America’s Prison Problem
The United States of America has had an explosion of prisoners in the past 50 years. Currently, America is home to around 5% of the total global population, but around 20% of the prison population. This rise in incarcerated individuals correlates with ‘tough on crime’ narratives in the political sphere and the subsequent implementation of policies including the war on drugs, mandatory minimum sentences, and the watering down of parole. The implementation of these laws and others has created a trillion-dollar money sink, where the government spends unthinkable amounts of money housing prisoners, and a sizeable chunk of the population is prevented from contributing to the economy in a meaningful way. Outside of economics, whole communities are disrupted and millions of lives are impacted including the innocent families and children of prisoners.
It could be argued that crime prevention is worth this massive societal cost. The rise of mass incarceration has correlated with a fall in violent crime in the United States, but that follows a worldwide trend of dropping violence. In fact, the United States is more prone to crime than other developed countries in Europe and Asia with a much lower prison population per capita. Mass incarceration causes real harm and does not disincentivize crime anywhere near proportional to the damage it causes. A higher inmate population has not served effective at stopping crime, but continues to cause significant societal damages.
The rise of mass incarceration has also not affected demographics evenly. Marginalized groups, especially African Americans, are disproportionately jailed compared to the general population. This is not necessarily because they are more likely to commit crimes: white Americans are more likely to use drugs, but black Americans are significantly more likely to be arrested and imprisoned on drug offenses. Some of the policies put in place, such as harsher sentences on crack cocaine as opposed to powdered cocaine, were undoubtedly implemented to intentionally target specific demographics for political gain. Other policies, such as the gradual restructuring of bail, may have been created with the best of intentions. Regardless of the motivation behind our current system, it is very clear that it is not working. A huge number of people are incarcerated creating large social and economic consequences and marginalized groups are disproportionately imprisoned, contributing to racist stereotypes and devastating entire communities.
The question then becomes how to solve the issue of American mass incarceration. Unfortunately, there is no simple single solution that can resolve the behemoth issue that is the American criminal justice system. There are however many smaller steps that can be taken to reduce the inefficiencies and injustices of the system. These largely fall into two groups: societal changes and changes to the prison system itself. Big picture, the narrative around prisons needs to change from a ‘tough on crime’ punishment-oriented system to a more utilitarian system focused on reducing the amount of societal harm. This means focusing on crime prevention, rehabilitation, and strategies that are shown to reduce crime, rather than our current system of strict punishment.
Crimes are committed for different reasons, but they are much more likely to occur when people feel they have no other options. Increasing class mobility and social systems in the United States would disincentivize criminal behavior by providing other paths. Some of these strategies are very simple, for example, primary and secondary education should not be tied to adjacent housing value. This causes severe discrepancies in education that impact youth for the rest of their lives.
Access to legal and high-quality employment reduces crime among underserved communities. Unfortunately, the United States makes finding housing near these employment opportunities very difficult. Zoning laws, exceedingly common in many cities and suburbs, limit builders to single-family houses and mandate that they have a certain percentage of the property’s area as a lawn. This causes higher housing prices and drives out lower-income residents; often to places with fewer employment opportunities. Zoning laws also prohibit businesses from operating near residences. This means that cars are often required to get to and from work, but cars are a significant expense and may be out of reach for low-income households. This problem is exacerbated by the lack of public transportation. A robust system of public transportation would allow people a much greater geographical range for employment, but the United States is notorious for terrible public transportation. Changing laws making it easier to find legal employment would allow greater class mobility and reduce crime.
Increasing social spending in other areas such as homeless shelters, medication availability, and public safety nets can also have direct impacts on crime. Loitering and other misdemeanors account for millions of arrests every year. For a homeless individual, there may not be any place to sleep except for somewhere that would be considered loitering. Increasing the availability of homeless shelters would have the direct effect of reducing loitering.
Thousands of immigrants are held in federal prisons and in pretrial facilities. The majority of this population is accused simply of unlawful entry into the United States. Making visas more accessible and legal immigration easier would reduce this demographic of inmates. There is also a good economic and social argument to be made for allowing more legal immigration, although it remains a contentious issue among politicians and the public. I advocate for significant reform to the immigration system allowing many more people into the United States, but even smaller changes in how undocumented immigrants are punished and how immigration trials are handled can reduce this slice of incarcerated people.
Societal changes can have a real impact on disincentivizing crime and therefore reducing the number of people who commit crimes and incarcerated individuals. There are, however, many problems endemic to the prison systems that need to be addressed in tandem. None of these reforms will completely solve America’s mass incarceration problem, but they are good steps in the right direction, and taken together can have a significant impact on reducing the number of incarcerated people and injustice found in the system.
Private prisons are a significant resource drain on governments and have a profit motive for more people to become incarcerated. They are inefficient parasites that have lobbied for continued mass incarceration. The ACLU reports that somewhere around 7% of state and 15% of federal inmates are held in private prisons. These should be eliminated and become public institutions.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons stated that in December of 2021, 45% of federal prisoners were detained for drug charges. This percentage shrinks at the state and local level to around 20% of all incarcerated individuals. The heavy criminalization of drugs by Nixon was an overtly racist act, made to gain political power. This same crusade against drugs continues to this day. Despite these harsh penalties, the United States has higher rates of drug abuse and more overdoses than other wealthy countries. The significant judicial consequences have not stopped drug usage. Ending the war on drugs would significantly decrease this portion of inmates. The goal of reducing drug use could be shifted towards rehabilitation, managing prescription abuse, and harm reduction. These strategies, along with decriminalization, have helped countries like the Netherlands reduce drug use and overdoses and would be more effective in reducing drug abuse than our current system while being more just and fiscally cheaper.
The judiciary system of cash bail is also broken. Bail can represent months of pay for people living paycheck to paycheck, and the alternative of awaiting a trial in jail can lead to job loss. Loans are an option, but bail loans are notoriously predatory and bail bonds are nonrefundable. The system of bail disproportionately affects people with lower incomes and needlessly imprisons people awaiting trial. Even people who are arrested based on mistaken identity or are otherwise innocent can suffer these negative impacts. Bail can be avoided however by pleading guilty, and this creates an incentive for guilty pleas. Cash bail is predatory and leads millions of (mostly low income) people into awaiting trial in jail every year, rethinking this system would improve the equity of the criminal justice system.
Sentencing reform could reduce the incarcerated population without making society more dangerous. Longer, harsher sentences do not strongly correlate to less crime, just larger inmate populations. Taking a second look at policies such as mandatory minimums, three-strike style regulations, and felony benchmarks with a utilitarian mindset shows that lighter sentences should be implemented for the betterment of society. Harsh sentences for youth are particularly damaging, as convictions can directly impact their future.
Parole awards good behavior and functions to allow those who show little danger to society to be released. This allows reduced costs (fiscal and social) and lower inmate populations. Unfortunately, many state parole systems have become convoluted or reduced. A nationwide strengthening of the parole system and clearing of the opaque rules into well-defined guidelines would allow more eligible people to make use of parole, and therefore allow rehabilitated prisoners to integrate into society again and spend less time behind bars.
In conclusion, American mass incarceration is currently an incredibly flawed system that perpetuates inequality and does not work to reduce crime. An array of societal and criminal justice reforms should be implemented to make the system more equitable and efficient. These changes include increasing social mobility and employment opportunity, immigration reform, an increase in social spending, de-privatizing prisons, ending the war on drugs, ending cash bail, rethinking harsh sentencing, and strengthening parole systems. On their own, any of these reforms would marginally improve the criminal justice system, and taken together they should represent a significant step forward in solving America’s mass incarceration problem.
This essay was originally written as a final paper for a class about prisons in America.
