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Mass Incarceration is truly one of those things I can't think too much about or I just feel an unrelenting hopelessness and rage. It seems absolutely diabolical

Mass Incarceration is truly one of those things I can't think too much about or I just feel an unrelenting hopelessness and rage. It seems absolutely diabolical to me that in the United States we have simply taken away the humanity of so many people (with absolutely egregious racial and class disparities) in the name of keeping "us" "safer". Not only is it an absolute failure from a moral perspective, it doesn't work from any pragmatic perspective either. Costs are high, recidivism is shocking, and prisons seem to be designed to absolutely foster the worst parts of the human-animals locked in cages. I don't think there's an easy answer. From a systemic perspective we are locked into a socio-political ratchet. It is far easier to argue for harsher treatment for "criminals", with zero political downside, than to argue the opposite. As long as prison seems to be something that happens to other people: darker, poorer, less educated, there is an empathic gap that exists that makes it hard for the average schmo just trying to get by with his 60 hours a week of work to care very much. I can only hope that someday we'll look back on the fact that the United States had the second highest incarceration rate in the entire world as an absolute black mark, right up there with slavery and genocide, or colonialism.

llamataboot 11y ago
By "human-animals" I was not being disparaging. I think all humans are animals, with large parts of the animal-brain still intact. Any animal locked in a tiny cage tends to start exhibiting highly strange and anti-social behaviors that wouldn't be the norm at all outside of captivity.
chillwaves 11y ago
They are locking up drug users. There is a heroin epidemic in this country and they just lock them up when they need treatment. My friend was locked up, got out on bail and OD'd two nights ago. It didn't have to happen.
- mirimir 11y ago
  This! It's plainly the Drug War that's filled prisons. Sorry about your friend :(
  - brownbat 11y ago
    Well, prison populations are actually really complicated. There's a good piece at The Marshall Project discussing this, with an interesting interactive that illustrates how difficult it would be to dramatically reduce the prison population by only focusing on nonviolent drug offenders: https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/03/04/how-to-cut-the-prison-population-by-50-percent#.OtWFszhGW https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/03/04/how-to-cut-the... The drug war was a massive overreach. It's not 100% of the overcrowded prisons problem though, they're related but somewhat independent challenges.
    - mirimir 11y ago
      Thanks. I suspect that much violent crime is also Drug War related. Robberies to buy drugs. Bad influences while imprisoned for drug-related offenses. Few countries imprison such high percentages of their populations. What else could be accounting for that? Lead poisoning? Dysfunctional culture?
    - tyingq 11y ago
      A fair amount of the overcrowding is also driven by sentence length. Things like "three strikes" and "enhanced charges" drive sentence lengths in the US that don't match up with any other civilized nation.
      - burfog 11y ago
        The court system is also badly clogged. The "three strikes" laws reduce the problem by limiting how many times a person can go to trial.
        tyingq 11y ago
        You don't think 3 strikes would increase the number of jury trials vs plea deals? http://www.nytimes.com/1995/03/23/us/3-strikes-law-in-california-is-clogging-courts-and-jails.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/1995/03/23/us/3-strikes-law-in-califo...
- 650REDHAIR 11y ago
  If you need anyone to listen to you vent I'm here for you.
Natsu 11y ago
These are two murderers who decided to kill each other. There are good reasons to leave people like that in actual solitary, so that they're unable to hurt others, but killing each other was never a human response. Nor, given their history, can I glibly conclude that prison made them that way, when all evidence is that the causal arrow points in the opposite direction. I may be somewhat biased. My mother was murdered--brutally and deliberately. The man responsible also threatened grandma. He's serving life in prison now. I have good reason to fear for myself and grandma if well-intentioned people let him free. If intentional, cold-blooded murder isn't a good reason to keep someone away from others, then I wonder just how society is supposed to integrate that behavior.
- PhasmaFelis 11y ago
  I don't think most people are arguing that these two guys, or people like them, should have been released. The problem is that we're filling up the prisons with drug users and other non-violent offenders, and as a result everyone gets squeezed, from kids who got caught smoking pot right on up to cold-blooded murderers. Fix the overcrowding on the low end, and the high end has room to expand as needed without reducing the sentences for hardened killers.
  - Natsu 11y ago
    I should hope at least that is the prevailing sentiment, but I've met enough people who told me otherwise to have reason to worry.
- bitwize 11y ago
  So let's leave the cold-blooded killers in prison and put the inmates there on nonviolent drug offenses under house arrest or something.
  - Natsu 11y ago
    I'd leave some caveats in there: people who drive under the influence and similar types who have caused serious injury or death should be considered 'violent' here, as well as those who may have merely threatened violence (car jackers, muggers) without actually causing injury. But yes, ordinary non-violent offenses are not a good fit for prison, in general.

llamataboot 11y ago

By "human-animals" I was not being disparaging. I think all humans are animals, with large parts of the animal-brain still intact. Any animal locked in a tiny cage tends to start exhibiting highly strange and anti-social behaviors that wouldn't be the norm at all outside of captivity.

chillwaves 11y ago

They are locking up drug users. There is a heroin epidemic in this country and they just lock them up when they need treatment. My friend was locked up, got out on bail and OD'd two nights ago. It didn't have to happen.

mirimir 11y ago
This! It's plainly the Drug War that's filled prisons. Sorry about your friend :(
- brownbat 11y ago
  Well, prison populations are actually really complicated. There's a good piece at The Marshall Project discussing this, with an interesting interactive that illustrates how difficult it would be to dramatically reduce the prison population by only focusing on nonviolent drug offenders: https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/03/04/how-to-cut-the-prison-population-by-50-percent#.OtWFszhGW https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/03/04/how-to-cut-the... The drug war was a massive overreach. It's not 100% of the overcrowded prisons problem though, they're related but somewhat independent challenges.
  - mirimir 11y ago
    Thanks. I suspect that much violent crime is also Drug War related. Robberies to buy drugs. Bad influences while imprisoned for drug-related offenses. Few countries imprison such high percentages of their populations. What else could be accounting for that? Lead poisoning? Dysfunctional culture?
  - tyingq 11y ago
    A fair amount of the overcrowding is also driven by sentence length. Things like "three strikes" and "enhanced charges" drive sentence lengths in the US that don't match up with any other civilized nation.
    - burfog 11y ago
      The court system is also badly clogged. The "three strikes" laws reduce the problem by limiting how many times a person can go to trial.
      - tyingq 11y ago
        You don't think 3 strikes would increase the number of jury trials vs plea deals? http://www.nytimes.com/1995/03/23/us/3-strikes-law-in-california-is-clogging-courts-and-jails.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/1995/03/23/us/3-strikes-law-in-califo...
650REDHAIR 11y ago
If you need anyone to listen to you vent I'm here for you.

Natsu 11y ago

These are two murderers who decided to kill each other. There are good reasons to leave people like that in actual solitary, so that they're unable to hurt others, but killing each other was never a human response. Nor, given their history, can I glibly conclude that prison made them that way, when all evidence is that the causal arrow points in the opposite direction. I may be somewhat biased. My mother was murdered--brutally and deliberately. The man responsible also threatened grandma. He's serving life in prison now. I have good reason to fear for myself and grandma if well-intentioned people let him free. If intentional, cold-blooded murder isn't a good reason to keep someone away from others, then I wonder just how society is supposed to integrate that behavior.

PhasmaFelis 11y ago
I don't think most people are arguing that these two guys, or people like them, should have been released. The problem is that we're filling up the prisons with drug users and other non-violent offenders, and as a result everyone gets squeezed, from kids who got caught smoking pot right on up to cold-blooded murderers. Fix the overcrowding on the low end, and the high end has room to expand as needed without reducing the sentences for hardened killers.
- Natsu 11y ago
  I should hope at least that is the prevailing sentiment, but I've met enough people who told me otherwise to have reason to worry.
bitwize 11y ago
So let's leave the cold-blooded killers in prison and put the inmates there on nonviolent drug offenses under house arrest or something.
- Natsu 11y ago
  I'd leave some caveats in there: people who drive under the influence and similar types who have caused serious injury or death should be considered 'violent' here, as well as those who may have merely threatened violence (car jackers, muggers) without actually causing injury. But yes, ordinary non-violent offenses are not a good fit for prison, in general.