CHAPTER 18



18

Incarceration Trends

CHAPTER OUTLINE

I. Introduction

A. Rising numbers

1. Extensive media coverage of the increased number of Americans in prison makes the issue hard to ignore.

2. The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the developed world.

3. The United States has been engaged in an experiment testing the proposition that crime can be reduced if more people are incarcerated.

4. Although crime in the United States has been declining for two decades, the incarceration rate continues to climb.

5. Over the past quarter century, the incarceration rate has more than quadrupled.

6. Correctional budgets are an estimated $60 billion.

II. Explaining Prison Population Trends

A. Demographic Changes—See Figure 18.1

1. For most of the past 50 years the number of persons incarcerated remained fairly stable.

2. Since 1973, when the overall crime rate started to level off, the incarceration rate has quadrupled.

3. African Americans and Hispanics make up a larger percentage of inmates than ever.

4. Prisoners are more likely to be middle-aged and more women are being incarcerated.

5. Since 1980 the percentage of inmates serving time for violent offenses has declined; the number of incarcerated for drug violations has increased.

B. The skyrocketing prison population has created a crisis of overcrowding—5 reasons often cited for the increase.

1. Increased Arrests and Higher Probabilities of Incarceration: Some analysts have argued that the billions spent by federal, state, and local governments on the crime problem may be paying off with the decline in serious crime and some falling arrest rates.

2. Tougher Sentencing Practices: between 1990 and 1998, the mean sentence of new court commitment actually dropped; the 13% increase in amount of time served that affects total number of inmates.

3. Prison Construction: this has created additional space in the nation’s prisons; public attitudes are more punitive; seen as an economic development to many rural communities. For health and safety reasons, crowded conditions in existing facilities cannot be tolerated. Many states attempted to build their way out of this problem.

4. War on Drugs: a success on one front, by of packing the nation’s prisons. Today, 21 percent of state prisoners are incarcerated for drug offenses, and the percentage in federal prisons is even higher, at 55 percent.

5. State Politics: local political factors influence correctional policies; state’s responses to crime influenced by its ability to finance incarceration, its political culture, and levels of public anxieties and fears. States with high violent crime rates have higher levels of imprisonment.

C. Public Policy Trends—researchers recognize that the size of prison population is not driven by the amount of crime; it is driven by public policy.

1. Public policies are forged in the political arena.

2. Politicians are aware that the public is concerned about crime, have little sympathy for offenders, and support increased punishments.

3. In this political environment correctional policies have emerged in Congress and state legislatures based on the assumption that crime can be controlled through incarceration.

III. Dealing with Overcrowded Prisons---Crowded prisons may violate constitutional standards, increase violence, decrease access to programs and services, and create major administrative problems.

A. The Null Strategy: proponents of this approach to overcrowding say that nothing should be done, that prisons should be allowed to become increasingly congested.

B. The Construction Strategy: this usually comes to mind when legislators or correctional officials confront prison crowding by expanding the size and number of facilities.

C. Intermediate Sanctions: prisons are a costly and scarce resource; some have argued that prison space should be reserved for those violent offenders not deterred by prior punishments.

D. Prison Population Reduction: current support for high levels of incarceration seem firm, but the expense of building and operating new prisons may limit expansion.

IV. The Impact of Prison Crowding

A. Prison crowding directly affects the ability of correctional officials to do their work because it decreases the proportion of offenders in rehabilitative programs, increases the potential for violence, and greatly strains staff morale.

1. The overwhelming number of inmates are recidivists or have been convicted of a violent crime.

2. Corrections now faces a different type of inmate, one who is more prone to violence, who has been incarcerated before, and who inhabits a prison society where racial tensions run high.

B. As a direct consequence of the higher incarceration rate, courts have cited a number of states for maintaining prisons so populous that they violate the 8th Amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishments.

V. Does Incarceration Pay?

A. Opponents of current penal policies note that the US now ranks first in the developed world for incarcerating offenders.

B. To be in the same category as Russia strikes many as inconsistent with the freedom we highly prize.

C. Supporters of incarceration believe current policies have succeeded in lowering the crime rate.

D. Time served in the U.S. is longer than in Australia and England for similar offenses.

E. No definitive answer on this question can be expected.

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