Recidivism in the U.S. Prison System
How drugs and policies have affected recidivism in the U.S. prison system
The laws that concern drugs contribute to the high rates of recidivism in the United States. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics report in 2018, 68% of people who have been to prison are rearrested within 3[CG1] years of their release, and 79% within 6 years of their release. High incarceration rates began in the 1970’s with the “War on Drugs”, when President Richard Nixon declared drug abuse as “public enemy number one” of the United States. The incline continued throughout the end of the 20th century as drug abuse became more of a political issue. The Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan administrations all contributed to the beginning of the era of mass incarceration in the 1980’s while the administration of Bill Clinton perpetuated it in the 1990’s. Politicians began to toughen their stance on crime to make people feel “safe” and to gain votes. The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 increased the amount of drug crimes that require mandatory sentencing. Mandatory sentencing laws included a large disparity between the amount of crack cocaine and powder cocaine for which people were incarcerated. There was the same minimum sentence for five grams of crack cocaine as five hundred grams of powder cocaine. However, the Fair Sentencing Act was passed in 2010 that eliminated the five-year mandatory minimum for those convicted of possession of crack cocaine, as well as reducing the gap between sentencing for crack cocaine and powder cocaine from 100:1 to 18:1.
However, this small change in legislation does not change the fact that we treat drug abuse as a crime rather than a public health issue, which is discussed in the documentary 13th, by Ava DuVernay. Because we treat drug abuse as a crime, the rates of recidivism in the United States are extremely high. Legislation such as the Three Strikes Law, which mandates life imprisonment or the maximum sentence without parole for people who have committed three serious crimes exacerbates the issue. Twenty nine of the fifty states have a version of the Three Strikes Law. So not only have we created a cycle of recidivism, but we decrease the chance for people to break the cycle with the laws that we have in place as well as the inadequacy of our reform strategies inside the prison.
Reformation is what our prison system is supposed to encourage, however it is severely lacking in rehabilitation opportunities. We incarcerate people for their addiction and offer them little to no aid in treating this addiction, and no opportunities to better themselves with job training or education, therefore when they are released, they most often return to doing drugs. The prison environment fosters a gang-like mentality, which influences people to do drugs when they are released. Incarcerated people in the United States are treated like animals rather than people who need help and rehabilitation. Conditions like these can be seen in the series When They See Us by Ava DuVernay, when Raymond Santana returns to selling drugs with the local gang because he cannot find a job and is rearrested. Rehabilitation should consist of education opportunities, relapse prevention, and counseling. With the severely limited access to jobs for people who have served time in prison, the lack of access to education even further limits their chance of success. In 1994, President Clinton signed the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, which no longer allowed incarcerated adults to receive the Pell Grant. Studies show that higher education is becoming more necessary to obtain a job, and thirty percent of incarcerated adults have less education than a high school diploma. If we increase the amount of rehabilitation in our prisons, meaning more education, job training, and counseling, we will see a decrease in the number of reoffenders.
What we have done can be undone, although it will take a lot of work. We have created a prison system with a revolving door, that is hard to escape due to laws that do not apply fairly and are too tough on crime, while also decreasing the access to education and rehabilitative opportunities such as counseling and effective drug programs. Our system is broken, however not hopeless.
