IN 2000 four Americans were charged with importing lobster tails in plastic bags rather than cardboard boxes, in violation of a Honduran regulation that Honduras no longer enforces. They had fallen foul of the Lacey Act, which bars Americans from breaking foreign rules when hunting or fishing. The original intent was to prevent Americans from, say, poaching elephants in Kenya. But it has been interpreted to mean that they must abide by every footling wildlife regulation on Earth. The lobstermen had no idea they were breaking the law. Yet three of them got eight years apiece. Two are still in jail.
America is different from the rest of the world in lots of ways, many of them good. One of the bad ones is its willingness to lock up its citizens…. One American adult in 100 festers behind bars (with the rate rising to one in nine for young black men). Its imprisoned population, at 2.3m, exceeds that of 15 of its states. No other rich country is nearly as punitive as the Land of the Free. The rate of incarceration is a fifth of America’s level in Britain, a ninth in Germany and a twelfth in Japan.
From my perspective, apart from the people who get locked up for simple possession of marijuana, there are probably fewer people in prison than ought to be.
“most white-collar suspects are not Al Capone, and should not be treated as if they were.”
These people can steal millions and ruin innumerable lives. They can ruin insurance companies and banks. They can wipe out life savings. They can do much more damage than a armed bank robber. The author of this article does not know what he or she is talking about.
Woody Guthrie said it best:
Yes, as through this world I’ve wandered
I’ve seen lots of funny men;
Some will rob you with a six-gun,
And some with a fountain pen.
(from Pretty Boy Floyd)
Senior Priest, you may be right that there are a lot of people who get away with things they have done (if I read your comment correctly) but where is the love in your statement? Is not God’s desire to restore people to wholeness? You would be absolutely taken aback if you realized how many people are in jail because they ‘violated parole’ which can mean anything from committing another crime, to the MUCH more common forgetting to check in with their Parole Officer on time. You would be surprised at how many people do “life on parole” because if someone is on parole for 3 years and they get 2 1/2 years in and forget to check in they go to jail for a short period of time again as well as loose that entire 2 1/2 years of good time they spent. Most of the guys who have this happen are not hardened criminals they just live sloppy lives.
And where are all the churches that go into the jails to share God’s hope with them? Not just to offer a service at the best once a week, or a weekend retreat, but to actually sit and talk with prisoners one on one. To minister to the least the last and the lost… They are usually no where to be found. Now if you do regularly visit a local jail to share God’s love and grace or have a group from your church that regularly does, I apologize for my tone, but I am guessing that this is not the case.
What most people forget is that a person in prison, many who have in fact honestly turned their lives over to Christ, is no worse a sinner than the a priest who has been serving God his whole life. “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.†Rom. 3:23. We try to measure our own sin against another person’s sin as opposed to God’s standard which is perfection. The only real difference between you and I as opposed to someone who is incarcerated is about 10 in. of concrete. So next time you believe that more people should be in jail, remember that you (and I) should probably be next.
Are Americans are more inclined toward criminality than other nations?
I think heavy fines upon white collar criminals could be explored. They aren’t violent, so don’t lock them up. Taking all their money might be enough of a disincentive.
One in every 100 adults in America is behind bars. That comes out to around 2.3 million people in American jails and prisons! The number of people on probation or parole has increased from 1.6 million in 1984 to over 5 million in 2009! This means that 1 in 45 adults in the U.S. are now under supervision. However, if you count those under supervision with those who are in prison and jail, then 1 in every 31 adults, or 3.2 percent of the American population, is now under some form of correctional control! The chances are pretty good that someone in your parish has someone in their family who is behind bars. The United States incarcerates more people than any other country in the world. China (with a much larger population) is second with 1.5 million behind bars and Russia is third with 890,000 inmates! Our jail and prison population is larger than the population of Houston, Texas, America’s 4th largest city! According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, state and federal authorities increased prison populations by 628 percent between 1970 and 2005. U.S. prisoners receive sentences for comparable crimes that are 2X longer than those in the UK, 3X longer than those in Canada, 4X more than the Dutch and 5X to 10X more than the French! And all of these countries have equivalent rates of property crime and lower rates of violent crime than the land of the free and the home of the brave! In the U.S.A., crime rates haven’t changed dramatically since 1973… But sentencing policy has grown increasingly punitive with huge increases in felony convictions and longer sentences. It doesn’t take a social policy analyst to figure out that something’s not working! Policy changes are drastically needed! It’s been proven that incarceration is one of the quickest and most effective ways to destroy a family permanently. And mass incarceration, as it is practiced in this country, is the quickest and most effective way to destroy the social fabric of entire communities, especially poor and minority communities.
However, this is not the entire story. The burgeoning prison population means many different things to different people. Correctional officials see danger in prison overcrowding. Others see opportunity. The 2.3 million Americans behind bars—the majority of them nonviolent offenders—mean jobs for depressed regions and windfalls for profiteers. All the way back in 1998, Eric Schlosser wrote in the December issue of the Atlantic Monthly on “The Prison-Industrial Complex.†“The prison-industrial complex is not only a set of interest groups and institutions. It is also a state of mind. The lure of big money is corrupting the nation’s criminal-justice system, replacing notions of public service with a drive for higher profits. The eagerness of elected officials to pass “tough-on-crime” legislation—combined with their unwillingness to disclose the true costs of these laws—has encouraged all sorts of financial improprieties.†Make no mistake, prisons are big business; industries have developed just to supply modern jails and prisons with hardware and supplies. To be sure, corporate interests help drive the get tough on crime policy. The warehousing of prisoners is good for business.
How much does it cost? $50 to 60 billion a year and the costs keep rising! Unless current sentencing policies change, the Pew Center for the States estimates prison populations will experience an increase of an additional 250,000 prisoners by the end of 2011. That means the annual costs for the entire U.S. penal system will increase by an additional $25 billion dollars per year! That’s $85 billion dollars a year by 2011 with no end in sight! The Pew Center’s reasoning for the increase in funding is summarized in one sentence, “Prison growth means more bodies to feed, clothe, house and supervise.†It costs more money to lock up non-violent offenders than it does to treat them!
As a correctional chaplain, what troubles me is that the Church is completely ignorant of the scope of this problem. In fact, a lot of good church people that I know say that are quite satisfied with the criminal justice system. Well, I’m not satisfied and I’m so thankful that the Lord is not satisfied! And the Church shouldn’t be satisfied either! To borrow a phrase from Martin Luther King and the prophet Amos, “…No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.†How can we be satisfied? It’s time for the Church to take our religion out of the box and get involved! It’s time to get up off our blessed assurance and educate ourselves. It’s time for justice to roll down like waters and righteousness to flow like a mighty stream! It’s time for the Church to find her voice once again and call out to God and call out to man that this is not satisfactory! We cannot be satisfied and we will never be satisfied until policies change!
Jason Byassee wrote about Prisons and the Body of Christ in the Jan/Feb 2010 issue of Books and Culture. In a section on “justice and grace†he says it so well, “Maybe we should do what Jesus said, and visit those in prison. Christians, especially evangelicals, have taken up this call in the past. When William Wilberforce won his crusade against the slave trade he moved on to prison reform as the natural next step. Chuck Colson and other evangelicals have drawn public attention to the barbarity of our prisons and made clear, through their own political conservatism, that what they are proposing is no bleeding-heart liberalism. They ask us simply to open our eyes and look at what we’re doing to our prisoners. It is, after all, our tax money paying for this monstrous system. By maintaining it, we are complicit in a grievous sin.â€
My statistics are from:
The Pew Center on the States – http://www.pewcenteronthestates.org/
The Urban Institute – http://www.urban.org/