Unlocking America

November 22, 2007 10:56 AM

Unlocking America [pdf]: Why and How to Reduce America's Prison Population. From the JFA Institute: a criminal justice think tank.
posted by AceRock (48 comments total)

Let 'em all out! could someone answer this, on prisons. When we are in the military, they always manage war or not, to make sure we have turkey etc for Thanksgiving. Do they do anything for those in prison on Thanksgiving or is the same of whatever it is they are fed? Many in prison ought not ever be released and other should not be there to begin with. We need to rethink such issues (crack versus cocaine; sexual predators; drunk driving etc etc)...we do know there are repeat offenders and no amount of time in or out will keep them from returning to crime. But their records should indicate this . thenthere are the elderly: those sent while young but who are now too old to pursue crime as a profession.
posted by Postroad at 11:01 AM on November 22, 2007

Reduce our customer base prison population? What will the shareholders think?
posted by sourwookie at 11:13 AM on November 22, 2007 [2 favorites]

There's only one answer, and that answer is Running Man.
posted by Astro Zombie at 11:20 AM on November 22, 2007

The system is fucked. If you are poor and/or young, you will do jail time. If you are a white collar criminal or rich you can delay justice well in to your old age. Drug crimes have an unequal sentence compared to other crimes, drunk drivers seldom do time even for repeat offenders who end up killing people. Money spent incarcerating adults would be better spent on day care and head start programs and parental support for struggling families. It makes no sense that we have no money to spend helping a family with affordable daycare, but we have all the money in the world to lock up that neglected child once it steps over the line. Also--money could be better spent helping with education. I finished college over 20 years ago, yet the Pell Grant that at my time paid half of my tuition has not gone up more than a couple of hundred dollars. Money spent on jail could be spent on helping people afford school or trade school if they aren't into traditional college. We spend more on incarcerating a person than we would spend education them. Makes no sense.
posted by 45moore45 at 12:04 PM on November 22, 2007 [2 favorites]

5 million men enter, 114 leave. it's Thunderdome, american style!
posted by blue_beetle at 12:09 PM on November 22, 2007

stop locking up victimless drug offenders! next question, the lady in the third row...
posted by bruce at 12:36 PM on November 22, 2007

And I thought JFA was Jodie Foster's Army.
posted by SpannerX at 12:40 PM on November 22, 2007

stop locking up victimless drug offenders!

If you are a young, African-American man, you have to know that using or selling drugs puts you at risk of arrest and prison at the hands of an unjust criminal justice system. So why would you do it? Wouldn't the fact that you were at extra risk of being imprisoned inspire you to lead a life of clean, orderly sobriety? Wouldn't it inspire you dress and deport yourself in a fashion that would be the least likely to attract the attention of law enforcement authorities? Shouldn't the fact of this injustice (and it is a terrible injustice) inspire millions of African-American boys to heights of academic achievement that would win them widespread entry into the legal, government and professional establishment, so that they could end this injustice forever? I'm just askin'...
posted by Faze at 12:57 PM on November 22, 2007 [1 favorite]

This Thanksgiving, Most of All
posted by homunculus at 1:14 PM on November 22, 2007 [2 favorites]

Faze, I can't tell if yours is a serious comment or not. Consider that for a lot of young men, who live in an environment where they could realistically die in the immediate future, that choosing to pursue short-term rewards (like selling drugs, or stealing things), over investing in the far future by focusing on your education (in a corrupt, incompetent public school system) is perfectly reasonable?
posted by AceRock at 1:26 PM on November 22, 2007 [1 favorite]

Faze, ask yourself what would cause people to commit drug crimes given the world which you describe.

An answer of "black peoples is dumb" will result in a failing grade.
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:32 PM on November 22, 2007

Good paper, by the way, with good numbers to boot. Worth keeping.
posted by gimonca at 1:37 PM on November 22, 2007

This report is terribly troubling, especially after reading the link from homunculus. I always thought that education is the answer to major societal problems. Now I'm beginning to think that education is still the answer, but our own education toward more compassion, more caring for others, more fairness. I ask myself if I would be willing to give a felon a job, or if I would be willing for one of them to live next door to my family. Realistically, not everybody deserves a second chance, but most of the prisoners do and it is I who makes their reentrance in society difficult.

The grammar does not look quite right, but please forgive me for English is my second language.
posted by francesca too at 1:53 PM on November 22, 2007

The statistics about the United States prison population always bothered me, to say the least. We're ostensibly a free nation, right? So why is our prison population higher—both in relative and absolute terms, the second of which scares the shit out of me—than our nearest competitor?

That competitor being China, of course, which is an unrepentantly totalitarian regime last time I checked. And has about 1.3 billion people.
posted by Weebot at 2:12 PM on November 22, 2007

Faze, ask yourself what would cause people to commit drug crimes given the world which you describe.

This is what I'm asking myself. Drug crimes are the most volitional of all offenses. No one sticks a crack pipe in your mouth. Drug crimes aren't crimes of passion; they aren't crimes of poverty; they aren't crimes of raging hormones. They are "crimes" of cool and deliberate decision. (Mind you, I personally think that recreational drugs should be decriminalized.) As individuals, we have very little power to change the drug laws or racist arrest and sentencing practices. But we do -- as individuals -- have the power to take or not take drugs. The moment you choose not to take drugs, or associate with persons who take drugs, you drasticly reduce the ability of the government over you. The whole prison-industrial complex could be destroyed tomorrow if everyone who currently takes drugs would simply stop (no great sacrifice, either, as I can testify).
The slogan could be, "Screw the Justice System: Stop Taking Drugs."
posted by Faze at 2:57 PM on November 22, 2007

Faze, what makes you think you're safe from going to jail just because you don't take drugs? Often the cops are corrupt and will "get" whoever is handiest when they need a bust. In fact, they may be protecting the real criminals. (In one neighborhood where I lived I know for a fact the police were actually running the crack trade and stolen car rings.) In that environment, getting a little for yourself when it looks like you'll probably pay anyway might seem very reasonable.
posted by localroger at 3:24 PM on November 22, 2007

So that's what happens when you click "post" a second time if the page is loading slowly...
posted by localroger at 3:25 PM on November 22, 2007

We've got a full jail here in my county. (My mother was on the county board committee that approved the current jail. They thought it would last 30 years instead of fifteen.) The plans for an expansion have run into the usual taxpayer whininess, with typical comments about how jail "should be a punishment" (as if a new jail is somehow less of one). Fortunately the county is exploring alternatives and expanding electronic monitoring and non-traditional sentencing, but we're still going to need a new jail. Our population has gone up about 10% and our jail population has gone up 250%.

And yes, people also complain how the judges and DA are making too many plea bargains. Probably the same exact people that complain about a new jail.
posted by dhartung at 3:32 PM on November 22, 2007

Does anyone know how much the prison lobby, which benefits from large prison population, lobbies? Does it push the 3 strikes and you're a revenue for them for life laws?

The US appears to be run by powerful lobbies, Big Pharma, the Unions, Big Oil, Defense, the Israeli Lobby, the Cuban Lobby, the Armenian Lobby, the Farm Lobby and the Gun Lobby.

Privatised prisons are not that common in the rest of the world and it could be that that difference plays a sizeable role.
posted by sien at 4:03 PM on November 22, 2007

Sien: I understand Sodhexo-Marriot is a huge player in the privatized prison industry.
posted by sourwookie at 5:37 PM on November 22, 2007

Faze, what makes you think you're safe from going to jail just because you don't take drugs?

I agree, cops can always plant drugs on you. But if you don't run with a drug-taking crowd, and lead an orderly life, you minimize the likliehood of your having the type of contact with cops that might get drugs planted on you. Not drinking or taking drugs doesn't make you safe from arrest, but it probably improves your odds by at least 80 percent. So why wouldn't you do something that decreases your odds of going to prison by 80 percent? Prison sucks. I mean, really, really sucks. Wouldn't you do ANYTHING to stay out?
posted by Faze at 6:58 PM on November 22, 2007

[drug crimes] aren't crimes of poverty;

When poverty - or a barely liveable wage meted out by shit-eating managers who represent everything you despise about a system apparently designed to grind you down at every opportunity - is the alternative, then, yes, yes they are.
posted by poweredbybeard at 7:12 PM on November 22, 2007

Faze, I'm going to go way out on a limb and guess that you haven't spent much time in any urban ghettos. It's a harsh and complicated reality that is comprised of self-perpetuating failure cycles; public institutional failure, family failure, political failure, individual failure, etc.

Kids deal drugs usually because their moms can barely feed them, let alone buy them the nice things that a kid is going to want to have. They deal drugs because their moms weren't educated by failing public schools that are failing worse now that they are attending them than they were when their moms went. They are socially isolated in parts of the city that are bone dry from an economic opportunity standpoint and few of them understand that the world is larger than the five square blocks around them where everyone else is clawing and scraping for what resources are available.

Dealing drugs is actually a relatively rational decision based on the world view and limited base of understanding that these kids have to work from. It should tell you something about how bleak their world is that this is the case.
posted by The Straightener at 7:32 PM on November 22, 2007 [2 favorites]

Dealing drugs is actually a relatively rational decision based on the world view and limited base of understanding that these kids have to work from.

but in reality, it ISN'T a rational decision, is it? how many people can they point to for whom it's actually worked out in the long run?

none

it's self destructive behavior wrapped up in the inevitable human belief that the bad endings happen to "the other guy" - or worse, one is going to get fucked anyway so one might as well have a good ride before it happens

the capacity for people to kid themselves about what they're doing is pretty large - but don't call it rational, as it isn't
posted by pyramid termite at 8:27 PM on November 22, 2007

What does worked out in the long run mean to them? Probably not the same thing it means to you. If most of your friends are dead or doing hard time before the 25, the long run is the short term and anything beyond that simply doesn't exist.

I didn't say it was a rational decision, I said it was rational decision relative to the circumstances that generated it. These circumstances include a macro-socioeconomic system that breeds sociopathy through chronic resource starvation. Theirs is a subjectivity you do not have access to, and are therefore not necessarily qualified to make judgements about the quality of their decision making. In order to understand the rationality of their decision making you would have to strip away years of education, years of social nurturing and all the opportunities and possessions you take for granted. Then, and only then, would you be in a position to truly understand why it makes sense to a young buck to stand on a corner slinging rocks, when he know the risks involved.

You are judging the rationality of their decisions based on criteria that make sense in your world, which is not theirs, based on your knowledge, resources, experiences, which are also not theirs. These are children/young adults we're talking about here, who have received zero in terms of guidance or healthy role modeling. Try to see the world through their eyes.
posted by The Straightener at 8:44 PM on November 22, 2007 [2 favorites]

but in reality, it ISN'T a rational decision, is it? how many people can they point to for whom it's actually worked out in the long run?

The point is that they aren't thinking about the long run. Read my comment above. They live in a world where it doesn't make sense to think in terms of the long run, because they have a good chance of not being around for the long run (either because they will die or go to prison). That is their reality.

It is perfectly rational to choose a short term reward that is immediate and certain over a long term reward in the far future that is anything but guaranteed, if you live where some kids in this country are growing up.
posted by AceRock at 8:44 PM on November 22, 2007

I didn't say it was a rational decision, I said it was rational decision relative to the circumstances that generated it.

part of those circumstances being what actually happens to people in the local neighborhood - do you mean to tell me that they don't know people who have been shot, busted, had their lives wrecked to hell?

they know damn well they're fucking up their lives and they do it anyway

Then, and only then, would you be in a position to truly understand why it makes sense to a young buck to stand on a corner slinging rocks, when he know the risks involved.

young buck? - mmm'kay

You are judging the rationality of their decisions based on criteria that make sense in your world, which is not theirs

really? - you assume far too much about me - but never mind

the results speak for themselves and will continue to speak for themselves

Try to see the world through their eyes.

patronizing people and making excuses for them is not seeing the world through their eyes - it's also not helping them

but i see no reason to discuss this further with someone who professes to help people he calls "young bucks"
posted by pyramid termite at 8:59 PM on November 22, 2007

I think there is a difference between making excuses for people and trying to really understand why people do things that are indeed harmful, instead of dismissing their behavior as self-destructive, naive, or fatalist.
posted by AceRock at 9:05 PM on November 22, 2007

Step 1: Decriminalize drugs.
Step 2: There is no step two.

Yeah, there are some other laws that are pretty bad, but there's really nothing that's as egregiously bad as the drug 'war,' in terms of then number of people it puts in prison or the obvious economic/cultural biases it has.

Decriminalizing drugs wouldn't solve the economic problems in the ghettos, and it probably wouldn't even solve most of the crime problems (the people there who aren't making it in legitimate employment now probably aren't going to make it in legitimate employment if drugs were legal -- it's not like they're going to be the ones running the legitimate drug enterprise anyway; it's going to be run by Altria and RJR Nabisco, don't kid yourself), so the disaffected would probably still turn to other, more traditional, illegal activities. But at least it would strip away one level of institutionalized, structural oppression and let us start working on some of the real problems.
posted by Kadin2048 at 9:21 PM on November 22, 2007

how many people can they point to for whom it's actually worked out in the long run?

Things turned out okay for Laura Bush, all things considered.
posted by The Card Cheat at 9:36 PM on November 22, 2007

but in reality, it ISN'T a rational decision, is it? how many people can they point to for whom it's actually worked out in the long run?

none

I feel like there's a fallacy here - no one can point out, more than anecdotally, anyone for whom drug dealing has worked out in the long run, because pretty much by definition they can't be pointed out.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 9:44 PM on November 22, 2007

A friend of mine, when a senior in high school, sold some drugs for a very short period of time because his mother had promised to rent a limo for his prom, and she didn't come through with the cash. So he sold some drugs (don't know what kind) and I think got about $200 together, which was probably more cash than he had ever had in his life up until that point. He rented his limo as planned and then gave up the trade. He was lucky.

But I suppose that for other kids in his situation, who are told -- Look, just stand out on the corner for a little bit and you can make more money than you ever dreamed -- the prospect is very appealing. After you get away with it a couple of times, you start to imagine you can do it indefinitely. Probably some time later you see that it's inevitable you will be locked up, but by that time you've already been hooked. Plus you see your former friends and "colleagues" getting out of jail, bragging that it's easy, better than being unemployed out on the street, etc.

It's really not that uncommon for a series of small justifiable steps to lead you into something disastrous, whether it be drug-dealing, gambling, rock climbing, day trading, joining religious cults, becoming obese, or many other things that look pretty absurd in hindsight.
posted by xigxag at 10:09 PM on November 22, 2007

The drug thing is a side issue. Drugs just happened to run into the grotesquely punitive sentences dished out for everything.

I think it's Puritanism, if not Lamarckism. It’s punishment for not living up to an ideal. Maybe the same goes for the Chinese.

We are not born little Jesi, we are animals. Learn a little mercy, friends.
posted by emf at 2:02 AM on November 23, 2007

"...but i see no reason to discuss this further with someone who professes to help people he calls "young bucks"" - pyramid termite

pyramid termite, I don't think this is a "flag it as hate speech" moment, so much as just how black people talk. (I'm guessing, seeing as how I don't have any black friends these days.) More an example of a white social worker using the speech he hears (and uses) every day.

That aside, you seem to be doing your damndest to avoid understanding why poor black youth make the decisions they do. 'This is madness! A simple cost-benefit analysis plainly shows ...'
posted by sebastienbailard at 3:20 AM on November 23, 2007

but i see no reason to discuss this further with someone who professes to help people he calls "young bucks"

Pyramid termite, your back and forths are always tiresome and unproductive and you're one of the last people here I'm interested in debating with because I don't sense that you argue from any base of knowledge or expertise. I apologize for knowing how young black kids speak, I'm around them an awful lot and it helps when you work with them to learn how to speak to them in their terms. It helps to break down barriers and build trust, and sometimes it keeps you from being a target.
posted by The Straightener at 8:25 AM on November 23, 2007

Step 1: Decriminalize drugs.
Step 2: There is no step two.

Step 1: Decriminalize terrorism.
Step 2: There is no more war.
posted by blue_beetle at 8:32 AM on November 23, 2007

I feel like there's a fallacy here - no one can point out, more than anecdotally, anyone for whom drug dealing has worked out in the long run, because pretty much by definition they can't be pointed out.

This isn't true; the Stringer Bell character in the Wire is a pumped version of the reality behind a number of drug dealers who are able to crossover with their amassed drug capital into legitimate business. Few of them have gained that kind of empire that allows the purchase of large blocks of prime real estate, but that's the made for television version. The Inquirer just had a very compelling series about a local kingpin called Ace Capone who was using his drug money to make independent movies and had a thriving party promotion business.

Now, sure, Ace got pinched but maybe he wouldn't have if he wasn't making movies that used pretty much the exact details of his real life as plot narrative. There are plenty of guys who aim more realistically; they don't want to become self-made movie moguls, they maybe want to buy a couple properties to rent out, or get the capital to start a small business.

Then there are the rappers like Beanie Sigel from Philly; I think if you ask Beanie if the drug game "worked out in the long run" for him, I think he'd say it did quite nicely. Ditto Young Jeezy, Jay-Z, and every other gangster rapper with a verified history of drug dealing. This is part of the problem; the drug dealer who crossed over and blew up in the legitimate world is the new mythology for these kids.

I just had a client get out of prison last week, his stated goal is to sell enough crack to buy a house and then retire. We told him we wouldn't be able to assist him with that particular goal, and encouraged him to consider finding another one considering he's spent about 90% of his adult life locked up. He thinks it's still the greatest idea ever, despite his apparent lack of apptitude, but he's also seriously mentally ill. Part of the problem is that he can't muster the kind of thought organization required to successfully deal. Hopefully he'll give it up, but that's his decision to make.

I had a 19 year old client who was using his crack money to buy time at a big recording studio downtown. He said the recording studios are full of teenagers with wads of drug cash buying studio time and recording their little raps. His were okay, he played them for me on his boombox (his brother had better rhymes), but I don't think he's destined for the big time. I encouraged him to get his GED instead.

There is plenty of evidence that drug money is considered the start up capital of ghetto.
posted by The Straightener at 9:05 AM on November 23, 2007 [4 favorites]

Pyramid termite, your back and forths are always tiresome and unproductive and you're one of the last people here I'm interested in debating with because I don't sense that you argue from any base of knowledge or expertise.

do you know what's really tiresome and unproductive? the old refrain that people don't know any better, they don't have any real choices and they are making "rational choices"

that's been said for decades now and it hasn't changed a damned thing, has it? as much as the locking them up in prison thing doesn't work, neither do your bromides - it's been proven

the reason you don't sense i'm arguing from experience is that you're incapable of thinking that someone could be confronted by the things you've seen and have a different opinion on them

i could tell you my story and my experience, but i'm tired of swinging pearls before rude self-righteous swine who assume they're the only ones who know what they're talking about - you just go on believing that i have never met any crack dealers, that i have never known any crack addicts and i couldn't possibly know anything about it because your self-esteem obviously depends on it

mine doesn't
posted by pyramid termite at 1:02 PM on November 23, 2007

Concerning the discussion between pyramidtermite and straightener and myself, this passage is from an academic publication called Human Safety and Risk Management:

Related to risk-proneness is the individual difference of forward planning, and it has been suggested that for those living in unstable and uncertain environment, it could be adaptive to discount the future consequences of one's behavior... Thus, short-term orientation is likely to be negatively related to the stability of one's social environment. For example, Hill et al. found that higher risk taking was associated with degree of perceived unpredictability and skepticism about one's personal life expectancy. Fetchenhauer and Rohde suggested that shot-term orientation could be the prime mechanism for individuals becoming risk-takers at a behavioral level.

posted by AceRock at 1:59 PM on November 23, 2007

"Young Buck" is a disgusting, derogatory and racist term. I don't care who you are or how you use it.

Furthermore, people sell drugs to make money. When there is absolutely no way you are going to be hired for any other job - because you are a young African-American male with a criminal record, it is a very, very simple decision to sell drugs. Also, if you are confident and you have many, many friends who use said drugs it might make quite a bit of sense to you at the time.
I work with many young people who are working off service hours for minor drug offenses. They sell drugs to make money. End of story.

Give them skills, then give them good jobs (just like we do with suburban white kids). Their desire to sell drugs will disappear.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 2:10 PM on November 23, 2007

"Young Buck" is a disgusting, derogatory and racist term.

It is? Why? I'm genuinely curious. To me, "Young Buck" is:

a. A famous rapper.
b. A young man.

After reading your comment I've since located other definitions, all derivative of those two. I haven't been able to locate any resources that indicate a racist history behind the term.

Why do people sell drugs? To make money quickly and simply. Pyramid termite, surely you can understand the desire to make fast money, especially if you were ever young. And quite frankly, when you mention long term success, these kids could absolutely point to people who have had "long-term" success (lived to their 20s and made money) and who started as drug dealers. The threat of prison means nothing, because every other guy they know has gone to prison. That's just part of the game, it's no big thing. You go to jail like you go to school. Your father, uncles, male neighbors, buddies, older brothers, they all went to jail at least once.

Why do people take drugs? Illegal ones, you mean?
posted by Danila at 3:20 PM on November 23, 2007

Somehow a good quick reference doesn't appear, but it carries connotations of being owned as an animal for labor and breeding rather than being a person. I definitely have seen in my life pictures of slave auction advertisements for a "healthy young buck negro" or somesuch thing.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 6:12 PM on November 23, 2007

Thanks for the info TheOnlyCoolTim, very interesting. That sounds like it could be quite plausible to me. I'll try to see if I can find anything else.
posted by Danila at 8:49 PM on November 23, 2007

You can't control the government.
You can't control the justice system.
You can't control the cops.
But you can control what you put in your nose, your mouth, or your arm.
For that matter, you can also control what you put in our pocket, or take from someone else's pocket. You control your fists, your fingers, and your tongue.
Why wait for the government or justice system to solve the prison problem? Why not solve it from the supply end? The system feeds on your behavior. Stop doing criminal behaviors, and starve the system. Attendance at prison is voluntary.
posted by Faze at 7:11 AM on November 24, 2007

Faze, that is an interesting solution, and really good practical advice. But I'd also like to believe that in a democracy we can change the system. Which is why I posted this paper in the first place. For people to want and try to make a change, they have to know that there is a problem first, and it helps if they get angry about it too.

Also, as someone who works at a wrongful convictions organization, I can tell you that attendance at prison is certainly not "voluntary", or under your own control.
posted by AceRock at 8:36 AM on November 24, 2007

It is a convenient fantasy to think that if you don't do anything wrong, that you won't get in trouble. If only that were true.
posted by AceRock at 8:42 AM on November 24, 2007 [2 favorites]

Kathryn Johnston: A Year Later. 92-year-old woman's death has done little to curb the use of paramilitary police tactics around the country.
posted by homunculus at 12:00 PM on November 24, 2007

Drug War Chronicle Issue #511
posted by homunculus at 2:07 PM on November 25, 2007