{"id":15652,"date":"2015-07-19T12:48:01","date_gmt":"2015-07-19T19:48:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=15652"},"modified":"2015-07-19T12:48:01","modified_gmt":"2015-07-19T19:48:01","slug":"mass-incarceration-and-violent-crime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2015\/07\/19\/mass-incarceration-and-violent-crime\/","title":{"rendered":"Mass Incarceration and Violent Crime"},"content":{"rendered":"

Most of you are aware that I do volunteer work in Oregon State Penitentiary working with a group of around 100 prisoners that I affectionately call \u2018my guys\u2019, as I have often shared some of the things I have done with them, while maintaining their privacy.  I came across an article that asks some of the same questions and shares the same concerns that I have had for some time now: that all the effort toward prison reform is directed at nonviolent offenses.<\/font><\/p>\n

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\"0719mass_incarceration\"<\/p>\n

For the most part, President Obama\u2019s address<\/a> to the N.A.A.C.P. annual convention on Tuesday was a remarkably honest appraisal of the American criminal-justice system. In an emphatic and sometimes moving speech, the President laid out some of the outrageous statistics that reformers have been citing for years: our prison population of 2.2 million has more than quadrupled since 1980, even though crime has been declining for two decades; the U.S. has five per cent of the world\u2019s population but houses nearly a quarter of its prisoners; blacks and Latinos represent about thirty per cent of the nation\u2019s population but almost sixty per cent of its prisoners. The result, Obama said, is a system that wastes billions of dollars a year and prevents too many people, especially minority men, from contributing to society, the economy, and their children\u2019s lives. \u201cMass incarceration makes our country worse off,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd we need to do something about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Obama\u2019s bluntness was bracing, but as he made these statements he also repeated one of the most enduring myths of criminal-justice reform. \u201cOver the last few decades, we\u2019ve also locked up more and more nonviolent drug offenders than ever before, for longer than ever before,\u201d the President said. \u201cAnd that is the real reason our prison population is so high.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is simply not true that the growth of the prison population is mainly due to the sentencing of nonviolent drug offenders<\/strong>. About half of federal inmates are serving sentences for drug crimes, but the federal system only accounts for about two hundred thousand prisoners. In state prisons, which house about 1.3 million, only sixteen per cent of inmates are serving a sentence for nonviolent drug offenses, according to the latest Department of Justice statistics<\/a>. About fifty-four per cent, by far the largest number, are there for violent crimes, and about nineteen per cent for property offenses, like burglary. There is less data on the breakdown of the more than seven hundred thousand people in local jails; the most recent D.O.J. survey, in 2002, found that people with drug charges and violent-crime charges each made up about a quarter of jail inmates. Assuming that\u2019s still the case, even if every single nonviolent drug offender were released tomorrow, the incarcerated population would stand at around 1.7 million\u2014still nearly a fifth of the world total<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

As Leon Neyfakh wrote<\/a> for Slate in March, the distinction between \u201cnonviolent\u201d and \u201cviolent\u201d is not always clear-cut. Some \u201cviolent\u201d crimes, like illegal gun possession, in many states, don\u2019t require an actual violent act, while some offenders who did commit violence may plead guilty to a less serious, nonviolent charge. But it\u2019s clear that the vast majority of inmates are imprisoned for something other than nonviolent drug offenses. There is, in short, no way to make a meaningful dent in mass incarceration without lowering the number of people locked up for violent crimes<\/strong>\u2026<\/p>\n

…It\u2019s comforting to think that we can undo the moral and economic failures of the criminal-justice system without relinquishing any of our desire to punish people who commit acts of violence. But, as the President said, we need to be honest. Having a fifth of the world\u2019s prison population would be better than having a fourth, but not by much. We can end mass incarceration, or we can maintain current policies toward violent crime, but we can\u2019t do both<\/strong>. [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <The New Yorker<\/a>><\/p>\n

For most of our history, America has followed a correctional policy of lex talionis<\/em>, the notion that the purpose of prisons is to punish evildoers.  While this is no longer acknowledged, officials saying instead that the purpose is to protect the public from evildoers, it is still practiced, especially in sentencing and release.  The biggest contributors to US violent prison populations are mandatory minimum sentences and three strikes laws that take sentencing out of the hands of judges.  With such sentencing laws, prisoners have less incentive to reform.<\/font><\/p>\n

As an alternative, I support restorative justice.  The purpose of prison is to return to the community individuals who have made the effort to understand their crimes, correct the thinking errors that justified their crimes, and developed intervention strategies to recognize problems early-on and break the cycle, before it spirals out of control to more crime.  This is the kind of work I do with my guys.<\/font><\/p>\n

Among my guys, there may be a couple nonviolent drug offenders, but I can\u2019t think of any.  They have committed violent crimes.  Nevertheless, I trust all the men with whom I have worked long enough to know well.  Of those that have been released since 2005, only two of over twenty five have returned to prison, and  both are out again.<\/font><\/p>\n

So I am not suggesting leniency for violent criminals.  I am suggesting giving them an opportunity to earn their freedom by doing whatever it takes to change into a law-abiding citizens who are not a threat to their communities.<\/font><\/p>\n

You should support restorative justice for one reason.  Since almost every prisoner is released eventually, you can be sure that someone, who has committed a violent crime will be moving into your neighborhood.  Would you prefer the embittered person warehoused under a mandatory minimum, whose only change is that he is better educated in criminal technique?  Or would you prefer the product of restorative justice, who did whatever it took to change?<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Most of you are aware that I do volunteer work in Oregon State Penitentiary working with a group of around 100 prisoners that I affectionately call \u2018my guys\u2019, as I have often shared some of the things I have done with them, while maintaining their privacy.  I came across an article that asks some of […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15652\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}