9 ms·

Why prisons continue to grow, even when crime declines

44 points by Oatseller 10y ago

djrogers 10y ago
;tldr - FTA "Judges are dealing with more repeat offenders now" Seems pretty straightforward then...
- Synaesthesia 10y ago
  Yeah but the US does incarcerate at a much higher rate and for much longer than comparably developed countries, prison conditions are also much worse.
  - jcranmer 10y ago
    From what I've heard, Japanese prisons are even worse than US prisons.
    - kazinator 10y ago
      Yeah. Like when you eat, you have to kneel on a straw mat. Then again, same thing if you stay in a $150/night ryokan.
- douche 10y ago
  The worst thing you could do is put a first-time offender in a prison. Congratulations, you've taken a possibly reformable person, and thrown them into an environment where they need to affiliate with one of the gangs to avoid being shanked or extorted. In the meantime, they go through a networking and educational program to give them the skills and connections to be a criminal. Then, when they do get released and go back out into the world, they are effectively blocked from most avenues of legitimate work, left with severely restricted rights, and are put on restrictive probationary regimes that seem designed to put them back behind bars. Some days, I wonder if we wouldn't be better off just giving people ten lashes or some other minor, non-permanent corporeal punishment for minor offenses.
  - John23832 10y ago
    Hey douche. You're right.
utternerd 10y ago
Stop throwing people in jail for "moral crimes" such as drug use, and we'd see a massive decline. Victimless crimes, such as contempt of court for not being "respectful" enough of a sitting judge, or the like should never send you to a cage either. One could make a massive list of the ridiculous uses of our criminal justice system, and sadly many don't see it as a problem.
- gok 10y ago
  Drug crimes cover only 16% of inmates in US state prisons [1]. It's higher in Federal institutions, but that's only about 15% of total inmates. I don't disagree that many drug offenders probably shouldn't be in jail, but the US could release all of them and we'd still have the highest incarceration rate in the world. [1] http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p13.pdf http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p13.pdf (table 13)
  - drawkbox 10y ago
    Take another look at this data from same source regarding Federal instead of State: Half of males (50%) and more than half of females (59%) in federal prison were serving time for drug offenses on September 30, 2014.[1] [1] http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p14.pdf http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p14.pdf How many started that way or their crime involved weapons/money that were involved in a drug operation? How many repeat or lifetime criminals were first created with a non-violent drug crime? If it is non-violent it should not be something that locks you up ever as that is cruel and unusual punishment, outside the law that is abduction and locking them up in a box. Jailing non-violent offenses costs the taxpayer and the individual more to no benefit. There should be payment penalties and temporary records for those that do repeat offenses, real rehabilitation, mental help, also job programs for them if desired. All of that would probably be cheaper than creating lifetime criminals. Not just for non-violent drug offenses, when I hear about people stealing cars for instance and getting locked up it makes no sense. Insurance exists, and we want the criminal out working to pay that back not debt taxpayers 30k+ per year, it is a loss all around and compounding.
    - 10y ago
astazangasta 10y ago
This argument doesn't make any sense. What would be the reason for seeing more repeat offenders other than sending more people to jail in the first place? The statistic they're observing is a RESULT of prison growth, not the cause. Obviously they correlate, but without the incarceration rate going up first, this simply doesn't make any sense - the average # of prior offenses can't increase unless the rate of conviction increases first (and must lag by the average recidivism time), so average # of prior offenses is clearly not a leading cause. In any case, you can easily see that the incarceration rate grew at a pace far in excess of the crime rates: http://www.usprisonculture.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/incarceration-vs-violent-crime-rate.jpg http://www.usprisonculture.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/... The whole idea that the two are related in any way, including this one, is verkakte.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
kunle_e 10y ago
"If the United States wants to reduce the number of people in our prisons, King said these results suggest we need a new approach." When states and municipalities are no longer incentivized to have large prison populations and the same for law enforcement and making arrests, maybe we'll see a reduction in the prison population.
meetri 10y ago
so, what this article is saying is that while crime has gone down, the average offender has a much more extensive criminal record today than in the past? Doesn't that argument contradict itself? Wouldn't that mean that the real reason prisons continue to grow is that judges hand out more convictions for pettier crimes than in the past?
- CM30 10y ago
  Not really. It means there are less crimes and criminals overall, but the criminals that do commit crimes are repeat offenders and hence have a more extensive criminal record than before. So a few prolific criminals vs many more occasional ones.
dsfyu404ed 10y ago
A lot of repeat offenders are created when they can't have a real life after the first offense and double down on making a living out of crime. Someone who gets their first felony for possession with intent to sell might find that the least bad career option they have after prison is selling drugs. They when they get arrested the next time they have priors and they go away for longer.
millzlane 10y ago
There is a surplus of laws for non violent crimes.
millzlane 10y ago
There is a surplus of laws for non violent/victimless crime.
danielvf 10y ago
Actually, the US prison population is declining in both relative and absolute numbers, and has been for the last six years. http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p14.pdf http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p14.pdf
- drawkbox 10y ago
  Wow this data is going down but look at this: Half of males (50%) and more than half of females (59%) in federal prison were serving time for drug offenses on September 30, 2014.
  - danielvf 10y ago
    That's federal prisons though. Totally different laws, courts, and only about 10% of US prisoners. State prisions and local jails have much smaller percentage of drug charges - about 17% in my state and going down. http://www.doc.sc.gov/pubweb/research/InmatePopulationStatsTrend/ASOFTrendMSOFY11-15.pdf http://www.doc.sc.gov/pubweb/research/InmatePopulationStatsT...
    - drawkbox 10y ago
      16% at state level from same source, over 50% at federal level. Probably 20%+ directly and up to 30-40% indirectly related, 1 in 5 to 1 in 3. That is lots and lots of people we are paying for to be somewhere that they maybe weren't violent to begin with but are now, prisons are a criminal making machine. They could be out, or in a program, making a net benefit paying it back rather than a total loss all around. -30k per year minimum per prisoner in tax.
  - Terr_ 10y ago
    If someone is convicted of killing 2 people and also of manufacturing and possession of 5 pounds of meth, do they fall into the same category of "serving time for drug offenses"? I think the category people are actually interested in is how many people are incarcerated for only drug-offenses and only minor (possession, not drug-kingpin) ones.
rabboRubble 10y ago
Many of the people coming in front of courts have a lengthy criminal history. What it says to me is that our criminal justice system is failing at one of its primary missions: rehabilitation. We have turned prisons into for-profit centers with no incentive towards rehabilitation. Pair that with the US public's interest in punishment to the exclusion of rehabilitation, you end up with frequent flyers.
Evolved 10y ago
Most, if not all, of this can be avoided first and foremost by not committing the crime to begin with. That starts with having quality parents instilling the right vales in their children and making sure they get a quality education at least through high school. Furthermore, it has been asserted that college isn't even a guarantee but learning the trades can be much more beneficial to gainful employment.
csense 10y ago
Back in the day, it was hard to figure out if a person had ever been convicted of a crime -- you'd have to go down to the right courthouse and look through a bunch of dusty paper files. Public records were open, but you'd need to care enough to spend a lot of time if you wanted to snoop on whether a particular individual had a criminal history -- and the right records would have been even harder to find if they'd been convicted in a different county or a different state. Now that we have computers that can index all those public records, doing background checks on individuals has become easy enough to do it. I think I've seen applications for even fast food jobs which ask if you've ever been convicted of a felony. The result of this is that, in addition to prison time, our society is de facto penalizing felons for the rest of their lives by making it a lot harder to get many necessities -- such as employment, housing, and education. Not because any law has made it so, but because of new behavior patterns enabled by new technologies. It's not surprising that many one-time offenders turn to a life of crime -- not because they want to, but because they feel that's the only path left open to them. The timeline in the article seems to fit with this narrative.
kneegrown 10y ago
Maybe prison deters criminal activity?

44 points by Oatseller 10y ago

djrogers 10y ago

;tldr - FTA "Judges are dealing with more repeat offenders now" Seems pretty straightforward then...

Synaesthesia 10y ago
Yeah but the US does incarcerate at a much higher rate and for much longer than comparably developed countries, prison conditions are also much worse.
- jcranmer 10y ago
  From what I've heard, Japanese prisons are even worse than US prisons.
  - kazinator 10y ago
    Yeah. Like when you eat, you have to kneel on a straw mat. Then again, same thing if you stay in a $150/night ryokan.
douche 10y ago
The worst thing you could do is put a first-time offender in a prison. Congratulations, you've taken a possibly reformable person, and thrown them into an environment where they need to affiliate with one of the gangs to avoid being shanked or extorted. In the meantime, they go through a networking and educational program to give them the skills and connections to be a criminal. Then, when they do get released and go back out into the world, they are effectively blocked from most avenues of legitimate work, left with severely restricted rights, and are put on restrictive probationary regimes that seem designed to put them back behind bars. Some days, I wonder if we wouldn't be better off just giving people ten lashes or some other minor, non-permanent corporeal punishment for minor offenses.
- John23832 10y ago
  Hey douche. You're right.

utternerd 10y ago

Stop throwing people in jail for "moral crimes" such as drug use, and we'd see a massive decline. Victimless crimes, such as contempt of court for not being "respectful" enough of a sitting judge, or the like should never send you to a cage either. One could make a massive list of the ridiculous uses of our criminal justice system, and sadly many don't see it as a problem.

gok 10y ago
Drug crimes cover only 16% of inmates in US state prisons [1]. It's higher in Federal institutions, but that's only about 15% of total inmates. I don't disagree that many drug offenders probably shouldn't be in jail, but the US could release all of them and we'd still have the highest incarceration rate in the world. [1] http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p13.pdf http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p13.pdf (table 13)
- drawkbox 10y ago
  Take another look at this data from same source regarding Federal instead of State: Half of males (50%) and more than half of females (59%) in federal prison were serving time for drug offenses on September 30, 2014.[1] [1] http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p14.pdf http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p14.pdf How many started that way or their crime involved weapons/money that were involved in a drug operation? How many repeat or lifetime criminals were first created with a non-violent drug crime? If it is non-violent it should not be something that locks you up ever as that is cruel and unusual punishment, outside the law that is abduction and locking them up in a box. Jailing non-violent offenses costs the taxpayer and the individual more to no benefit. There should be payment penalties and temporary records for those that do repeat offenses, real rehabilitation, mental help, also job programs for them if desired. All of that would probably be cheaper than creating lifetime criminals. Not just for non-violent drug offenses, when I hear about people stealing cars for instance and getting locked up it makes no sense. Insurance exists, and we want the criminal out working to pay that back not debt taxpayers 30k+ per year, it is a loss all around and compounding.
  - 10y ago

astazangasta 10y ago

This argument doesn't make any sense. What would be the reason for seeing more repeat offenders other than sending more people to jail in the first place? The statistic they're observing is a RESULT of prison growth, not the cause. Obviously they correlate, but without the incarceration rate going up first, this simply doesn't make any sense - the average # of prior offenses can't increase unless the rate of conviction increases first (and must lag by the average recidivism time), so average # of prior offenses is clearly not a leading cause. In any case, you can easily see that the incarceration rate grew at a pace far in excess of the crime rates: http://www.usprisonculture.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/incarceration-vs-violent-crime-rate.jpg http://www.usprisonculture.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/... The whole idea that the two are related in any way, including this one, is verkakte.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

kunle_e 10y ago

"If the United States wants to reduce the number of people in our prisons, King said these results suggest we need a new approach." When states and municipalities are no longer incentivized to have large prison populations and the same for law enforcement and making arrests, maybe we'll see a reduction in the prison population.

meetri 10y ago

so, what this article is saying is that while crime has gone down, the average offender has a much more extensive criminal record today than in the past? Doesn't that argument contradict itself? Wouldn't that mean that the real reason prisons continue to grow is that judges hand out more convictions for pettier crimes than in the past?

CM30 10y ago
Not really. It means there are less crimes and criminals overall, but the criminals that do commit crimes are repeat offenders and hence have a more extensive criminal record than before. So a few prolific criminals vs many more occasional ones.

dsfyu404ed 10y ago

A lot of repeat offenders are created when they can't have a real life after the first offense and double down on making a living out of crime. Someone who gets their first felony for possession with intent to sell might find that the least bad career option they have after prison is selling drugs. They when they get arrested the next time they have priors and they go away for longer.

millzlane 10y ago

There is a surplus of laws for non violent crimes.

millzlane 10y ago

There is a surplus of laws for non violent/victimless crime.

danielvf 10y ago

Actually, the US prison population is declining in both relative and absolute numbers, and has been for the last six years. http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p14.pdf http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p14.pdf

drawkbox 10y ago
Wow this data is going down but look at this: Half of males (50%) and more than half of females (59%) in federal prison were serving time for drug offenses on September 30, 2014.
- danielvf 10y ago
  That's federal prisons though. Totally different laws, courts, and only about 10% of US prisoners. State prisions and local jails have much smaller percentage of drug charges - about 17% in my state and going down. http://www.doc.sc.gov/pubweb/research/InmatePopulationStatsTrend/ASOFTrendMSOFY11-15.pdf http://www.doc.sc.gov/pubweb/research/InmatePopulationStatsT...
  - drawkbox 10y ago
    16% at state level from same source, over 50% at federal level. Probably 20%+ directly and up to 30-40% indirectly related, 1 in 5 to 1 in 3. That is lots and lots of people we are paying for to be somewhere that they maybe weren't violent to begin with but are now, prisons are a criminal making machine. They could be out, or in a program, making a net benefit paying it back rather than a total loss all around. -30k per year minimum per prisoner in tax.
- Terr_ 10y ago
  If someone is convicted of killing 2 people and also of manufacturing and possession of 5 pounds of meth, do they fall into the same category of "serving time for drug offenses"? I think the category people are actually interested in is how many people are incarcerated for only drug-offenses and only minor (possession, not drug-kingpin) ones.

rabboRubble 10y ago

Many of the people coming in front of courts have a lengthy criminal history. What it says to me is that our criminal justice system is failing at one of its primary missions: rehabilitation. We have turned prisons into for-profit centers with no incentive towards rehabilitation. Pair that with the US public's interest in punishment to the exclusion of rehabilitation, you end up with frequent flyers.

Evolved 10y ago

Most, if not all, of this can be avoided first and foremost by not committing the crime to begin with. That starts with having quality parents instilling the right vales in their children and making sure they get a quality education at least through high school. Furthermore, it has been asserted that college isn't even a guarantee but learning the trades can be much more beneficial to gainful employment.

csense 10y ago

Back in the day, it was hard to figure out if a person had ever been convicted of a crime -- you'd have to go down to the right courthouse and look through a bunch of dusty paper files. Public records were open, but you'd need to care enough to spend a lot of time if you wanted to snoop on whether a particular individual had a criminal history -- and the right records would have been even harder to find if they'd been convicted in a different county or a different state. Now that we have computers that can index all those public records, doing background checks on individuals has become easy enough to do it. I think I've seen applications for even fast food jobs which ask if you've ever been convicted of a felony. The result of this is that, in addition to prison time, our society is de facto penalizing felons for the rest of their lives by making it a lot harder to get many necessities -- such as employment, housing, and education. Not because any law has made it so, but because of new behavior patterns enabled by new technologies. It's not surprising that many one-time offenders turn to a life of crime -- not because they want to, but because they feel that's the only path left open to them. The timeline in the article seems to fit with this narrative.

kneegrown 10y ago

Maybe prison deters criminal activity?