America has the largest prison population in the world and this is not likely to change for a long time, if ever. Prisons are also so pervasive in our country that many people could not comprehend a justice system without them.
It is also highly exploitative, where private companies are now making profits off not just these convicts, but the taxpayers as well. It is a system that rewards incarcerating more, and keeping them there.
A lot of justifications are used for why we send criminals to jail. Some would argue that it's just common sense.
The more I think about, the less sense it makes to me. The justifications aren't so just to me.
1. Criminals must be punished for committing crimes.
It is probably true that sending criminals to prison is a form of punishment. But it's not like it's the only form of punishment that we have. Courts have other means for punishing criminals. They can levy fines. They can garnish wages. They can assign community service. They can force the convict to stay in their homes and only leave for approved reasons like work. I suppose some could argue that prison is a far harsher punishment than these, so it is appropriate for the harshest of crimes. Maybe so, but for me, that's not enough to negate the fact that these other methods also accomplish the same task, if the task is punishment, but without as many negative side effects that come with sending them to jail. These other punishments can also be elevated to reflect the severity of the crime. We do it now with jail sentences; a small offense might require only a couple years in jail, while larger offenses require several decades in jail. The same could be done with the other punishments. A million dollar fine instead of hundred dollar fine. A thousand hours of community service instead of 50.
Let's also not forget the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution.
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
The Founding Fathers may not have had DUIs and identity theft in their time, but they certainly had most of the crimes that today we give the most punishment to, such as murder, rape, and assault. I think it is telling that they felt the need to include this provision specifically against cruel and unusual punishments, but not for any crimes to be above this limitation.
2. Criminals must be removed from society to keep the rest of society safe.
If anything, sending criminals to be around other criminals, where they can learn to be better at crime, and build a social relationship with mostly other criminals, probably makes society less safe. By sending him away, he loses the connections to friends and relatives, people who care about him on a personal level, children who will grow up without his love and guidance and quality time together. It would probably serve society better to make sure the criminal is accountable to the community that has been affected by his crime. That way, he will be building a stronger social relationship with people who have a vested interest in making sure he does not commit any more crime, more role models and coaches and advisers, and more people and things reminding him of the costs his crimes have on the community.
It's true that while criminals are in prison they would be unable to commit anymore crime (except against other criminals, or guards, or unless they escape), but we are committed to a system where a majority of the criminals will be allowed to society at some point in their lives. Unless we go to a system where all criminals are either locked away for life or given the death penalty, which we probably won't because of the 8th Amendment, we are committing to a system where we are always giving criminals another chance to commit a crime. And if we send them to prison, it will be more likely that he will try to commit a crime, more likely to succeed, and probably experience less remorse. If they aren't sent to prison but instead are able to stay within their community, there will be more social pressure to stay honest, more people watching his actions and quick to address any suspicious behavior, and more people who care about him on an individual level, and see him as a valuable member of the community.
So long as we are committed to a system where most criminals are allowed to return to society at some point before they die, we are committed to reintroducing them to being a part of society. If this is the case, shouldn't we do our best to ensure that the person who is returning to society after their punishment is over is more of an asset to society rather than more of a threat? Shouldn't we make sure that person has a much stronger personal attachment to society, and wanting to see more good being added to society? By removing a person from society for an extended period of time, we are likely doing the opposite, where the person becomes less attached to society, to the people he used to care about, to the people he victimized and their friends and relatives ,and to the community leaders who can find ways for him to help the community out and be a positive force instead of a negative one. This is likely to make society less safe than if the person were knowingly allowed to continue to be a member of society.
3. Criminals must repay their debt to society.
By sending criminals to jail, they are repaying their debt in serving time behind bars, with other convicts. However this can be calculated, it also means that sending these criminals to jail simultaneously increases the debt the criminal owes to society. When a criminal is in jail, he's costing taxpayers directly in the costs of prison, guards, food, etc. He's also costing society the potential taxes that he would be paying if he were still allowed to be out in society purchasing goods and earning a living. It also prevents him from adding value to society through community service, and raising a family.
By sending criminals to jail, all we are doing is adding to the costs of crime.
4. Criminals must be "rehabilitated" of their criminal behavior.
I think it's a good idea for the government to invest in rehabilitating criminals, so they are less likely to return to crime, and more importantly, so they are less likely to want to. However, it's not really being in prison that has any sort of rehabilitating effect, and really, we shouldn't expect it to because that is not how prisons are designed.
If anything rehabilitates a criminal while in prison, it's the opportunities to learn a marketable skill, to gain work experience in the kitchen, to read books and study and take lessons, to talk to therapists and doctors and life coaches. These are what increase the likelihood of rehabilitating a criminal and keeping them from turning back to crime, but none of these require the person to be in prison to work. All of these can be made available to the criminal without sending them to prison.
5. Criminals must be sent to prison as a deterrent to other would-be criminals.
Again, prisons are not the only form of deterrent.
For most people, other forms of punishment are just as much of a deterrent to committing crime as is going to prison. Some people will never commit a crime, even if they were guaranteed to not be punished. Prison adds no value to deterring these people from crime.
For most criminals, prison is just as little of a deterrent as any other form of punishment. Some criminals will turn to crime, no matter what the punishment. Again, for these people, prison adds no value.
So all that is left our the group of people who are afraid of going to prison solely as the deterrent to whether or not they commit a crime. Our entire criminal justice system is designed on this premise that criminal punishments, such as prison, are a deterrent to some criminals committing crimes, and harsher punishments are better deterrents than softer punishments. However, in the world we live in, there are always costs of some sort. The deterrents should be judged on their costs, their effectiveness, and their long term effects on the criminal, and of course this applies to any law we choose to pass. Because of all of the above reasons, I do not think the value prisons add as crime deterrents equals the costs prison adds to society, unless it could be proved that an overwhelming number of criminals consider prison a deterrent to crime, so that the number of criminals explodes were prison removed from the equation, but I think the existence and size of our current prison population indicates that this is not likely.
There's also the potential for the punishments to become so severe that criminals only feel pressure to continue committing crime. For example, if a person murders someone, but a third person witnessed the murder, the punishment might be so severe just for the one murder that the murderer might feel that the punishment for committing a second murder doesn't add any additional pressure, so the murderer would be more likely to murder the witness as well. On the other hand, if the punishments were tiered enough, so that the murderer calculates that serving the punishment for one murder is more acceptable than serving the punishment for two murders, even if he is more likely to get caught if he lets the witness go, then it is more likely that he let's the witness live. In this case, the punishments are no longer deterrents to crime, but potentially adds to the amount of crime.
So, taking all the justifications into consideration, and I'm sure these are not the only ones but I feel they cover the majority of the argument, sending people to prison makes no sense to me.
Sadly, why we keep sending people to prison does make sense.
One of the things that we have to acknowledge, if we want to reform the penal system, and I think that is indeed something that needs to be done, is that we ourselves are responsible for this immoral, expensive, exploitative, discriminatory system. We as a society came up with the system, and over the years continued to make it worse and worse. Obviously, that was not the intention, but it is the undeniable result.
We are the ones who continue to vote for elected officials, judges, DAs and AGs who are "tough on crime," knowing full well that this means more zero tolerance policies, tougher sentences, three-strikes policies, stop-and-frisk, etc. Basically the only way people know how to be tough on crime is by sending more people to jail for more crimes for longer amounts of time, never mind whether or not the evidence shows that this results in less crime, or less criminals, or less of a cost to society.
This is how we end up with a society that rewards convicting criminals of as many charges and as severe charges as possible, for an ever increasing litany of offenses, and for locking them up in jail instead of probation or parole or work-release. And this is when the system is working at its best without corrupt individuals exploiting it. And if anyone advocates or even makes a reasonable suggestion for improving the system on behalf of the criminals, they are treated as just as guilty as the criminals themselves.
For all the talk of bettering society, there are still so many illnesses that plague society as a whole. One of the greatest illnesses-and I don't know if it's about human nature, American culture, media bias, or hostile political rhetoric-is that a lot of people see getting something for free as a crime.
There's this part of us that doesn't want to reward people we think of as criminals, even if it defies logic and reason, such as being in our best interests in the long run.
That is why we can release studies that show that it saves society money to provide free housing for the homeless, but still have so few communities willing to implement it.
That is because there are still so many people who have it in them to punish others for crimes, even if they are only perceived crimes. They would rather spend more money or pay more taxes to make sure someone else doesn't get something for free. The problem isn't that we're a nation of takers, the problem is that we're a nation of deniers.
And we have to admit that on some level, most of us don't want people to commit crimes and then see them become better people, like coming out of prison with marketable skills or becoming role models in their community. Even if it's in our best interests. To us, it's like getting something for free, or rewarding rather than punishing, and it goes against our nature.
We will probably never have a justice system where prison doesn't figure prominently in the punishment system. However, there are certainly some reasonable reforms-backed by common sense, backed by empirical evidence, and backed by a moral dedication to treating people, even criminals, humanely-that we can and should pass. Unless we can resist this temptation to punish criminals rather than do what is better for society, we will not see enough of these changes being made, we will not vote in the right politicians, we will not be able to reverse the trend of judges and prosecutors seeking longer and longer jail sentences. The broken criminal justice system is just a symptom of this underlying illness of negativity in our human or American or cultural natures, and it is only after we treat the underlying illness that the symptom of the corrupt and costly justice system will start to be manageable.
There are a lot of people who want to see the justice system reformed, and I count myself among them. Still, the way we are currently doing things, we are only trying to treat the symptom. The problem isn't in fixing the politicians, or the courts, or the laws, it's fixing this "common sense" idea that punishing crime is what society needs, and replacing it with the more rational, more reasonable, and I would argue, more moral idea, that punishing crime should not come at the cost of a healthier society.