The Whole System Fails Each and Every One of Us

I recently blogged about how North Carolina has found a way to reduce the consequences for minor probation violators. One comment suggested that those in prison or who violate probation orders belong there. But prison isn’t accomplishing much of anything for those who are incarcerated… and since the vast majority of those prisoners will be released… for society in general.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics tells us that three out of four released convicts are re-arrested within five years. So once we send someone to prison, we are pretty much assured that they will remain on the wrong side of the law. Because our school system failed them? Because once inside, even non-gang members were forced to join a gang for self-protection? Because few employers will give them an opportunity to make a decent living so they revert to crime? Because prisons are the best “schools of crime” in the world? Because forcing someone to live in foul hell – where fights and physical danger, where long-term isolation for some results in permanent psychological damage are normal – engenders anger and bitterness that never goes away?

Yes, many people do have to go behind bars. Violent crimes are particularly an obvious justification. But when we send someone to prison/jail, we are pretty much creating a vastly bigger problem for the rest of us… sooner or later. Even those who will never be released have an opportunity inflict pain and criminal training on those who will. With 25% of the planet’s incarcerated prisoners and only 5% of global population, it is crystal clear that our entire prison philosophy is seriously hurting most of us. With 2.4 million current U.S. inmates, the number of prisoners has quadrupled since 1980. It’s expensive, running from a very-low $21,000 to $45,000 a year per inmate to house. 

Prison sentences have grown longer in our “get tough on crime” era, but society most certainly has not benefited. I’ve blogged on how most of those inside are there because of drug-related offenses. According to the August 13, 213 Washington Post, the most serious crime for half of federal inmates and 20% of state prisoners was a pure drug crime. The system has failed us. Watch any prison show (there are lots!), and you will see the gangs, the segregation units, the raw brutality faced by just about every inmate in every prison, and you begin to see that there is very little real control of these institutions by the staff.

The inmates set the rules, many killing and stabbing with little fear of further punishment (many are lifers or have traded absolute fealty to gangs for protection). Why is it virtually inevitable that anyone going to jail faces the kind of violence we call torture if it were directly administered by the “authorities”? If we know this is the fate for most prisoners, are we actually guilty of suborning that torture? Don’t we have a responsibility to stop that practice? But with too many prisoners, nobody is even ready to address that obvious reform.

To make matters worse, those running prisons have a vested interest in covering up what’s really going on inside. And since most of us have little or no sympathy for those convicted, fixing a violent system has become seriously deprioritized. Let’s look at “liberal” New York City, specifically at cover-ups at Rikers Island. “After years of teenage inmates being slashed, stabbed and maimed, it appeared that the jail for adolescents at Rikers Island had finally been brought under control. In April 2011, a new warden and deputy warden were named, and almost immediately, official tallies of inmate fights fell by two-thirds.

“The correction commissioner at the time hailed the accomplishment at a City Council hearing and gave the men an award for their ‘exceptional efforts.’ Within a month, both officials were promoted… Then came the tip to Correction Department investigators: Violence wasn’t down. The data was wrong.

“A dozen investigators eventually produced a confidential report, obtained by The New York Times, which concluded that hundreds of inmate fights had been omitted from departmental statistics; that the warden, William Clemons, and the deputy warden, Turhan Gumusdere, had ‘abdicated all responsibility’ in reporting the statistics and that both should be demoted.” New York Times, September 21^st. In short, they doctored the statistics, completely failed to address the problem, and that was good enough for the City’s leaders. They furnished the mendacious report to the federal government as well.

“The commissioner at the time, Dora B. Schriro, did not demote the men. Instead, she ordered the removal from the report of any implication that the pair were culpable, current and former officials said.

“Then city officials provided only the sanitized report to the United States attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York, which was conducting its own investigation into potential civil rights violations in the handling of teenage inmates at Rikers. As part of its investigation, the office had made repeated requests to the Correction Department for all relevant documents and asked, in particular, for any materials associated with audits or reviews related to violence by staff on adolescent inmates or between the inmates themselves.” NY Times.

The story is repeated across the United States every day. And when these inmates are released, as most of them will, exactly how will their prison experience have made them better qualified to be part of society… that same society where you live, work and play… and in which your kids also live, work and play?

     I’m Peter Dekom, and exactly how do you like paying a lot for a system that makes your life much more dangerous and risky?