The United States jails more people than any other country in the world

[Warph]

In 2008, the United States sailed past a human rights milestone. For the first time in its history, more than one in every 100 of its adult citizens was behind bars. This appalling statistic ought to be etched on every politician's agenda. Instead, prison reform is hardly mentioned when voters voice their priorities.

Here are some of the unsettling figures: 

The US jails more people than any other country in the world – about 2.3 million, in a population of 310 million. China says that it holds 1.5 million and Russian only 890,000. The US has 5 percent of the world's population and 25 percent of the world's prison population.

Explosive growth in the number of people on probation or parole means that there are more than 7.3 million people in the US correction system -- 1 in every 31 adults. When these figures are broken down, they become even more disturbing. Only 1 in 89 women is in the correctional system, but 1 in 18 men; only 1 white in 45, but 1 in 27 Hispanics and 1 in 11 blacks.

The US is truly exceptional in its rates of incarceration. According to figures compiled by the International Center for Prison Studies at King's College London, it has 753 people in prison or jail per 100,000 of population. Russia is a distant second, with 627 prisoners for every 100,000 people. New Zealand's figure is 199, England's 151, Australia's 134, Canada's 117, German's 88 and Japan 63. The median figure for all nations is about 125.

Why does the United States, which prides itself on being a beacon of liberty for the world's oppressed, jail so many people? Criminologists cite a number of reasons: a history of racial discrimination, privileging of individual responsibility, sentencing laws, politicised judges, a high incidence of violent crime, the influence of a hellfire and brimstone brand of Christianity, the political sway of incorporated privatised prisons, and so on. The problem is deeply rooted in American culture.

But in recent times it has become much worse. An explosion in incarceration began in the 1970s. Between 1925 to 1975, there were only about 110 people in prison per 100,000 people. But in the 1970s, a "get tough on crime" attitude took hold. Sentences lengthened, a "three strikes, you're out" put offenders behind bars for life and convictions for drug trafficking sky-rocketed. In 1980, there were 41,000 drug offenders in prison; today there are more than 500,000.

Back in the 19th century the US prison system was regarded as the most humane in the world. The French sociologist Alexis de Tocqueville came to the US to study its exemplary prison system. His long report was full of admiration: "The American penitentiary system must be regarded as a new victory of mind over matter in the great and constant task of man." But now, says sociologist James Q. Whitman, "far from serving as a model for the world, contemporary America is widely viewed with horror".

A proposal by a Democrat Senator from Virginia, James Webb, to establish a National Criminal Justice Commission is slowly making headway in Congress. Senator Webb has become a rarity amongst politicians – a champion of prison reform. He has set down an ambitious agenda: studying the causes of "this incredible increase in incarceration", comparing the US experience with other countries, reform of prison management, and bringing down the cost of prisons.

Cost is becoming an increasing urgent issue. In the current recession, state governments are committed to prison expenditure and find that they have to trim higher education and early childhood education, which experts say helps to prevent crime. According to a report from the Pew Center on the States, between 1987 and 2007, state expenditure on higher education rose by 21 percent while expenditure on correction rose 127 per cent.

Is this a complex issue? Yes. Can it be ignored? Not in a civilised country. In Senator Webb's words: "We have an incarceration rate in the United States, the world's greatest democracy, that is five times as high as the average incarceration rate of the rest of the world. There are only two possibilities here: either we have the most evil people on earth living in the United States; or we are doing something dramatically wrong in terms of how we approach the issue of criminal justice."

Prison reform is clearly one of the biggest social justice issues confronting the US – and it is hardly on the radar of most voters. Black scholar Glenn Loury, of Brown University, laments that: "speaking of the country as a whole, there is no broadly based demand for reform, no sense of moral outrage, no anguished self-criticism, no public reflection in the face of this massive, collective failure".

Is part of the explanation, perhaps, that 5.3 million people who have done time in jail are officially disenfranchised – 1 in 41 adults? All but two states ban prisoner voting; 35 states prohibit people on parole from voting, and 30 prohibit people on probation from voting. Two states deny the right to vote to all persons with felony convictions, even after they have completed their sentences The upshot of this is that the expansion of the prison population over the past 30 years may even be having a significant effect upon politics. The Sentencing Project, a lobby group, estimates that 13 percent of black men are disenfranchised, a rate seven times the national average.

The erosion of human dignity which this represents is characteristic of other institutional characteristics of the American penal system. Most prominent is the death penalty, which is applied quite unequally. Of 1,217 prisoners executed since 1976, 460 of them died in Texas. But there are many others. One extraordinary feature, made possible by the internet, is the ability to view profiles of current prisoners, with photos and their criminal record. If you go to the "offender search" feature of the Florida Department of Corrections, for instance, you can search the state's prisons by crime or even by race.

Another is the fact that many cash-strapped jails actually charge inmates for food, phones, laundry services and medical care. Even liberal Massachusetts is considering charging inmates $5 per day to subsidise the cost of their confinement. This could drive people back to crime to pay their debts.

Whitman contends that one of the roots of the problem is that American law is procedural rather than dignitarian: "substantive norms of human dignity play a piddling role in law compared to their central place in European jurisprudence. For the US, key values always turn on the idea of "due process". The US also places a greater emphasis on punishment as a purpose of sentencing -- hence the broad acceptance of capital punishment, as well as other quirks, like inviting the families of murder victims to witness executions.

A hundred years ago, Winston Churchill, then a junior minister in charge of prisons, gave a stirring speech in the British Parliament, one which was surprisingly idealistic for such a hard-nosed political figure. He concluded that "The mood and temper of the public in regard to the treatment of crime and criminals is one of the most unfailing tests of the civilisation of any country."

At the moment, the United States is failing the test. Perhaps the Webb Commission will help to restore sanity and human dignity to its broken prison system.

[sixdogsmom]

Good post, how do you propose this be corrected?

[srkruzich]

Do yall really think it will ever be fixed?  Right now its a big money maker to keep people in prison. 

[larryJ]

The United States has one of the fairest justice systems in the world.  Part of the problem is that the justice system is overwhelmed giving all offenders the chance to be innocent until proven guilty.  There are not enough courts and judges and prisons to hold these people until they have their day in court. 

Other countries just take them out and shoot them.

Larryj

[srkruzich]

The United States has one of the fairest justice systems in the world.  Part of the problem is that the justice system is overwhelmed giving all offenders the chance to be innocent until proven guilty.  There are not enough courts and judges and prisons to hold these people until they have their day in court. 

Other countries just take them out and shoot them.

Larryj

Larry i don't disagree, but you know what, i have seen what the justice system is like.  its pretty bad.   Give you an Excellent example, someone i know was a meth addict.  Now they are clean.  Now i know it is their responsibility for their actions.  But...  When they were caught they went before a judge that was being investigated for killing her own husband.  The local DA is involved in meth production, and no one gives a crap in the judicial system.   The sherriff and his deputies, will arrest anyone in competition with their buddies, and every so often will do a sweep to generate more income for the county by rounding up users.

What they do is prosecute the users and give them probation.  Then they send them out with huge fines.  NO help to get off the meth, just a income generater.  Now along with these HUGE fines they are also required to shell out over 100 dollars a month monitoring fee.  This is a fee imposed on them when they go into the office to report.  And the corporations that run the probation service, (no its no longer approved justice dept handling), impose a service charge along with the 100 a month fee, alnog with the fine payment, sometimes totalling over 500 a month.   

Now heres the kicker, These folks don't have job opportunities in the area, and are restricted from leaving the county.  So what are they supposed to do to pay for the fines?  AHA your right, they end up dealing the drugs produced by the govt approved meth manufacturers.  IF they don't produce enough money, then said judge heaps more fines upon them when they are brought in again and then subsequently released on more probation and more time. 

This is going on all the time in every state and it is a big big problem.  What they have done is institute slavery again utilizing the judicial power of the courts. 

One of the biggest reason i have no use for cops, lawyers or judges.

You might say its not happening here, but when you open your eyes and look you can see it everywhere

[twirldoggy]

It is a fact that the evil doers such as pedophiles, anti socials and sociopaths will seek to be in full time situations where they can act with impunity.  Repugnant examples:  pedophiles who work in schools, churches and other institutions that directly work with children.  Boy Scouts and Girl scouts groups that are run by pedophiles.   Anti social nurses who push their patients over to death.  Drug dealers and even worse who work in positions such as prosecutors, sheriff, police officers.  Frequently they are liked members of the job site and local community.  People don't want to accept that they are in fact antisocial.  The whistle blowers are reviled and put down. 

[srkruzich]

It is a fact that the evil doers such as pedophiles, anti socials and sociopaths will seek to be in full time situations where they can act with impunity.  Repugnant examples:  pedophiles who work in schools, churches and other institutions that directly work with children.  Boy Scouts and Girl scouts groups that are run by pedophiles.   Anti social nurses who push their patients over to death.  Drug dealers and even worse who work in positions such as prosecutors, sheriff, police officers.  Frequently they are liked members of the job site and local community.  People don't want to accept that they are in fact antisocial.  The whistle blowers are reviled and put down. 

Personally i am sick of it all.   Quite honestly i really do long for the days of the 60's and 70's law enforcement where they used to kick the crap out of a criminal before they locked them up.  We lived in a much better society back then.  Even if a smart assed teenager gets his teeth knocked out for smarting off to the officer.  At least back then they did have more integrity than the ones in there now.

used to be they would catch a child molester, and they would be found stapled to what we used to call lighter knott.   That is the very center of a rotted pine log, that is full of pine rosin and very flammable.  what they used to do with them is to staple their skin to it, then give em a rusty razor blade and a pack of matches.  It is their choice, cut or burn.