Too many people locked up

Every time I turn around I hear about someone who is being locked up - in jail or in prison. We call these places "correctional institutions." Anyone who knows anything knows that there is very little "correction" going on in our prisons and jails. In fact, the chances are that when persons are imprisoned they tend to learn more ways to live inappropriately in society. One might go into prison being not such a bad person and come out with an even greater social deficit.

Consider this: The United States has the highest documented incarceration rate in the world. The U.S. incarceration rate on December 31, 2008 was 754 inmates per 100,000 U.S. residents. The USA also has the highest total documented prison and jail population in the world.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS): "In 2008, over 7.3 million people were on probation, in jail or prison, or on parole at year-end — 3.2% of all U.S. adult residents or 1 in every 31 adults."

2,304,115 were incarcerated in U.S. prisons and jails in 2008. By comparison in 2006, the incarceration rate in England and Wales was 148 persons imprisoned per 100,000 residents; the rate for Norway was 66 inmates per 100,000 and the rate in New Zealand was 186 per 100,000. In Australia in 2005, the rate was 126 prisoners per 100,000 residents.


Then consider what it is costing to "warehouse" these people. One statistic says that on average it costs $22,000 per person per year. That is probably way low.


There is another sad statistic and that has to do with racial disparity. Racial disparities in incarceration increased in the 1980s and 1990s as the number of blacks sent to prison grew at a faster rate than the number of whites. Between 1979 and 1990, the number of blacks as a percentage of all persons admitted to state and federal prisons increased from 39 to 53 percent. Although the admissions for both races, in absolute numbers, rose sharply, the increase was greatest for blacks.

I heard a speech by a judge recently and one of the things that he said was that we have to decide whether to incarcerate someone because we are mad at them, or because they are a danger to society.

I think that many are being incarcerated because we are mad at them. I think of Bernie Madoff, Tom Petters and others who have done some terrible things in taking advantage of the investments of other people. I don't know what should be done with the likes of them, but do we give them a life sentence because we are mad at them? I would not think they would be a danger to the lives of anyone.

Yes, something needs to be done to the Madoffs and the Petters' but can we find no way to establish a system in which their lives are required to be spent correcting the evils they did?

We have also a terrible social evil called racism in which persons who are part of a racial minority are often set up by the societal system to a life of despair and frustration.

Why is it that so many fewer people are imprisoned in other coountries?

Someone remarked in a group I was in that those who are jailed for DWI's would be better off if we took away their cars and driver licenses and hired a driver to get them to work or to school. Or, the idea of putting a monitoring bracelet on them might be better than jailing them. Yes, no excuse for drinking and driving. But we need to find another way.

I offer no solutions right now. Just some frustration and a hope that we can find a different way.

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