a modest proposal explanation: a massive prison population: a desirable luxury that we can afford because we are a rich nation
http://www.city-journal.org/2008/18_2_cr…
in 2004, 52 percent of state prisoners were serving time for violence and 21 percent for property crimes, for a combined total over three and a half times that of state drug offenders.
I’ve long thought that non-violent drug users and dealers should not be in prison.
…but if 83% of prisoners are in prison for real crimes, then even if you ignore the drug war, we still rank pretty high in “percent of population incarcerated” standings.
Here’s a theory: perhaps, given an American population with a certain propensity to offend because of culture or other reasons (inner city blacks robbing stores; Appalachian rednecks robbing convenience stores; etc – this is a race-blind point), then incarcerating a large percent of our criminals is not shameful in the least, but is a luxury – Americans are finally so rich that we can afford to make our streets safe by both trying and imprisoning our malefactors.
Sure, it would be great if the average trailer park redneck, the average barrio cholo, and the average inner city gangbanger were as unlikely to offend as a Swiss watchmaker, a German BMW engineer, or a Polish plumber … but if we keep that knob set constant (both for the sake of conversation, and because that knob has, in fact, been constant for decades), then a North American gulag archipelago is an infrastructure luxury like the Eisenhower interstate that makes life nicer for everyone.
Some states are poorer, and can’t afford it.
Other states have innate differences in population or culture and don’t need it.
Oh well.
May 6th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
The question then arises: why was the antebellum South, with a far lower per-capita GDP than ours, able to afford the luxury of holding 40% of its population in servitude? Is the point that the 13th Amendment creates an artificial state monopoly on incarceration, with frictional costs (notably, the court system) depriving us of all that extra infrastructure?
May 6th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
I was listening to a radio story this morning about the State of Illinois’ desire to close a particular prison. Of course the prison guard union was complaining and said the closing would effect 550 jobs. The most amazing part came in the next sentence when the announcer stated that the prison held 1600 inmates. I was disappointed that there wasn’t a further explanation of why a prison needed a near 35% staff to prisoner ratio.
May 6th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
I was disappointed that there wasn’t a further explanation of why a prison needed a near 35% staff to prisoner ratio.
Because American prisons are built under a restrictive theory of the Second Amendment. Constitutionally built prisons would obviously require a staff several times larger than the armed prisoner population — which would exert desirable economic pressure against the state’s appalling power to infringe on human liberty.
May 6th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
Ah, for the good ole’ days, when instead of building Facilities like ADX Florence and Pelican Bay, we gave the nastiest of prisoners “the long drop”.
May 6th, 2008 at 7:31 pm
I was disappointed that there wasn’t a further explanation of why a prison needed a near 35% staff to prisoner ratio.
Divide by four then subtract a small number to find the actual guard / prisoner ratio. Too, they’re not all always watching all of the prisoners – at any given time ‘a’ prisoner would require two guards (or more) for escort off-site, etc.
which would exert desirable economic pressure against the state’s appalling power to infringe on human liberty.
Haw!
May 7th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
How many of the 52% for ‘violent crimes’ are side effects of the black market aspect of the Drug War, tho? Yes, they’re still violent crimes, but if that incentive didn’t exist, how many of them would have gotten into what is a violent business?