Discussion Chapter 18: How would you respond to the argument that the American prison is becoming a place where the urban poor receive better housing, health care, education, and job training than they do on the outside?
Discussion Chapter 19: What are the most important steps to take to reduce racial differences in punishments? Why?
Requirements:
- B. Return and respond to two of your peer’s/instructor’s posts before Day 7 at 11:59 p.m. You cannot see your classmate’s posts until you have made your own. Peer responses require engagement of the subject matter. A simple I agree with you will not be excepted.
18)
OVER THE PAST THREE DECADES, INCARCERATION PRACTICES IN THE UNITED STATES HAVE EXPANDED CONSIDERABLY. Compared with other countries, America’s incarceration rate is extremely high. In fact, if incarceration were an Olympic sport, the United States would win the silver medal (698 per 100,000 population). The gold medal would go to Seychelles (799 per 100,000 population), a small island in the Indian Ocean off the coast of East Africa. The bronze medalist would be St. Kitts and Nevis (607 per 100,000 population). By comparison, the incarceration rate (per 100,000 population) of England and Wales is 148; Australia, 133; China, 119; Canada, 106; France, 95; Ireland, 80; Germany, 78; Netherlands, 69; and Japan, 48. The incarceration rate worldwide is 144 per 100,000 population.1 The incarceration rate in the United States has increased dramatically since 1980, even though the crime rate has been declining. Regarding the massive prison population in the United States, the Pew Charitable Trusts commented that after the massive increase in the U.S. prison population over the last three decades, “you’d think the nation would finally have run out of lawbreakers to put behind bars.”2 Recent estimates suggest that the growth in the incarceration rate may have peaked and that imprisonment is now on the decline. But the recent dip in the incarceration rate is not being attributed to a lack of available convicted individuals to incarcerate. Rather, ongoing economic concerns explain part of the decline. Prisons are expensive. States spend nearly $50 billion each year on corrections, three-quarters of which goes toward operating correctional institutions.3 States around the country have employed a variety of strategies to reduce correctional budgets. There are two ways to substantially reduce the cost of incarceration: send fewer people to prison and have people who are sent to prison stay for shorter periods. For example, many states are closing or consolidating prisons. In Texas, lawmakers have proposed closing four state facilities. Doing so will save the state an estimated $25 million per year.4 Legislation intended to reduce overcrowding was the approach taken in West Virginia. The new law gives judges the ability to impose 60-day “shock incarcerations” to people on parole who commit technical violations. In the past, these individuals were returned to prison to serve out the remainder of their sentence. Officials in West Virginia are encouraged by the steady reduction in their prison population.5 It is far too soon to tell whether incarceration rates will return to pre-1990 levels or whether rates are simply in a temporary holding pattern and will once again increase in the future. In this chapter we explore explanations for the rise in incarceration since 1980We also consider ways of dealing with prison crowding and examine its impact on the system. Finally, we evaluate the argument that incarceration is cost-effective for society. Explaining Prison Population Trends From 1930 through 1980, the incarceration rate in the United States remained fairly stable. During this period the rate of sentenced individuals in federal and state facilities fluctuated from a low of 93 per 100,000 population in 1972 to a high of 139 in 1980. However, the average rate of incarceration increased dramatically in the 1980s (200 per 100,000) and 1990s (389 per 100,000). This growth trend continued into the twenty-first century. The average incarceration rate in the early 2000s was nearly 490 per 100,000. More recentlyThis tremendous growth has dramatically changed the demographic and offense composition of the prison population. African Americans and Hispanics now make up a large percentage of residents in U.S. correctional facilities. These individuals are also more likely to be middle-aged, and more women are being incarcerated. Since 1980, the percentage of people serving time for violent offenses has declined, and the number incarcerated for drug violations has increased. The size of the prison population differs between states. As Figure 18.2 shows, the four states with the highest incarceration rates (Louisiana, Oklahoma, Alabama, and Mississippi) are in the South. Many argue that southern attitudes toward crime and punishment account for that region’s high prison population. The penal codes in many southern states provide for long sentences, and people incarcerated there spend extended periods in institutions. It is also the region with the highest African American population, which is incarcerated in numbers far greater than its proportion to the overall population. The skyrocketing prison population has resulted in crowding in some prisons. The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics has reported that the federal prison system and prisons in 18 states are operating above capacity.7 In many states new prison residents have been crowded into already bulging institutions, with some residing in corridors and basements. The Bureau of Justice Statistics also found that 81,195 state and federal clients were being held in local jails until prison space became available. In the South the percentage of people intended for state prison but temporarily held in jail is much higher than the country as a whole—for example, 49.3 percent in Louisiana, 44.9 percent in Kentucky, and 29.9 percent in Tennessee.8 Judges in several states have ordered that prison residents be removed from jails in which crowding violates the Constitution. Why this increase in the number of incarcerated people? As we have noted, there seems to be little relationship between the crime rate and the incarceration rate. If this isthe case, what factors explain the growth? Here we explore five reasons often cited for the increase: (1) increased arrests and morelikely incarceration, (2) tougher sentencing, (3) prison construction, (4) the war on drugs, and (5) state and local politics. None of these reasons should be viewed as a single explanation. Rather, each contributes to the equation, with some having a greater impact than others. Increased Arrests and More Likely Incarceration Some analysts argue that the billions of dollars spent by federal, state, and local governments on the crime problem are paying off. When the crime rate began to rise dramatically in the mid-1960s, the incarceration rate was proportionally low. Crime rates for serious offenses have now declined, but the estimated number of arrests for some offenses has increased dramatically. For example, in 1970 an estimated 322,300 adults were arrested for drug violations. The number of arrests in this category has increased to approximately 1.49 million.9 Over the past decade, arrest rates for violent crimes have fallen.10 A large portion of the prison population is made up of individuals who are being returned to prison for new crimes or parole violations (see Chapter 16). About 71 percent of those entering state prisons do so directly as a result of a new court commitment, and nearly 27 percent of admissions are people who returned to prison for violating the conditions of their parole.11 Prison admissions because of parole violations are a bigger problem in some states than in others. For example, parole violators make up a large percentage of individuals admitted to prison in Washington (65.7 percent) but a relatively small percentage in Virginia (0.8 percent).12 Overall, the percentage of new court commitments has flattened while the number of people on parole returned to prison has increased greatly.13 Tougher Sentencing Some observers think that a hardening of public attitudes toward those convicted of crimes is reflected in longer sentences, in a smaller proportion of those convicted being granted probation, and in fewer people being released at the time of their first parole hearing. As discussed in Chapter 4, in the past three decades the states and the federal government have passed laws that increase sentences for most crimes. Those convicted of violent offenses serve the longest sentences. In comparison, individuals convicted of property and drug offenses serve less time.14 New mandatory-sentencing laws greatly limit the discretion of judges with regard to the length of sentences for certain crimes. The shift to determinate sentences, truth-in-sentencing laws, and a drop in release rates have contributed to the higher prison population. However, recall the difference between the sentence given by the judge and the actual time served in prison. In the past, with indeterminate sentences, most incarcerated individuals went before the parole board when they had served the minimum sentence minus jail time and good time, and most were released on their first attempt to gain parolePrison Construction The increased rate of incarceration may be related to the creation of additional space in the nation’s prisons and the economic impact of the construction boom. Public attitudes in favor of more-punitive sentencing policies have influenced legislators to approve building more prisons. Between 1990 and 2005, more than 500 prisons were built across the country, increasing the number of facilities nationwide by 42 percent.15 A study by the Urban Institute found that Texas, the state with the greatest number of prisons (137), increased the number of its facilities by more than 700 percent between 1979 and 2000.16 Even with the decline in the crime rate during the past decade and tougher economic times in many states, new prison construction continues. According to organizational theorists, available public resources such as hospitals and schools are used to their fullest capacity. Prisons are no exception. When prison space is limited, judges reserve incarceration for only the most violent individuals. However, additional prisons may present a variation of the “Field of Dreams” scenario—build them and they will come. Research supports this view. William Spelman analyzed state prison populations from 1977 to 2005. He found that state spending on prison construction was a salient predictor of subsequent prison population size.17 Creation of additional prison space may thus increase the incarceration rate. For health and safety reasons, crowded conditions in existing facilities cannot be tolerated. Many states attempted to build their way out of this problem because the public seemed to favor harsher sentencing policies, which would require more prison space. With many states holding large budget surpluses during the booming economy of the 1990s, legislatures were willing to advance the huge sums required for prison expansion. Pressures from contractors, buildingmaterial providers, and correctional officer unions also spurred the expansion. Yet many states that tried to build their way out of their crowded facilities found that as soon as a new prison came on line, it was quickly filled. The War on Drugs Crusades against the use of drugs have recurred in U.S. politics since the late 1800s. The latest manifestation began in 1982, when President Ronald Reagan declared another “war on drugs” and asked Congress to set aside more money for drug enforcement personnel and for prison space. This came at a time when the country was scared by the advent of crack cocaine, which ravaged many communities and resulted in an increased murder rate. In 1987 Congress imposed stiff mandatory minimum sentences for federal drug law violations, laws that many states copied. The “war” continued during succeeding administrations, with each president urging Congress to appropriate billions for an all-out law enforcement campaign against drugs. The war on drugs has succeeded on one front by packing the nation’s prisons with those convicted of drug offenses. The number of people sentenced to prison for drug crimes has increased steadily. In 1980 only 6 percent of individuals in state prison had been convicted of a drug offense; today, the percentage is higher in both state prisons (15.7 percent) and federal prisons (49.5 percent).18 Some scholars believe that the war on drugs has accomplished very little. Alfred Blumstein argues that illegal drug markets are resilient to the mass incarceration of drug users and dealers. As one group Politics and community values seem to vary in the amount of emphasis that they place on imprisonment as a solution to crime. Incarceration Rate Violent Crime RateState and Local Politics Incarceration rates vary among the regions and states, but why do states with similar characteristics differ in their use of prisons? Can it be that local political factors influence correctional policies? One might think that there would be an association among the states between crime rates and incarceration rates—the more crime, the more people in prison. Yet as discussed earlier, some states with high crime rates do not have correspondingly high incarceration rates. Even when states have similar socioeconomic and demographic characteristics—poverty, unemployment, racial composition, drug arrests—variations in incarceration rates often exist and remain difficult to explain. For example, Utah and Idaho have similar social characteristics and crime rates, yet the incarceration rate in Idaho (436 per 100,000 population) is more than double the rate found in Utah (215 per 100,000).20 One can find other examples where neighboring states have similar violent crime rates and very different incarceration rates (see Table 18.1). In recent years scholars have shown that the location of prisons makes a significant economic and political impact in some states. A good example of this relationship is found in the state of New York, which in the 1970s enacted tough sentencing laws such as 15 years to life for some nonviolent, first-time drug offenses. Over the next 20 years, the state’s prison population increased dramatically. Most of the incarcerated individuals ended up in new prisons located in the northern, rural, economically impoverished region of the state. One study notes that twothirds of these prison residents are from New York City, while 91 percent of the imprisoned individuals are held in upstate counties.21 The rise in prison populations brought jobs to the region and legislative districts whose economy was tied to “prison payrolls and whose politics was dominated by the union that represents corrections officers.”22 The U.S. Bureau of the Census counts incarcerated individuals as “residents” of the community where the facility is located. Because state and federal aid, such as Medicaid, foster care, and social service block grants, is distributed on the basis of population, this has meant that aid for the distressed inner cities from which the people come is diverted to the sparsely populated counties where their former residents are incarcerated. Probably the most extensive research on the link between politics and incarceration has been done by David Greenberg and Valerie West. They analyzed variations in the levels of incarceration among the 50 states over a 20-year period. A basic assumption of their study was that incarceration is a response to the volume of crime, but only in part. They expected that a state’s responses to crime would also be influenced by its ability to finance incarcerationby its political culture, and by levels of public anxiety and fear. Here are the main findings of this research: 1. States with high violent crime rates have higher levels of imprisonment. 2. States with higher revenues have higher prison populations. 3. States with higher unemployment and where there is a higher percentage of African Americans in the population have higher prison populations. 4. States with more-generous welfare benefits have lower prison populations. 5. States with more political conservatives have not only higher incarceration rates, but their rates also grew more rapidly than did the rates of states with fewer conservatives. 6. Political incentives for an expansive prison policy transcended Democratic and Republican affiliations.23 Examining states’ criminal justice policies makes us aware of the role that politics plays in the incarceration formula. As we have seen, many factors, not just the crime rate, have influenced the incarceration experiment. Public Policy Trends It is difficult to point to one factor as the main cause of the rapid increase in the incarceration rate during the past several decades. As we have seen, several plausible hypotheses exist. But researchers recognize that the size of the prison population is not driven by the amount of crime; it is driven by public policy. Public policies are forged in the political arena. Politicians are aware that the public is concerned about crime; the public also has little sympathy for people who break the law. In a democracy, political leaders respond to public demands to deal with problems such as crime. The public has supported greater use of incarceration. Appeasing demand for increased punishments may not effectively reduce crime rates, but it can alleviate political pressure to “do something” (see “Do the Right Thing”). For decades now, lawmakers have passed legislation designed to incarcerate a greater number of adjudicated individuals for longer periods. This objective has been accomplished. Increased law enforcement and prosecution spending, mandatorysentencing laws, truth-in-sentencing requirements, enhanced drug law enforcement, and tough parole policies have provided the two necessary conditions for sustained prison population growth—an increase in the number of prison admissions and an increase in the average length of stay. Have these policies succeeded? Proponents argue that the decline in crime has come about because large numbers of convicted individuals are in prison. But critics argue that mass imprisonment has had little impact on the crime rate, is extremely expensive, and has harmed society. Caught in the throes of fiscal crisis, many states have done an about-face in terms of correctional policy and have either proposed or enacted various cost-cutting reforms. Many lawmakers who formerly advocated get-tough laws have come to the realization that mass imprisonment is something that their state simply DO THE RIGHT THING While sitting at his desk, Representative Leon Donohue taps his fountain pen on a stack of papers. Staring out the window, he contemplates an upcoming vote on House Bill 65. If enacted into law, the bill would require adults who possessed 50 grams of cocaine to serve at least 10 years in prison. The most recent opinion poll showed that 52 percent of the public supports the bill. Donohue has remained undecided and has said very little in the press about the matter. The congressman believes that cocaine is a threat to public health and is associated with many social problems, such as gun violence, family disruption, and addiction. But he is also concerned about whether the state can afford to implement a new mandatory-minimum sentencing law. The Department of Corrections has already sustained a substantial budget reduction during the last legislative session, and more cuts are expected in the near future. This new law will likely contribute to an already large prison population that is unaffordable. Donohue considered voting in support of the bill if it lacked the governor’s support. However, the governor has yet to indicate whether she would sign the bill into law or veto it. There is quick succession of knocks at the door as it opens and the congressman’s chief of staff enters. “OK, Congressman, we need to get you to the floor. Voting on Bill 65 has started.” “I’m ready, Sam. Let’s do it.” WRITING ASSIGNMENT: First, how you would vote on House Bill 65 if you were in Donohue’s position? Next, discuss whether the representative should let the results from the recent public opinion poll influence his decision. Should concerns about the state’s budget take precedence over “tough on crime” laws? Finally, if the bill becomes law, where should the state look for additional money to fund its prisons?Criminologist James Austin has provided a list of reforms that he believes will reduce correctional populations. According to Austin, these reforms are neither radical nor difficult to implement. Many states have already enacted such reforms: 1. Reduce the length of time that sentenced individuals spend in prison. 2. Restrict the use of imprisonment for parole violators, and reduce the length of time spent in prison for those who are sent back. 3. Restrict the use of imprisonment for probation violators, and reduce the length of stay for those who are incarcerated. 4. Greatly restrict the use of imprisonment for persons convicted of victimless crimes. 5. Reduce the length of time that people spend on probation. 6. Reduce the length of time that released individuals spend on parole. 7. Reduce probation revocation rates. 8. Reduce parole revocation rates. 9. Make greater use of intermediate sanctions, such as fines, community service, and restitution, in lieu of probation.can no longer afford. Along with others, these officials have begun looking for ways to reduce the size of the prison population in a way that will not jeopardize public safety.24 In addition to greater use of intermediate sanctions and nonprison alternatives to help curb the number of new prison admissions, states have enacted reforms to shorten the average length of stay in prison. “Earned time” policies are one type of reform that has some momentum. These policies reduce the amount of time that people spend in prison when they participate in specific programs. This reform is different from “good time” credits that award individuals for rule-compliant behavior. Earned time is most frequently tied to educational programs but is also associated with work assignments, rehabilitative programs, and meritorious service. Supporters of earned time policies argue that this approach creates an incentive structure that encourages those who are incarcerated to work, participate in programming, and prepare for their eventual release. In many states, however, violent individuals with long sentences are not eligible for earned time credits.25 See “Reducing America’s Correctional Populations” for information on other policies that could reduce the size of prison populations and help relieve budgetary pressures. Although the falling crime rate, state budget deficits, and a weakened economy may result in fewer incarcerated Americans, the U.S. prison population is very large when compared to the rest of the developed world. Further, not all state corrections systems are taking measures to lower incarceration, so growth still continues in some states (see “For Critical Thinking”). Dealing with Overcrowded Prisons Currently, 18 state prison systems operate above capacity. The federal system operates at nearly 20 percent above capacity.26 Crowded prisons may violate constitutional standards, decrease access to programs and services, create major administrative problems, and perhaps even increase violeneDepartments of corrections are usually unable to control the flow of people sent to them by the courts. When the number of individuals exceeds prison capacity, administrators face an immediate need for space. To deal with their overcrowded prisons, states adopt a variety of strategies. A mixture of these strategies may best suit the needs of a particular corrections system. There are four possible approaches that states may take to address overcrowding.27 Each approach has economic, social, and political costs, and each entails a different amount of time for implementation and impact. For example, the null strategy could be implemented immediately, whereas intermediate sanctions would require several years of development to begin to reduce prison crowding. New construction would take the longest, often seven or eight years. The Null Strategy Proponents of the null strategy say that nothing should be done, that prisons should be allowed to become increasingly congested. Of course, this may be the most politically acceptable approach in the short run; taxpayers need not pay for new construction. In the long run, however, the resulting crowding may cause prisons to become more disorderly as staff members become demoralized and incarcerated individuals take control. Ultimately, the courts may declare conditions in the facilities unconstitutional and take over their administration. Opponents of incarceration may support this approach on philosophical grounds because they fear that other strategies will only result in greater numbers being imprisoned. They may reason as well that with the prisons filled, those convicted of nonviolent offenses will be placed on probation or diverted from the system. The Construction Strategy The approach that usually comes to mind when legislators or correctional officials confront prison crowding is to expand the size and number of facilities. But given contemporary state budgets and the recent unwillingness of voters in some states to authorize bond issues for new prisons, the construction strategy may not be as feasible as it seems. Legislatures typically estimate new prison construction costs at about $75,000 per cell. For a hypothetical 500-bed medium-security facility, this would total around $31 million. However, the true cost of constructing and operating a comparable prison only begins with that base construction cost. Additional costs such as architects’ fees, furnishings, and site preparation raise the figure. As noted previously, opponents of new construction believe that given the nature of bureaucratic organizations, prison cells will always be filled. Many states that have adopted the construction strategy have found this to be true. Intermediate Sanctions Prisons are a costly and scarce resource. Some observers argue that rather than merely building more institutions, corrections should reserve prison space for those convicted of violent offenses who have not been deterred by prior punishments. As discussed in Chapter 9, intermediate sanctions have been advocated as one way to punish in the community those individuals who require some kind of punishment and supervision short of incarceration. Recall that intermediate sanctions include community service, restitution, fines, boot camp, home confinement, and intensiveprobation supervision. Judges can fashion sentences using combinations of these punishments to fit the needs of the client and the severity of the offense. When applied to individuals convicted of nonserious offenses, intermediate sanctions enjoy a high level of public support (see Figure 18.3). Some critics contend that even if such alternatives were fully incorporated, they would affect only people convicted of first-time, marginal offenses; they are not appropriate for recidivists if crime control is a goal. They also assert that the availability of intermediate sanctions merely widens the net of social control, with the result that more citizens come under correctional supervision. Prison Population Reduction Correctional officials normally have little or no control over the intake of newly convicted individuals. Few state legislatures require that sentencing-guideline framers consider prison capacity when stipulating incarceration lengths. The main ways that correctional officials can reduce prison populations include various “backdoor strategies,” such as parole, work release, and good time, to get people out of prison before the end of their term in order to free up space for newcomers. The utility of such strategies is reduced if legislatures mandate that higher portions of sentences be served and reduce good-time allocations. The Impact of Prison Crowding Prison crowding directly affects the ability of correctional officials to do their work because it decreases the proportion of incarcerated individuals in programs, increases the potential for violence, and greatly strains staff morale. The makeup of the prison population in terms of age, race, and criminal record also affects how institutions are operated. Because prison space is an expensive resource, we can expect—in the absence of expansion—that corrections will be working increasingly with the most-serious individuals, as those convicted of less-violent crimes are placed on probation for lack of cells. As discussed both here and in Chapter 10, the overwhelming number of people in prison are recidivists or have been convicted of a violent crime. However, a large percentage of the admissions to prison each year are parole violators—individuals released from prison who have violated the conditions of their parole.Alfred Blumstein and Allen Beck studied court recommitment to prison for new offenses among individuals released in four states: California, New York, Illinois, and Florida. The percentage returned to prison for new offenses varied greatly. California had a recommitment rate of 67 percent, New York and Illinois each had a rate of 52 percent, and Florida had a rate of 47 percent. The researchers found that 80 percent of California’s recommitments stemmed from technical violations, compared with 56 percent in New York, 21 percent in Florida, and 18 percent in Illinois. The four states had similar percentages of people on parole recommitted for new crimes. Some would argue that California’s extensive use of technical violations is justified as a crime-prevention measure. However, the researchers argue that compared with the other states, nothing clearly indicates that this strategy makes a meaningful difference in the criminal activity of released individuals.28 As a direct consequence of the higher incarceration rate, courts have cited several states for maintaining prisons so crowded that they violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishments. Courts have imposed population ceilings, specified the number of individuals per cell, set the minimum floor space per person, and ordered the removal of individuals from overcrowded prisons and jails. Does crowding cause ill health, misconduct, violent behavior, and recidivism among incarcerated individuals? In measuring the influence of crowding, we must look further than the number of individuals housed in a prison designed for a certain capacity. The architecture of the building, the use of either cells or dormitories, inmate characteristics, management practices, and the past experiences of prison residents with regard to social density all impinge on the problem. At the least, most researchers would agree on the following points. First, individuals housed in large, open-bay dormitories are more likely to visit clinics and to have high blood pressure than are individuals in other housing arrangements (single-bunked cells, doublebunked cells, small dormitories, or large, partitioned dormitories). Second, prisons that contain dormitories have somewhat higher assault rates than do other prisons. Finally, prisons with populations that allow less than 60 square feet per person tend to have high assault rates.29 Does Incarceration Pay? As noted at the outset of this chapter, the United States ranks very high in the developed world for incarcerating its citizens. Many critics argue that individuals whose crimes do not warrant the severe deprivation of liberty are being sent to prison. They also argue that the policy debate does not consider many of the unintended consequences of imprisonment such as disrupted families and disintegrated communities. Supporters of incarceration believe that current policies have succeeded in lowering the crime rate. They say that most incarcerated individuals have committed serious crimes, often with violence, and that they are recidivists. Not to incarcerate recidivists, they claim, is costly to society. Is incarceration misused in the United States? One explanation of why we incarcerate more people is simply that we have more crime than other countries. Studies generally indicate that the United States, on average, experiences higher rates of violent crime.30 Despite a long reform tradition critical of incarceration, proponents of the current penal policies argue that prisons have value. A major debate among researchers and policy makers concerns the cost-effectiveness of imprisonment. John DiIulio and Anne Piehl estimated the cost-effectiveness of imprisonment in Wisconsin and concluded that imprisoning a typical felony-convicted person costs Wisconsin $14,000 per year but that letting him or her roam the streets harming victims costs society $28,000 per year.31 Also employing a cost–benefit analysis, Thomas Marvell concluded that locking up each additional state prison resident prevented about 21 crimes per year. Comparing national costs of incarceration to benefits of crimes prevented, he concluded that the current size of the prison population was about right from an economic viewpoint.32 In light of the reduction in crime over the past decade, are current incarceration policies effective? Some have suggested that the United States has reached a tipping point of “diminishing returns” from its investment in prisons. James Q. Wilson argued that as states expanded incarceration, they imprisoned individuals with shorter and less serious criminal records.33 Otherssupport this contention, arguing that while the increase in imprisonment in the 1980s and 1990s may have prevented crime, a further increase over today’s levels is unlikely to do the same.34 As a Pew Charitable Trusts study notes, “Increasing the proportion of convicted criminals sent to prison, like lengthening time served beyond some point, has produced diminishing marginal returns in crime reduction.” This does not mean that incarceration will have no impact—“just that the benefits to public safety of each additional prisoner consistently decreases.”35 Is the incarceration of all convicted individuals cost-effective? Studies in various states raise questions about the social costs of incarcerating “drug-only offenders.” These are individuals whose only adult crimes have been drug crimes. Each of these states imprisons a substantial portion of people in this category, but studies have shown that for each one incarcerated, a replacement enters the market. Critics argue that the incarceration of large numbers of such people is not an efficient use of valuable prison space. Some of the cells could be better reserved for high-risk individuals convicted of property and violent offenses.36 Again, many people point to the decline in the crime rate since the mid-1990s as an indication that mass incarceration has worked. Is this true? As with other social policy questions, we have no clear-cut answer. Researchers point to many social and economic factors as contributing to the drop in crime, such as shifts in law enforcement, economic expansion, decline in the use of crack cocaine, and demographic changes, in addition to expanded use of incarceration.37 Bruce Western’s analysis of the effects of imprisonment on crime rates shows that mass incarceration helped reduce crime and violence but that the contribution was not large. He estimates that the increase in state prison populations from 725,000 to 1.2 million individuals reduced the rate of serious crime 2 to 5 percent. This decline was purchased for $53 billion in incarceration costs.38 (See “Careers in Corrections” for more on the job of a research analyst.) Another question comes out of this debate: Should incarceration policies be judged solely by comparing prison costs with crime reduction? Critics point to the hidden costs to society that incarceration brings. These include families being left without a wage earner and caretaker, the loss of young men to their communities, the redirection of government resources from societal needs such as health care and education, and the damage done to children by the absence of a parent. Some have also argued that removing young men from their families and friends weakens the networks of informal social control in their communities. Dina Rose and Todd Clear note that incarceration rates are highest in highcrime neighborhoods. Unfortunately, these are the very places where single-parent families live, children are left unsupervised, and property is devoid of guardianship. Mass incarceration may have the unintended consequence of further disrupting informal social controls that help curb crime, especially in socially disorganized areas.39 A recent study by Jillian Turanovic, Nancy Rodriguez, and Travis Pratt, which interviewed the caregivers of children whose parents were incarcerated, found support for Rose and Clear’s argument. Specifically, the researchers found that a majority of their sample reported that they had experienced financial problems, increased emotional turmoil, strained interpersonal relationships, and difficulty controlling children whose parents were incarcerated. Interestingly, however, Turanovic and associates also found that a notinsignificant portion of their sample reported that parental incarceration had either been positive or resulted in no change at all. For example, some caregivers noted that incarcerating the parents resulted in a more stable and
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SOMETHING REMARKABLE IS HAPPENING TO THE NATION’S INCARCERATION RATES for African Americans— these rates are dropping faster than rates for whites or Hispanics.1 Or, to be more precise, the number of black people in prison actually declined between the years 2000 and 2010, while the numbers of whites and Hispanics increased. This is particularly true for black women in prison, who are now outnumbered by white women. Not that there is imprisonment equality: African Americans are still locked up at rates much higher than other racial groups. Black women are almost three times more likely to end up in prison than white women; black men are almost 6.5 times more likely to be in prison than white men. But the trends cited above mean that the size of the discrepancy is declining: The gap in the rate of imprisonment shrank by 16 percent for black men and an astonishing 53 percent for black women. What is going on? It is hard to know for sure. Nationally, as we said in Chapter 1, the generation-long growth in imprisonment seems to be waning. To the extent that this reduction in the use of prison reflects changes in policies of enforcing drug laws, it may mean fewer African Americans in prison because so much of the “drug war” was waged in predominantly black neighborhoods and affected those residents most significantly. In fact, the much larger reduction in imprisonment for black women is consistent with the idea of a slowdown in the war on drugs because so many women go to prison for drug-related crimes. For most of the 40-year expansion of the prison system, race was one of the core issues in the size of the growth, but since 2010, that does not seem to be the case.2 Does this mean the penal system has become racially fair? That conclusion is not warranted. As we shall see in this chapter, there are many ways in which race remains an important issue in the corrections system. If we are to have a justice system without racial bias, a lot of work must still be doneThere are more African American men in prison than in college. Indeed, African American men born in the 1960s are more likely to go to prison than to finish a four-year degree or serve in the military.3 About one-fifth of African Americans in prison are serving a life sentence.4 Some have argued that the U.S. prison system is designed as a way to imprison African American men,5 though not everyone agrees. Yet nobody can dispute the disparate impact that the prison system has had on young men of color. The social consequences of this disparity must trouble us all. Race and ethnicity are pervasive themes in contemporary U.S. culture. In no area are these concepts more significant than in punishment. For one thing, people of color are far more likely than whites to be caught up in the criminal justice system. Today, African American adults are incarcerated in U.S. prisons and jails at a rate of 1,745 per 100,000 and Hispanic adults at a rate of 820—compared to white adults at a rate of 478.6 African Americans make up almost 35 percent of the prison population but only about 13 percent of all U.S. residents. African Americans are seven times more likely than whites to have been incarcerated at some time in a state or federal prison. When all punishments—probation, intermediate sanctions, incarceration, and parole— are taken into account, more than one in three African American men in their twenties are currently under correctional supervision. These patterns begin early. Among African Americans below age 18, referrals to juvenile court occur at more than twice the rate for whites.7 People under 18 who are sentenced to confinement are 20 percent more likely to be African American than not.8 In America’s inner cities, the figures that emerge are astounding. In cities such as Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, Maryland, more than half of all African American adults under 40 are under some form of correctional control. Figures such as these have alarming implications. For many Americans—especially young men of color and their families—the penal system is not an abstraction but a reality of everyday life (this issue is discussed at greater length in Chapter 22). Those who do not report to correctional authorities probably have a brother, an uncle, or a father who does. Under these circumstances, the law represents a continuum of state presence, from the police on the streets to the courthouse and jail downtown to the prison out in the countryside. This pervasiveness of corrections in the lives of people of color has evolved gradually, fueled by the 1980s war on drugs and the enormous growth of our penal system. Since 1973, the overall correctional population has increased by more than 500 percent and has disproportionately affected Americans of color and their families. But sheer numbers do not tell the full story. In the everyday thinking of many Americans, crime—particularly violent crime—is a racial phenomenon. When white Americans imagine burglars, robbers, or rapists, they often think of African American men, and they think fearfully of African American men in general. When George Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin in Florida in 2012, he claimed self-defense—even though Martin was unarmed. To some, the mere presence of a black man wearing a hoodie, walking in a white neighborhood at night, is grounds for suspicion. As we will see, people have differing views about where these images come from and how accurate they are. Certainly, that so many white Americans feel this way is itself an important social fact. It means that ordinary African American or Hispanic men walking down the street, minding their own business, will frequently find themselves confronted with suspicious looks or fearful, even hostile, glares from fellow citizens. This kind of racism, as well as the multiple instances of police brutality and murders of black Americans, has been a major impetus for the Black Lives Matter movement.9 How many whites have ever crossed the street in order to avoid walking near a group of young men of color who somehow seemed menacing? Where did the notion to fear young men of color come from? In this chapter we explore how issues about race and ethnicity affect the corrections system. The implications are often complex. Further, strong feelings abound concerning race, class, crime, and punishment; often, the debate produces more heat than light. We begin by discussing the concepts of race and ethnicity. We then focus on the indisputable fact that African Americans and Hispanics are subjected to the criminal justice system at considerably higher rates than are other ethnic and racial groups. Two questions arise: What are the causes of this disparity? What are its main effects? Copyright 2019 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapterThe Concepts of Race and Ethnicity The United States is a multiracial, multiethnic society. From colonial times, through the period of slave trade, and then through the mass migrations from all over the world, ours has been one of the most diverse societies ever to exist. By culture and by law, we are all Americans, but we are not a melting pot. Rather, we are a mosaic, with each new immigrant group seeking its place in the broader community. Where once immigrants felt great pressure to become assimilated into the dominant Euro-American society and to sacrifice their own cultural identity, the trend since the end of World War II has been to honor the many cultures that the nation comprises. Although we can point to many immigrant groups who have successfully moved up the socioeconomic ladder and into the middle class, we know that many members of both old and new groups have not. Native Americans, who lived here long before the arrival of Europeans, were decimated by disease and war, and then finally herded to reservations, where many have lived precariously. African Americans, most of whose ancestors were brought to this country as slaves, have been held back by racial discrimination and economic exploitation. Newer groups such as Hispanics and Asians have also faced discrimination, have had to work at low-wage jobs, and have been otherwise restricted in their efforts to achieve. Race and ethnicity are complex concepts. Race is usually assumed to be a biological concept that divides humankind into categories related to skin color and other physical features. However, social scientists also look at the ways in which groups define themselves and are defined by others. Today, the concept of race is controversial: That so many Americans have interracial backgrounds makes accepting a purely biological approach difficult. As the American Association of Physical Anthropologists has put it, “Pure races, in the sense of genetically homogenous populations, do not exist in the human species today, nor is there any evidence that they have ever existed in the past.”10 Scientists agree that whatever biological differences there may be between the races, they do not generate differences in behavior that have criminal justice implications. Therefore, race is controversial to the extent that it has political and social implications. For example, many transfers of funds from the federal government to the states for social programs are calculated according to race-based formulas. Ethnicity is a concept used to classify people according to their cultural characteristics— language, religion, and group traditions. Ethnicity is usually reported by subjects themselves, rather than stemming from an outside observer making a visual identification, as in the case of race. Ethnic groups exist among white Americans—for example, Irish, Italians, Poles—as well as among the black, Asian, and Hispanic communities. In the Northeast and in Florida, sizable black communities are made up of immigrants from Africa and the West Indies whose culture differs from that of the larger group of African Americans who migrated to the northern cities from the agricultural South. Asians have immigrated from many countries and are multiethnic, multilingual, and multiracial. Hispanics are also multiethnic and multiracial. We use the category “Hispanic” to distinguish Spanish-speaking Americans, yet this group is made up of people, some of whom are black and some white, from Puerto Rico, Mexico, Cuba, and many other countries. In this chapter we focus primarily on correctional issues that relate to African Americans. Members of this group are under correctional supervision out of proportion to their numbers in the general population, so issues of racial and ethnic disparities are most apparent with regard to these AmericansAfrican Americans and Hispanics are subjected to the criminal justice system at much higher rates than is the white majority. A central question is whether these racial and ethnic disparities result from discrimination. A disparity is a difference between groups that can be explained by legitimate factors. For example, the fact that 18- to 24-year-old men are arrested out of proportion to their numbers in the general population is a disparity explained by the legal factor that they commit more crime. It is not thought to be the result of a public policy of singling outyoung men for arrest. Discrimination occurs when groups are differentially treated without regard to their behavior or qualifications. For example, discrimination occurs if people of color are routinely sentenced to prison regardless of their criminal history. Explanations for the cause of racial disparities in the criminal justice system can be roughly grouped according to three themes. Some observers argue that these disparities result from the system operating as a giant sieve to differentiate people who have contact with the criminal justice system so that more men of color end up under correctional authority because they commit more crimes. Others claim that the sieve is racist and that the system treats men of color more harshly than it does white men. And still others argue that the criminal justice system operates within the broader context of our society’s racism and merely represents a vehicle for its expression. We will consider each of these views in turn. Differential Criminality Nobody denies the disparity concerning people of color in the criminal justice system. However, there is controversy over whether the disparity results from discrimination. In their informative book The Color of Justice, Samuel Walker, Cassia Spohn, and Miriam DeLone point out that the criminal justice system is supposed to take into account differences between people who have committed serious crimes and those whose crimes have been petty, and such considerations might result in disparity.11 Logically, then, more people of color will end up in corrections if they commit worse crimes and have more-serious prior records than do whites. This general view covers a range of perspectives. The most extreme versions contend that some people are, by nature, more predisposed to commit crimes.12 This position implies the existence of something akin to a “criminal class” of people who constitute an ongoing danger to society. When this view incorporates a conclusion that one of the predisposing factors toward criminality is having dark skin, we can see why the view is vulnerable to charges of racism. In fact, recent studies have shown that when black children get in trouble in school, those with darker skin tone have a greater chance of being expelled—and this relationship is particularly strong for girls.13 It is hard to reconcile findings such as these with the view that sociobiological factors are what result in large numbers of Hispanics and African Americans being processed by the criminal justice system. In fact, the evidence to support a view that people of color are inherently more likely to be involved in crime is paltry at best and nonexistent at worst. Self-report studies, in which individuals are asked to report on their own criminal behavior, have shown that nearly everyone admits to having committed a crime during his or her lifetime, although most people are never caughtshows the results of the first self-report study, conducted with a cross-section of citizens in 1947, in which an astonishing 99 percent of respondents admitted to at least one criminal offense since turning 16.14 A more-recent study of 4,000 public school students—now considered a classic and one of the most heavily cited studies in criminology—found that 49 percent of African American youths and 44 percent of white youths reported having committed a delinquent act during the preceding year.15 Some self-report studies of illicit drug use have found that whites are slightly more likely than African Americans to admit to using illegal substances, and it has been estimated that there are five times more white drug users than African American ones. Yet roughly the same number of whites, blacks, and Hispanics are sentenced to more than one year in state prison for drug offenses.16 More than half of black (51 percent) and Hispanic (58 percent) people in federal prisons in 2015 were convicted of drug offenses. Once again, the argument that African Americans are more criminal than whites by nature is not sustained by the evidence. Less-stringent versions of this argument rest on the fact that criminality is related to socioeconomic disadvantage and that many people of color suffer that to a great degree. Figure 19.1 shows the percentage of children of whites, African Americans, and Hispanics who live in poverty; Figure 19.2 compares the family incomes of various racial groups. These figures show the vast racial disparity in wealth in the United States, and studies show that this disparity is increasing.17 Young people who live in poverty and disadvantage may develop what has been called the “code of the street,” which includes a greater willingness to use violence.18 Social problems such as poverty, single-parent families, and unemployment contribute to higher crime rates. It is logical, then, to expect Hispanic and African American men to engage in more crimes than do whites. Not only do these higher criminality rates result from disadvantage; they also reproduce it—the victims are most often other people of color who live in the communities where the crimes are committed. As John DiIulio once put it, “No group of Americans suffers more when violent and repeat criminals are permitted to prey upon decent, struggling, law-abiding inner-city citizens and their children than . . . black America’s silent majority.”19 Proponents of this view point out that African American and Hispanic men are arrested more frequently and for more-serious offenses than are white men. The FBI reports that African Americans—about 13 percent of the population—account for almost 36.5 percent of all arrests for violent crime and 27.8 percent of arrests for property crime.20 But differential arrest rates are not the entire explanation. More than three decades ago, Alfred Blumstein showed that arrest rates of African Americans explained their higher imprisonment rates for serious offenses such as homicide and robbery, but not for other crimes, notably property and drug offenses. Those who see African Americans as more criminal because of social factors differ in their solution to the problem. Some, such as DiIulio, think we can do little other than impose long prison sentences, especially for repeaters, and “let ’em rot.”22 They say we need to focus our resources on today’s youths in order to prevent their getting into serious crime in the first place. Others argue that we need new crime control policies that work to reduce the social problems contributing to the higher crime rates of African Americans and Hispanics. Still others contend that the social disadvantage under which people have to live should be taken into account when they are sentenced. A Racist Criminal Justice System Racial discrimination occurs if people who are otherwise similar in their criminality are treated differently by the criminal justice system because of their race. African Americans account for just over one-fourth of all arrests while making up only 13 percent of the population,23 but the fact that people of color are arrested more often than whites does not mean they are more prone to crime. For example, African Americans are arrested for drug offenses at more than twice the rate of whites.24 Yet studies show that African American youths “have substantially lower rates of use of most licit and illicit drugs,”25 and 1 out of 11 poor white youths say that they sold illegal drugs in the previous years, compared to only 1 in 20 poor African American youths.26 Sentencing for drug crimes also contributes to the high rates of incarceration of African Americans. At one time, federal sentences for the possession of crack cocaine were 100 times more severe than for the powder version, and similar disparities apply in many states.27 Yet scientists have shown that the pharmacology of cocaine is the same for both its powder and crystal forms, and the physiological effects are identical.28 The only difference between these possession crimes is that whites tend to use cocaine in its powder form, whereas people of color tend to use crack cocaine. In 2009 President Barack Obama declared that “the disparity between sentencing crack and powder-based cocaine is wrong and should becompletely eliminated.”29 A year later, he signed the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, eliminating the mandatory minimum sentence for simple possession of crack and vastly reducing the other sentencing disparities between crack and powder cocaine. But this was hardly a rousing victory for reformers: The penalty for crack is now 18 times more severe than for powder, and state systems frequently mirror the federal system. Much of the nation’s racial disparity in rates of incarceration has resulted from drug policies that select and punish African Americans at far higher rates than whites. These discrepancies do not center on drugs alone. Poor male whites ages 15–18 are one-third more likely to report they have attacked someone or stolen something and almost half again as likely to have used drugs and alcohol (except marijuana) as their African American counterparts. Nonetheless, African American youths are more likely to be arrested for all these crimes.30 As we showed in Chapter 14, rates of confinement for juvenile crime have been dropping dramatically for more than a decade. But here the disparities are as striking as those for adults: The institutional commitment rate for blacks is more than four times higher than that for whites, even though their arrest rate is just twice as high.31 In fact, poor white youths end up incarcerated less often than rich black youths.32 Such facts raise questions about bias in the criminal justice system (see “Do the Right Thing”). Do police, prosecutors, and judges treat whites and people of color equally? A great deal of research has been conducted on race and criminal justice processing, but no simple conclusions can be drawn. Some believe that evidence of overt discrimination is weak, at best showing only small amounts of bias in the decisions of police officers and judges. In fact, there is some evidence that police are less likely to use lethal force against blacks than whites.33 Nonetheless, evidence mounts that small decision-making biases at each stage of the justice system add up to a much larger total effect on punishments.34 The disparity between crime rates and punishment patterns is key to the claim by some scholars that the criminal justice system is biased against minority groups. The rate of incarceration of lower-class and minority citizens is indeed greater than even their higher rates of offending would justify (see Figure 19.3). In every U.S. state, African American incarceration rates are at least twice as high as those for whites, and in some states African American rates are 10 times as high. Recent writers have pointed out an irony regarding these disparities. They were not the simple result of a call from white political leaders to police black communities more aggressively. Many of the sentencing reforms that have produced such profound racial differences in punishment came about, in part, from voices of outrage about violent crime from leaders of the African American community. There was a call for policy makers to take black victimization seriously and to use focused law enforcement to help these communities fight crime and drugs.35 Whatever the public opinion has been, there can be no doubt that people of color are more likely to be processed in the criminal justice system. Figure 19.4 compares the race of people who committed a crime, as identified by victims, to the race of arrestees and shows that the odds of African Americans being arrested are slightly higher than those of whites. It seems reasonable to conclude that small, seemingly insignificant disparities at each stage of the criminal justice process may add up to significant overall disparities. Criminal justice officials need not act in overtly racist ways in order to produce this kind of gap between arrest rates and punishment rates. At each stage of the process, the criminal justicesystem operates according to principles that, although not overtly discriminatory to men of color, may tend to disadvantage them. The number of minority arrests may be greater because police patrols are more heavily concentrated in residential areas where nonwhites live, areas where drug use may be more open and more likely to be observed by police. This kind of aggressive policing of poor neighborhoods leads many minority citizens to develop negative attitudes toward the law. Because pretrial-release practices take into account factors such as employment status, living arrangements, and prior criminal record, the underemployed and unemployed tend to be unable to make bail and thus languish in jail awaiting trial. Prosecutors may also be less likely to dismiss charges against poor, unemployed, single men—many of whom are African American— especially if they have a prior record. And poor people are less likely to have a private attorney. Research has shown that all these factors are related to sentence severity. These step-by-step decisions of the system mean that African Americans, the unemployed, and the poor often appear at sentencing hearings with more-extensive prior records and fewer prospects for reform. Thus, what appears discriminatory may simply represent the functioning of an impersonal bureaucratic system. After all, evidence of discrimination in sentencing is disputable and ambiguous.”36 Perhaps criminal justice system officials, acting under the daily pressures and routines of bureaucratic decision making, use filtering criteria to move cases along. (See “Do EvidenceBased Decision-Making Systems Reinforce Racial Disparities in the Criminal Justice System? The criteria they use would be difficult to dispute: When a crime is not serious, when the person who is arrested appears contrite and unlikely to repeat the offense, when the evidence is weak or contradictory, or when the accused person has a respectable prior history, then the system chooses to dismiss the case or downgrade the punishment. Is this truly racism? Perhaps it depends on how one defines the term. But there is no denying that people of color receive harsher outcomes at important stages of the justice system, from arrest37 to juvenile waiver38 to charging for crimes39 to adult sentencing.40 That is, criminal justice operates as a system, and any one of the many decisions in the system can contribute to racial disparity. Some reformers have considered ways to eliminate racism from the criminal justice system. The solution depends on how the problem is defined. If racism exists because individuals within the system are themselves racist, then the solution is plain: These people need to adjust their attitudes or else be removed from their jobs. The problem is a bit more complicated if the problem is not racist people but disadvantageous rules and practices, such as treating the unemployed less leniently than those who have jobs. Here the solution would lie in revamping the decision-making criteria to exclude biased factors and in finding ways to control the discretion of officials to use the new criteria. A Racist Society Some people claim that eliminating racism from the criminal justice system is not likely to occur because the system is embedded in a larger racist society. In fact, the strongest voices claim that the system operates as an instrument of such racism. There is indeed evidence of broader racism in the way society asks the criminal justice system to operate. For example, some have claimed that prison is used as a place to confine people who cannot find jobs when the economy falters—and many of these unemployed are African American men. Michael Tonry argued that the 1990s war on drugs was “foreordained to affect disadvantaged black youths disproportionately [and was based on] the willingness of the drug war’s planners to sacrifice young black Americans.”41 Many observers further believe that the relationship between racism and the criminal justice system is reciprocal. Devah Pager’s groundbreaking studies of employment discrimination make the point that young African American men who have no criminal record are less likely to get entry-level jobs than are young white men with prison records. In this way, incarceration and racism mutually reinforce each other. The presence of a criminal record further damages the job prospects of young African American men, but the social stigma of being a young African American man is already a barrier to employment.42 It becomes a catch-22. When an African American with a criminal record fails to disclose it at a job interview, he faces disciplinary action if it is discovered in a routine background check. But if he has no record, and no background check is required, the potential employer may assume he has a record anyway.43 Ironically, evidence suggests that performing a background check is advantageous to African American men applying for a job, even when they have a record.44 Whatever issues there are in the employability of African American men, especially those who are undereducated, the large number of them who go to prison reinforces the stereotype (see “Incarceration and Inequality”). Thus, employers who hire young African American men tend to do so only after completing a criminal history background check, something that is not usually done at the entry levelThus, confronted with the reality of crime committed by people of color, the criminal justice system reacts in a way that reflects public horror and revulsion by removing large numbers of people of color from their communities. Racist institutions, it is argued, help produce the higher crime rate among minorities, and then racist fears of people of color help justify treating them more harshly when they are caught. A significant idea underlying this point of view is the racial threat hypothesis, which holds that white fear of and antagonism toward African Americans will be greatest in areas where the proportion of African Americans approaches that of whites because in these areas, African Americans constitute a greater perceived threat to whites. In areas that are mostly white or mostly African American, whites will feel less threatened. Studies of racial disparities in imprisonment support the racial threat hypothesis because the rates of incarceration disparity are lowest in places where African Americans are either a very small minority or a very large minority of the larger population.45 Studies of policing also find that patterns of drug arrests of African Americans are consistent with the racial threat hypothesis.46 Throughout history and even today, the image of the “black criminal” has been a common scapegoat and tool manipulated by white people for various purposes. In the South after the Civil War and into the mid-twentieth century, fear of African American rapists of white women was an excuse to lynch some young men and keep the rest in perpetual fear of summary execution. In 1988 the image of Willie Horton, an African American who was convicted of a felony and then released under Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis’s administration, was purposefully used to fuel white fears of crime and help portray George Bush as “tough on crime.” Bush was eventually elected president, with strong support from racial threat hypothesis The belief that white fear of African Americans is least when whites are the majority but greatest when African Americans are a substantial minority. The rate of incarceration in the United States varies dramatically by race. Blacks are locked up at a rate of 1,745 per 100,000—by comparison, the Hispanic rate is 820 and the white rate is 478. In other words, while Hispanics are almost twice as likely as whites to be in prison, blacks are almost four times as likely. In five states—New Jersey, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, and Vermont—blacks are ten times more likely than whites to be in prison. There is a debate about why this disparity exists, and the degree to which the cause is some form of policy or structural factors. But there is growing consensus that the disparity is not just a result of inequality but that it is also an engine of it, in a sort of malignant spiral of cause and effect. Some scholars now argue that mass incarceration has been a cause of the large and growing racial disparities in the United States. They use sophisticated statistical methods and new types of data to show how going to prison leads to substantial differences in life experiences. Almost onethird of all African American college dropouts are in prison, a rate almost five times that of whites. White men are almost 10 times more likely to graduate from college than to go to prison, while African American men are two times more likely to go to prison than to finish college. The implications of these facts ripple their way through the lives of people who are affected by these men who cycle through the prison system. When the large numbers of men who are behind bars are included in the unemployment rate, the gap between unemployment rates for African American men and every other group in society grows. Going to prison reduces expected hourly wages and dramatically reduces the chance of employment after release—for African Americans, but not for whites. Likewise, going to prison reduces the likelihood of ever getting married for African American men, but not for whites or Hispanics, even after a child is born and even though incarcerated men are just as likely to produce children as are nonincarcerated men. Marriages of all those who have been to prison are more likely to end in divorce. In short, the growth in the use of incarceration has had devastating effects on African American men, the labor markets of their communities, and their families and children. These undesirable social effects of incarceration ought to be a matter of significant discussion regarding incarceration policy. For the most part, however, when new legislation about prison sentences is proposed, these matters never arise. Is that a sign of a racist society? Sources: Ashley Nellis, The Color of Justice: Racial and Ethnic Disparities in State Prisons (Washington, DC: Sentencing Project, 2016); Bruce Western, Punishment and Inequality in America (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2006), 11. FOCUS ON CORRECTIONAL POLICY: Incarceration and Inequality Copyright 2019 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. Copyright 2019 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. WCN 02-200-203 504 PART 3 Correctional Issues and Perspectives voters fearful of street crime. The dirty taste of the race-baiting nature of that aspect of the campaign stays with us, even decades later. And in the 1990s, when Susan Smith, who is white, wanted to cover up her murder of her two young sons, she invented an African American assailant—and the general public believed her without batting an eye. The overrepresentation of African Americans in the justice system has also led to an ominous consequence—disenfranchisement. All but two states (Vermont and Maine) forbid voting by felony-convicted people while they are incarcerated, but over half the states deny the right to vote to anyone under correctional supervision (whether in custody or in the community), and seven states deny the vote to anyone ever convicted of a felony. An estimated 13 percent of African American men—1.4 million—are permanently banned from voting in the states where they live.47 The loss of the vote has, for these Americans, denied access to political participation in a way that has racially disparate effects. Critics of this policy point out that a high percentage of African American men are, as a consequence, prevented from influencing political policies that affect their lives. The problem is not small. In Florida, for example, where nearly half a million men are denied the vote as a consequence of their felony record, if two-tenths of a percent of that group had voted in the 2000 election, Al Gore almost certainly would have been elected president because he was overwhelmingly supported by African Americans who did vote. The policy is seen as so indefensible that some experts feel we should allow felony-convicted people to vote, even if they are still under sentence. If people of color are overrepresented in the justice system because the larger society is racist, the solution seems a bit daunting. Nobody knows a way to rapidly rid our society of policies, practices, and, perhaps most importantly, attitudes of racism (see “For Critical Thinking”). Even an optimist would think that a generation or more of vigilance to eradicate racism might be necessaryWe can illustrate the complications of the racism issue with a hypothetical case. Suppose that Wilson, who is white, and Edwards, who is African American, were each convicted of burglary. If Wilson received probation with a $5,000 fine and 200 hours of community service while Edwards received six months in jail, would you think that the verdict was racist? Would it change your opinion to learn that, at sentencing, Wilson’s attorney argued that a jail term would cost Wilson his job as a construction worker and would leave his unemployed wife and two children without a source of financialsupport? Or to learn that Edwards had no job and that his two children had already been living without his income as he sat in jail, awaiting trial? When the law tries to take into account these sorts of concerns, however reasonable they seem, it runs the risk of inadvertently penalizing those who have fewer resources. The situation becomes even more complicated if we learn that this is Wilson’s first offense but Edwards’s second. The jail term makes a bit more sense for a repeater. But we have to keep in mind that young African American men often experience arrests that result in charges being dropped, for whatever reason. To consider such arrests at sentencing may be unfair and indirectly biased. What if the reason that Wilson received a fine is that he had a job in the first place and could afford to pay? Edwards might claim that he went to jail because he was unemployed but that if the system would help him get a job, he could pay a fine. All these scenarios raise the question of whether the system is reasonable, biased, or simply part of a larger set of social inequities. There is no obvious answer. The Significance of Race and Punishment In some respects, it does not matter which of the competing views is most accurate. The real repercussions of racial disparities in the criminal justice system have already become a force that criminal justice policy makers must face. The fact that such a high percentage of young African American men are behind bars must be understood in terms of what these young men cannot be doing. They cannot be earning a living, attending school, parenting their children, or supporting their partners; they cannot be voting or otherwise partaking of free society. We can only speculate about the implications of the fact that so many of this generation’s young men of color have passed through the criminal justice system. But we also must wonder whether this experience might not further alienate this group and prevent them from identifying with the society that sent them there. Does growing up with fathers, uncles, and brothers absent from home because of the system breed respect for the law, or revulsion and enmity, in the many children affected this way? Does the prison stand as a fearful symbol of deterrence or as a contemptible symbol of the inevitable power of the state to disrupt a person’s life? In the effort to establish and preserve order, does the disproportionate impact of corrections on people of color instead produce suspicion and even social disruption? In short, does the heavy-handed use of the criminal justice system in minority communities exacerbate the very problems of social disorder it is trying to correct? See “Myths in Corrections” for more. Whatever the real reason behind the disparities in the criminal justice system, many citizens believe that such disparities exist because of racism, and at least as many citizens do not. The result is a polarization of attitudes about race that discolors the capacity of our society to remember its traditional values of fairness, equity, and equal opportunity. How do we interpret the problems of race that we see in our corrections system? And what can we do to overcome them? Most people believe there are three solutions. First, we must open the corrections system to greater participation by people who come from the groups historically disadvantaged by the disparate treatment. Special efforts to employ young men and women from minority groups willin the long run reduce the predominance of white policy makers in this area. Studies of African American police officers, judges, and correctional officers find that their decisions about cases are very similar to those of their white coworkers, but their greater presence in criminal justice roles of authority benefits everyone. Second, we must ferret out and refuse to tolerate incidents of blatant racism in justice practices or policy. This is easier said than done, of course, because there is so much disagreement about what exactly a racist policy is. For example, should people who do not have jobs be as eligible for bail as those who have stakes in the community? Should police spend as much time aggressively combating white-collar crime as they do street crime? Ensuring that criminal justice policies are free of racial and ethnic bias is nonetheless a high priority for tomorrow’s correctional leaders. Finally, we must recognize that as long as racism is a force in the larger society, any attempts to eradicate it from the criminal justice system will have only marginal prospects for success. As long as some groups are unfairly excluded from society’s opportunities, they will have less motivation to obey its laws. And the corrections system will be their adversary
