Our Glorious Penal System

Eric Wallhagen | February 29, 2008
I just stumbled across this article, and I was shocked. Extreme rates of imprisonment, and ludicrous expenditures to maintain that. Several points of discussion:

1.) Education: States spending more on incarceration and expenses than on higher education? This is the epitome of reactionary spending. Turn it around, put that same money into education, and the crime rate will (in theory) go down.

2.) Drugs: I would like to believe that reducing the penalties for non-violent drug-related offenses is a rational way to solve things, but I worry that that might promote higher drug activity, which could potentially lead to higher drop out rates, domestic violence, and other types of crimes that surround the lives of drug dealers and users.

3.) Race: Black people are getting incarcerated at approximately three times the rate that white people are? Now is this a legitimate reflection on the actual crimes committed? or is this more a perpetuation of stereotyping, and racial profiling leading to black people getting arrested and convicted at a higher rate?

4.) Ethics: This article only furthers my belief in capital punishment. I'm curious how many of the one and a half million people presently in prison are never going to set foot outside the penitentiary walls again. Considering each of them costs us roughly $50,000 dollars per year (a comfortable salary for most Americans.) Let's save ourselves some money, and put it towards health care, education, or any one of a billion other uses that are better for the law abiding people of this country than to keep someone who has already done enough damage "alive" for another 20 to 30 years. I put alive in quotation marks, because "life in prison" is really a misnomer. It's really "slow death in prison" in my opinion. Now I'm not saying lets relocate all our inmates to cemeteries. There are the issues of rehabilitation, and also what if the wrong person was convicted, which is rare, but has happened enough to take consideration of it. In my opinion, the "three strikes" laws should be re-written to "three times, and you get the needle." If someone messes up once, almost regardless of the severity, they deserve a chance to rehabilitate, and rejoin society. Also, on a single conviction there's a chance that the wrong person was convicted. If someone has committed the same crime three times, there is no way we have the wrong person all three times, and they've demonstrated they have no interest in rehabilitation. Spending potentially a million dollars plus over the rest of their "life" just hurts the rest of us. These people have already hurt us enough, let's throw them out, and invest the money in places that will improve the lives of the rest of us.

Anna Gregoline | February 29, 2008
Wow. You just advocated "throwing out" people. I'm impressed with your boldness, if nothing else.

Lori Lancaster | February 29, 2008
[hidden by request]

Eric Wallhagen | February 29, 2008
Anna - I'm impressed you consider malicious, selfish, hurtful, ignorant, and destructive creatures "people."

Lori - Yes, I agree. I was meaning more for very serious offenses... For someone caught shoplifting, for example, even three times the death penalty would be more than a little extreme. Those types of people should definitely have to give something back, in the form of labor, or whatever. The gray area becomes what is a serious offense, and what is a lesser crime? I don't think anyone would disagree that murder would be a serious crime. How about rape? Drunk driving? Child molesting? Armed Robery? Assault? Where's the line? That's certainly a question I couldn't answer. And at what point is a 50,000 dollar/year "salary" for these inmates worth more than the labor that they can give back?

I just see the amount of good that could be done for good people with this money being far more beneficial than spending it to keep some worthless bum alive. $50,000 can feed a lot of starving families in a year.

Amy Austin | February 29, 2008
Penal reform is a topic so complex that even free individuals can choose to serve a life sentence by way of scholarly dedication to the subject.

Personally, I'm excited to see that I must live in the best state in which to receive jail time! After all, if Rhode Island spends the most, then it must follow that prisoners have the best standard of living, right? Shoot... maybe it's time I considered a lateral move in my employment...

Anna Gregoline | February 29, 2008
Anna - I'm impressed you consider malicious, selfish, hurtful, ignorant, and destructive creatures "people."

Really? EVERY single person in jail for life is malicious, selfish, hurtful, ignorant and destructive? That seems simplistic. I believe that reducing someone like that to "creatures" and not people is a view that is cruel and ignores our shared humanity. What's to stop me from killing our neighbors if I decide they aren't people? Doesn't that make me cruel and malicious and selfish? And yet it sounds like I'd be justified, if I followed the proposed model.

The gray area becomes what is a serious offense, and what is a lesser crime? I don't think anyone would disagree that murder would be a serious crime. How about rape? Drunk driving? Child molesting? Armed Robery? Assault? Where's the line? That's certainly a question I couldn't answer. And at what point is a 50,000 dollar/year "salary" for these inmates worth more than the labor that they can give back?

I think if you're advocating these types of punishments, you SHOULD know where the line is for you. Who deserves this treatment? If you're going to say only the serial murderers and rapists (rape, by the way, is extremely hard to convict, and the punishments for it now are very light, not to mention a lot of murders don't get life sentences) and child molesters (actual child molestation, or everything that falls under the child molestation banner?), that actually doesn't free up a lot of space in the numbers game, so I'm not sure your plan would even be feasible.

I just see the amount of good that could be done for good people with this money being far more beneficial than spending it to keep some worthless bum alive. $50,000 can feed a lot of starving families in a year.

See, it's all relative though, and you can't know the ins and outs of everyone's heart. Perhaps someone held up a store at 16, and killed three people and now deeply regrets it and has completed their schooling, gotten psychological help, etc. and yet is in jail for life. Whereas that nice man next door who needs a government handout cause he has disability and can barely afford to feed himself and his kids? Well, he rapes little boys regularly, he's just never been convicted. And even on the smaller scale - who gets to decide who is good and who is bad and who is worth saving and who is beyond repair? "good" and "bad" are so relative and different from person to person.

Our court system isn't perfect, not by a long shot, and I absolutely agree that our prisons need an extreme overhaul, but I don't see mass murdering people in prison once a limit has been set to be the answer. If we had put all the capital we've spent on incarcerating people for minor drug offenses into rehabilitation and education for all, we would definitely see a reduction in crime and incarceration. Unfortunately, those things aren't priority in our country.

Whenever we talk in absolutes - who's good, who's bad, who deserves to be called a person, and who doesn't, we miss the shades of gray to us all. We cannot deny other people's humanity. That's the end of our own humanity.

Denise Sawicki | February 29, 2008
OK I'm going to say something a bit annoying here... Maybe I should start a new discussion any time I say anything because it seems I'm never capable of being quite on-topic. Here's another thing I'd add to Eric's list. Now I wonder if people will think me sexist or, bizarrely, racist for posing this question.

5.) Gender: Men are getting incarcerated at approximately ten times the rate that women are? Is this a legitimate reflection on the actual crimes committed? Or is this more a perpetuation of stereotyping leading to men getting arrested and convicted at a higher rate and given harsher sentences?

Maybe it's just because of the people I know but I am always hearing stories of women getting lighter sentences than men for the same crime, and stories like this one where they are releasing all women from jail solely on the basis of their gender.

I don't know if I have it in me to deal with the stress of an argument though if my comment elicits a firestorm.... Maybe a bad idea to post.

Eric Wallhagen | February 29, 2008
I never said that everyone in prison is evil, cruel, etc etc. In fact I only believe a very small minority of people serving life would actually be deserving of death. Using your examples, someone that screwed up once when he/she was say 18, (someone 16 would unlikely get much of a sentence due to being a minor) deserves a chance to make amends and rejoin society. I stated this in the original post. Maybe I conveyed that we should have a wholesale clean out, but that was not my intention. My only point is that there are people in there, that have committed repeat crimes, thus demonstrating their inability to rejoin society as a productive individual. They'll never be released, because they'd be a danger to society. At $50,000 per year out of tax payer's pockets, the select few, should be disposed of, because every one of them is tying up gross amounts of money that could go to far better uses.

Now, speaking to the concept of absolutes. I agree completely that there are many shades of gray between good and bad. I can't draw a line, because there isn't one. That would be up to the judge and jury to decide on a case by case basis.

We cannot deny other people's humanity. That's the end of our own humanity.

I'll turn this statement around on you. A serial murderer has repeatedly denied others their lives, and therefore their humanity. By your definition then, by denying others, they have voluntarily ended their own humanity, and therefore are not to be considered as such.

Denise: That's a valid point that I'd overlooked in that article. I don't have any thoughts of my own on it at this time. Perhaps later.