Pubdate: Mon, 30 Apr 2001
Source: Fortune (US)
Copyright: 2001 Time Inc.
Contact:  http://www.mapinc.org/media/1384
Website: http://www.fortune.com/
Author: Cait Murphy

PRISON ECONOMICS

Crime and Punishment Think that stuffing prisons with lawbreakers makes 
sense? You clearly haven't run the numbers.

America is an exceptional country. Compared with citizens of other nations, 
Americans tend to be more religious and more entrepreneurial. We send more 
people to university, have more millionaires, and enjoy more living space. 
We are the world leaders in obesity and Nobel Prizes.

And we send people to prison at a rate that is almost unheard of. Right 
now, almost two million Americans are either in prison (after conviction) 
or jail (waiting for trial). Of every 100,000 Americans, 481 are in prison. 
By comparison, the incarceration rate for Britain is 125 per 100,000, for 
Canada 129, and for Japan 40. Only Russia, at 685, is quicker to lock 'em up.

America was not always so exceptional in this regard. For the 50 years 
prior to 1975, the U.S. incarceration rate averaged about 110, right around 
rich-world norms. But then, in the 1970s, the great prison buildup began. 
This was a bipartisan movement. Democrats like Jerry Brown of California 
and Ann Richards of Texas, for example, presided over prison population 
booms, as did Republican governors like John Ashcroft of Missouri and 
Michael Castle of Delaware. Bill Clinton worried in public about rising 
prison populations but signed legislation, much of it Republican sponsored, 
that kept the figures rising. No surprise, then, that spending on 
incarceration has ballooned from less than $7 billion in 1980 to about $45 
billion today.

Just because the U.S. is different doesn't mean it is wrong. But prison is 
a serious matter in a way that, say, America's inexplicable affection for 
tractor pulls is not. Accordingly, a number of people--social scientists, 
prison professionals, even a few politicians--have begun to examine how and 
why the U.S. sends people to prison. What they are finding, in broad terms, 
is that there is a substantial minority of prisoners for whom incarceration 
is inappropriate--and much too expensive.

Who deserves to be imprisoned is, of course, partly a question of moral 
values. Prison keeps criminals off the streets; it punishes transgressors 
and deters people from committing crimes. But it is also a question of 
economic values. Everyone agrees that caging, say, John Wayne Gacy is worth 
whatever it costs, but that locking up a granny caught shoplifting makes no 
sense. The question to consider, then, is not "Does prison work?" but "When 
does prison work?" Economics can help draw the line.

On one level, it makes sense that America imprisons more people than its 
peers. The U.S. has historically been more violent than Europe, Japan, or 
Canada--in particular, our homicide rate is well above world norms--and the 
public wants violent people punished while freeing society from their 
presence. "We are a culture that believes change is possible, that human 
beings can be saved," says Francis Cullen of the University of Cincinnati, 
who specializes in public attitudes toward crime and rehabilitation. "The 
dividing line is violence. That's where people start becoming unwilling to 
take risks."

Fundamentally, America's prison population grew because people got sick of 
feeling scared and elected politicians who promised to deliver freedom from 
that fear. Moreover, it could be argued that America had some catching up 
to do: From the early 1960s to the early 1970s, the violent-crime rate rose 
sharply while the incarceration rate actually fell. Those trends probably 
helped spawn the "tough on crime" mentality that has reigned since. In the 
1980s lawmakers delivered mandatory minimums--statutory requirements for 
harsh sentences for certain offenses, mostly gun- and drug-related. In the 
1990s came "three-strikes" laws, designed to target repeat felons; 
truth-in-sentencing legislation; and the abolition of parole in many states.

All those policies filled prisons, but not necessarily with the hardened 
thugs people thought they were putting away. Though there are now 400,000 
more violent offenders behind bars than there were in 1980, the proportion 
of violent offenders in the prison population has actually fallen. 
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the percentage of violent 
offenders in state prisons has dropped from almost 60% in 1980 to 48% at 
the end of 1999; 21% were in prison in 1999 for property crimes, 21% for 
drug crimes, and the rest for public-order offenses, such as immigration, 
vice, or weapons violations. In the federal system, home to about 145,000 
offenders, 58% are in for drug offenses (compared with 25% in 1980) and 
only 12% for violent crimes--down from 17% in 1990. Of the six crimes that 
account for the great majority of prisoners (murder, robbery, aggravated 
assault, burglary, drugs, and sexual assault), drug offenders made up 45% 
of the growth from 1980 to 1996, figures Allan Beck of the BJS. Every year 
from 1990 through 1997, more people were sentenced to prison for drug 
offenses than for violent crimes.

The Land of the Free?

Country, Incarceration Rate Per 100,000 Residents

Russia, 685

USA, 481

Singapore, 465

Canada, 129

Britain, 125

China, 115

Spain, 110

Australia, 95

Germany, 90

France, 90

Italy, 85

Japan, 40

Source: U.S. Department of Justice, World Prison Population List, 
Statistics Canada
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jo-D