequate medical care or malpractice every six to 
seven days. The use of solitary confinement is spreading.

And despite chronic underestimates by prison authorities, independent 
studies estimate that at least 1 in 5 inmates are threatened or 
forced into sexual contact. Of these, more than half had been raped 
at least once. Data from the US Department of Justice shows that 42 
percent of reported assaults were by prison staff, while 37 percent 
involved prisoner-on-prisoner violence. We have built Abu Ghraib next door.

How long will we put up with this vicious cycle - and this waste of 
human potential? There is a better way:

. Invest federal dollars to put more cops on high-crime streets, 
since the data show that more police coverage had a greater effect on 
reducing crime in the 1990s than more jail time. President Obama's 
proposed budget adds less than a half percent to policing; the 
much-bigger boost in the 1990s led to a massive decline in crime.

. Revise mandatory sentencing guidelines and repeal the "three 
strikes" law so that judges have discretion to apply proportionate 
punishment. That's what they're paid for. Without that discretion, 
we'll continue to jam prisons with low-level offenders whose lives 
are likely to worsen in jail. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger 
(R) and others now recognize data showing that longer sentences do 
little to reduce recidivism among nonviolent offenders.

. States should ramp up efforts to handle drug users in drug courts 
rather than the criminal courts, sentencing them to monitored 
treatment rather than jail. From Texas to New Jersey, community-based 
programs with day-reporting centers, treatment facilities, electronic 
monitoring systems and community service are generating cost-effective results.

. To break the cycle of recidivism, cities must find creative ways to 
fund responsible, safe reentry programs. San Francisco, for example, 
partnered with Goodwill to fund a "Back on Track" program limited to 
adults without weapons offenses, who receive job training and 
placement, apprenticeships in the building trades, GED preparation, 
and parenting support.

If there's one person who needs your support now to make more of this 
happen, it's Sen. James Webb (D) of Virginia. He's a decorated Marine 
and former Reagan administration Navy secretary with the courage and 
credibility to do for prison reform (a liberal cause) what Bill 
Clinton did for welfare reform (a conservative one).

Fixing this would tap the best of our traditions from both left and 
right. For conservatives, it restores the ideals of freedom and 
individual responsibility that no prison teaches, reducing the reach 
of the worst kind of welfare state. For liberals, it mitigates great 
social injustice and the disproportionate jailing of black and Latino 
Americans. And for both, it relieves state budgets of unsustainable 
expense that is damaging our standing in the world, our self-respect, 
and our safety.

Redemption is one of the oldest and best American stories. This is 
the land of the second chance.

Let's have a clearer and more constructive conversation about what 
we're trying to accomplish in our prisons: retribution, or reform. It 
doesn't take much for a boy who can't sit still and focus in class to 
wind up with a rap sheet and a lifetime defined by doing wrong.

Can we live with that? The answer depends on what you think American 
society should more closely resemble: a school, or a prison. 
- ---
MAP posted-by: Richard Lake