One Nation Behind Bars

Okay, so crime is a little off subject. It has not been a central theme for any candidate. Candidates for President have talked about being tough on crime, especially the Republican Party candidates, in whose party, recently, there has been a greater tendency toward crime. Crime as a political issue is right up there with motherhood and apple pie. It is a feel good issue. You can be a pussy over gay marriage but you have to be tough on crime.

We incarcerate more people than any other country on the face of the earth. We have more people behind bars by raw numbers (higher than China: 2.3M to 1.5M). We have a higher percentage of our citizens behind bars than any other developed nation. We disproportionately imprison minorities. There are three times more black women in prison than white women as a percentage of the population. Among males between 20 and 34, 1 in 30 is behind bars. For black young men in the same age group, it is 1 in 9.

Great stats for the most “civilized” nation on the face of the earth. Actually, it is disgusting. It is a national tragedy. And it demands center stage in the upcoming Presidential race. My hope that it will become a central item of debate is completely Pollyannaish. It will not happen.

So, why is the country so out of whack? Why does it have a criminal justice system that is as broken as its health care system? Well, the root causes are similar. With both, we fail to focus on prevention. Each has its establishment and its vested interests.

In criminal justice, one of the major culprits is the union for and lobby efforts of corrections officers. They lobby for more prisons and longer sentences. Why, you might ask? Simply stated, they want job security and more jobs. More prisons, more prisoners, hence you have more jobs and more job security for guards. This is not so much explicit, as an unintended consequence of their efforts.

By the way, at an early age in my small town, I learned that there was no fundamental difference between a cop and a robber. They came from the same place socio-economically and had the same values. Some became cops and some became robbers. I saw that again in law school when I did habeas corpus work for prisoners in the California prison system. Guards and prisoners were cut from the same cloth. Chance and a break here and there made the difference.

Politicians are another part of the problem. Stiffer and broader sentencing has been a glib way to deal with criminality. No one looks at the root cause. Lock’em up and throw away the key, that’ll teach’em. Disparate sentencing between upper class cocaine use and lower class crack use is a classic example of the inherent bias in how politicians approach criminal justice. Another contributor to high rates of incarceration is the “bitch.” Three strikes and you are out is the premise for the habitual criminal statutes. Perhaps good in theory, but not so good when you get life in prison for your third Snickers Bar theft.

Unfortunately I see little hope for a forthright debate of the issues surrounding our criminal justice system. We will talk endlessly about health care. Hey, everyone needs health care, all 99% of us. The other 1% gets free health care in prison.