Why Changing Attitudes to Criminality is Crucial to US Prison Reforms
The US has the world’s highest prison population, both in absolute numbers and as a share of the country’s population. The country is facing a major societal issue, as according to the World Prison Brief more than 2.1 million Americans are currently in prison, which is about 0.66% of the country’s population.
Up to the 1970s, the US prison population had been relatively stable, until president Nixon declared the “War on Drugs”. This saw the amount of imprisoned Americans grow more than five-fold in the following 25 years, as increasingly strict policing and sentencing policies were implemented. The country’s criminal justice system is guided by a punishment-oriented mentality, asserting that criminals are to be punished for their mistakes to prevent them from repeating their actions, and to deter others from following in their footsteps.
Many experts have argued that this punishment-oriented prison system is ineffective at deterring crime or preventing ex-convicts from reoffending, as data shows that 67% of ex-prisoners in the US are rearrested within three years of their release. The punitive attitude towards crime has contributed to social stigma and limited government support for convicts rehabilitation, making it difficult for them to find employment or pursue education after their release from prison. Ethnic minorities, and African-Americans in particular, are suffering disproportionately from this system as well, as the 2010 census showed that the per capita incarceration rate of black people is more than five times that of non-Hispanic white people. This disproportionality in the prison population prevents upwards social mobility for many people that already come from lower-income backgrounds.
This raises questions about the impact of a punishment-oriented mentality on the US prison system, and whether alternative strategies from around the world could prove more successful in combating this issue.
Why is the US system so broken?
The binary idea that criminals are bad, and hence deserve punishment, is one that has existed for millennia. In the US this attitude is very prominent, as polls have shown that a majority of Americans support strong punishments for violent offenders and the revocation of their voting rights.
Because of public opinion, politicians have historically suffered from having a “soft-on-crime” reputation. Experts argue that Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis’ portrayal as such by Republicans contributed to him losing the 1988 presidential election. In more recent times, presidents such as Trump and Bush Jr. have also explicitly portrayed themselves as “tough-on-crime” to cater to public opinion. Support for aggressive penal policies has not exclusively been limited to Republicans however. In 2014, congressional Democrats were actually opposing Republican-sponsored sentencing reforms, fearing to appear soft on crime.
The results of tough-on-crime policies have caused prison populations to increase so rapidly since the 1970s that an entire industry of privately-owned prison corporations was created to handle the influx of prisoners. This prison industry is so large that in some states, such as New Mexico, up to 43% of convicts are held in private prisons.
States often provide little regulations for these corporations, taking little responsibility for the wellbeing of the inmates. The problem with this is that these for-profit prisons are oriented towards maximising their profit, creating large inefficiencies in the treatment of convicts. Roger Werholtz, Kansas’ former secretary of corrections, argued that these for-profit prisons are actually incentivised to keep future prison populations high for this exact reason. An ITPI research center report also found that the business models of some private prisons include operating decisions that actually increase the recidivism of ex-convicts.
The problem with the US prison system largely lies in how public opinion prevents politicians from implementing reforms to a system that has failed so hard that private corporations are even needed to house all convicts.
What is the mentality shift necessary for reform?
As popular support controls politicians’ re-election chances, decreasing salience of punitive criminal justice policies would incentivize politicians to reform the existing system. For example, the LA Times reported that sentencing laws in Texas were softened through pressure from Evangelical Christians on politicians to show more empathy and focus on rehabilitation in prisons.
A large-scale mentality shift to favour policies focused on rehabilitation over punishment would pressure politicians to pass similar reforms nationwide. Crucial to changing these attitudes is understanding how ineffective a justice system focused on punishment really is.
Studies have shown that harsh penal policies do not actually serve to decrease crime rates, but rather to increase the punishments issued to small-scale criminals. As rehabilitation is also particularly effective for small-scale criminals, harsh punishments can actually have the contrary effect, pushing them deeper into criminality due to the extended exposure to prison conditions
Because of lack of focus on rehabilitation in prison policy, not only does the crime rate increase in the short term, bringing rise to a whole host of problems, but it also has a long-term impact in increasing poverty and criminality, particularly in minority ethnic communities.
A mentality shift to understanding crime not as unambiguously bad, but rather as often motivated by socio-economic circumstances would lead to increased public support for more effective criminal justice policies. This would help to reduce crime rates and break the poverty cycle that low income groups find themselves in.
What do these rehabilitative reforms look like?
Many countries around the world have already successfully adapted criminal justice policies focusing on rehabilitation over punishment. Some of these policies could help the US reap the improvements that come with humanizing criminals and proactively looking to rehabilitate them.
Norway for example is a country that focuses strongly on rehabilitation in its criminal justice system. In an interview, Norwegian prison governor Are Hoidal explained that the punishment was the prisoners’ loss of freedom, but otherwise they were given access to healthcare, exercise, and quality education. The aim is to treat prisoners humanely, and provide work to give them the skills and mindset necessary for functioning in society. Largely because of this, the country’s recidivism rate has decreased to 20%, whilst prior to the reforms this rate was around 60–70%, which is similar to the US. The latter has also been criticized for not offering enough education opportunities in prisons, so ex-convicts are often released from prison unadjusted to society and with little marketable skills to help them find employment.
The ability of ex-convicts to readjust to society is by many experts considered crucial to turning them away from criminality, which is why Norway trains them for jobs, such as cooks or mechanics. The different mentality in the US is demonstrated in California, where inmates are used as firefighters, a dangerous job for which they are paid a fraction of the minimum wage. Still, after their release from prison they cannot continue working as firefighters due to the difficulties for prisoners to obtain the necessary working licenses. This is because prisoners aren’t employed as firefighters for the purpose of rehabilitation, but rather due the lack of regular firefighters in emergency situations, such as during massive wildfires. Small systemic changes, such as assemblywoman Eloise Reyes’ proposal to provide inmate firefighters with permanent jobs, would help to reduce recidivism rates and improve reintegration of ex-convicts.
For humans it is instinctive to respond to criminality in a negative emotional manner, but the focus on punishment and revenge in a criminal justice system is actually one of the reasons why the US system is so broken. By promoting more empathetic attitudes towards criminals, public opinion could be used to usher in political reforms improving the prison system’s ability to decrease crime rates. The key to prison reform isn’t any specific policy, but rather the small and large changes that become obvious when approaching criminality and justice from a more rehabilitative perspective.
In the short term this will reduce recidivism rates, and improve the life opportunities of ex-convicts, and in the long term decreased crime rates and a smaller prison population will reshape the socio-economic landscape of the US as well.
Note: All sources used for this article can be found separately in the article entitled “compiled bibliographies for all my published articles” on my profile.
