# WHY are so many Americans in prison/jail/on parole? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 19, 2012, 7:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-americans-in-prison-jail-on-parole/628694 "2012-07-19T07:51:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-americans-in-prison-jail-on-parole/628694/21 "2012-07-20T00:16:48Z")
> [@grude](#): > > Something else that I can’t understand is how the incarcerated population doesn’t seem to translate to street crime, America certainly doesn’t seem like a place where petty crime is non-existant. Think about what you just wrote. Have you ever considered the possibility that the reason we have such a high incarceration rate is because we’ve found out it works? Locking criminals up lowers the crime rate. We want lower crime rates so we lock criminals up. We don’t see lowered sickness rates as a sign we should close hospitals. We don’t see lowered illiteracy rates as a sign we should close schools. Why should we close prisons because of lowered crime rates? ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-americans-in-prison-jail-on-parole/628694/22 "2012-07-20T00:53:48Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > One the flip side there are plenty of Americans willing to be stupid enough to BE criminals. > > I’d kinda like to try pot one day. But guess what? I could get in deep legal shit for it. Spend a ton of money so my lawyer can pay for his big assed boat. Never get a security clearance or have one revoked. Not be able to work in my field anymore. > > So, guess what? I’ve never tried it, don’t hang around with people when they are using it (or hang around with cronic users that are most likely always carrying the stuff with them). Because I know the war on drugs is serious shit and could fuck up my life. > > Those poor people caught in the war on drugs? Most of them did it to themselves. Its not rocket science people. I think the problem with this line of reasoning is that it doesn’t take into account the proportionality of the punishment, and it strays into blaming the victim. You could make exactly the same statement about any crime, no matter how slight, and any punishment, no matter how severe. Yes, it’s easy to not smoke pot. But look at the other stuff you mentioned. You have to make sure none of your friends smoke pot. You have to constantly be on guard that you don’t get dragged into draconian enforcement. If we were to make the penalty for jaywalking be summary execution, you could point out how dumb people are to jaywalk. It’s not like it’s hard to walk to the corner and wait for the light to change. And, while you could argue that the dead jaywalkers were idiots, the real problem would be the extreme criminalization of a relatively minor offense. There are always going to be people who don’t follow the rules. But the reason we have a high prison population compared to other places isn’t that we have more idiots who don’t follow the rules. It’s that we’ve implemented unreasonably strict penalties for those idiots. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-americans-in-prison-jail-on-parole/628694/23 "2012-07-20T01:01:25Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Think about what you just wrote. > > Have you ever considered the possibility that the reason we have such a high incarceration rate is because we’ve found out it works? Locking criminals up lowers the crime rate. We want lower crime rates so we lock criminals up. > > We don’t see lowered sickness rates as a sign we should close hospitals. We don’t see lowered illiteracy rates as a sign we should close schools. Why should we close prisons because of lowered crime rates? You should re-read what he just wrote - he was saying that the large prison population _doesn’t_ translate to less petty crime. If you have cites saying that the US has lower rates of petty crime than similar countries with lower incarceration rates, then you might have a point. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-americans-in-prison-jail-on-parole/628694/24 "2012-07-20T01:02:14Z")
> [@iamthewalrus\_3](#): > > There are always going to be people who don’t follow the rules. But the reason we have a high prison population compared to other places isn’t that we have more idiots who don’t follow the rules. It’s that we’ve implemented unreasonably strict penalties for those idiots. Thats all true. But it still takes two. The criminal choosing to commit the crime and the law that makes it a crime. We may not have more idiots (but sometimes I wonder:) ). But enforcement of the laws themselves, even if they are more strict, doesn’t really bother me. The social situations that are more likely to create people who become criminals does. But once you start “crimeing” so to speak, I’d rather you not be running around in my neighborhood. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-americans-in-prison-jail-on-parole/628694/25 "2012-07-20T01:09:54Z")
Oh, BTW, avoiding pot heads and pot smoking (and other blatant drug users) has impacted my life something like 1 percent, so its not like its some horribly hard and complex task that has taken over my life. ---
**Author:** ![kellner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c2a13f/32.png) [@kellner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kellner)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-americans-in-prison-jail-on-parole/628694/26 "2012-07-20T01:24:39Z")
A while ago I have read an interesting paper written by an American teaching law in Germany. It is not a direct answer to your question, but it discusses issues that seem relevant. At 36 pages it is not a quick read and parts of it are not really relevant to your question. Perhaps this abstract gives you a general idea: > [@](#): > > The Concept of Evil in American and German Criminal Punishment > > Abstract: > The gap in harshness between American and German criminal punishment represents a moral disagreement between the two societies: American criminal punishment expresses a belief in the concept of human evil, while German criminal punishment denies that belief. This paper, after giving the concept of evil some philosophical definition, develops that thesis with six lines of argument. First, contrasting American and German responses to major crime, the paper argues that American criminal law routinely banishes its worst criminal offenders, while German criminal law almost never does. Second, as to minor crime, American law treats misdemeanors as portents of worse things to come, while German law treats them as errors. Third, in the context of recidivism, America punishes the person, Germany the act. Fourth, with regard to community reintegration, American law approaches ex-cons with a concept this paper terms “residual criminality,” while German law adopts norms of full forgiveness. Fifth, as to capital punishment, America treats the right to life as alienable for wrongdoing; Germany treats that right as inalienable. And sixth – turning here from interpreting criminal doctrine and practice to analyzing the historical record – the paper shows that various players in the American criminal system have given voice to the belief in criminal evil, while major players in the German system have expressly denied that belief. The paper concludes by asking which system is more just, arguing that German criminal law is naive for denying the existence of evil where it should be acknowledged, while American criminal law is reckless for rolling genuine evil together with mere error and failure and punishing them all alike. [http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract\_id=1667093](http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1667093) Of course for your question the comparison to Germany is completely arbitrary, but I suspect that the conclusions would not be all that different for many other countries. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-americans-in-prison-jail-on-parole/628694/27 "2012-07-20T01:53:40Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > Thats all true. But it still takes two. The criminal choosing to commit the crime and the law that makes it a crime. > > We may not have more idiots (but sometimes I wonder:) ). But enforcement of the laws themselves, even if they are more strict, doesn’t really bother me. The social situations that are more likely to create people who become criminals does. But once you start “crimeing” so to speak, I’d rather you not be running around in my neighborhood. But if their crime is non-violent and isn’t a big property crime, and incarcerating them costs a lot of money, then wouldn’t you prefer for them to be running around in your neighbourhood not stealing from you or hurting you and not costing you more in tax? ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-americans-in-prison-jail-on-parole/628694/28 "2012-07-20T02:13:23Z")
> [@SciFiSam](#): > > But if their crime is non-violent and isn’t a big property crime, and incarcerating them costs a lot of money, then wouldn’t you prefer for them to be running around in your neighbourhood not stealing from you or hurting you and not costing you more in tax? I said before and I’ll say it again. I think the whole war on crime thing should be rethought because it does more harm than good. But I don’t feel much sympathy for folks that choose to break the law and then have to suffer the consequences. Particularly when its pretty well known what those consequences are. And for that matter, I suspect a good fraction of people in jail for drug offenses are not the types that would or will ONLY commit “harmless” drug crimes. For that matter, their very involvment in the drug industry means they are pumping money into a “system” that not rarely IMO does other criminal shit to innocent law abiding citizens as a matter of doing business. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-americans-in-prison-jail-on-parole/628694/29 "2012-07-20T02:34:43Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > [QUOTE=grude] > Something else that I can’t understand is how the incarcerated population doesn’t seem to translate to street crime, America certainly doesn’t seem like a place where petty crime is non-existant. > [septimus’ underlining] Think about what you just wrote. Have you ever considered the possibility that the reason we have such a high incarceration rate is because we’ve found out it works? Locking criminals up lowers the crime rate. We want lower crime rates so we lock criminals up. We don’t see lowered sickness rates as a sign we should close hospitals. We don’t see lowered illiteracy rates as a sign we should close schools. Why should we close prisons because of lowered crime rates? [/QUOTE] **grude** ’s phrasing could have been improved and I had to read his paragraph twice, but I think you’ve interpreted it backwards. He means, I think, that America does _not_ have a particularly low rate of petty crime, despite the high incarceration. Sorry. I have no stats on America’s relative crime rates, nor certainly would they would be with less incarceration. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Blackberry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecd19e/32.png) [@Blackberry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blackberry)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-americans-in-prison-jail-on-parole/628694/30 "2012-07-20T05:18:49Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > But once you start “crimeing” so to speak, I’d rather you not be running around in my neighborhood. Unless you want every person ever convicted of any crime to get life in prison, most of them are going to get out eventually. And they’ll get out more likely to keep committing crime, just for having been in prison (compared to someone who had committed the same crime but had not been incarcerated). Everyone who knows anything about this knows that increasingly harsh punishments for relatively minor crimes is exactly the wrong approach based on the outcomes. But America has this whole “bigger is better” mentality that outweighs all reason. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-americans-in-prison-jail-on-parole/628694/31 "2012-07-20T05:31:39Z")
> [@SciFiSam](#): > > But if their crime is non-violent and isn’t a big property crime, and incarcerating them costs a lot of money, then wouldn’t you prefer for them to be running around in your neighbourhood not stealing from you or hurting you and not costing you more in tax? How many of these types of criminals do you think represents the prison population? ---
**Author:** ![Blackberry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecd19e/32.png) [@Blackberry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blackberry)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-americans-in-prison-jail-on-parole/628694/32 "2012-07-20T05:49:13Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > How many of these types of criminals do you think represents the prison population? You can’t get the whole picture by just looking at the numbers, because most criminals start out small and being in prison makes them more likely to escalate into more serious crimes. They don’t call it criminal college for nothing. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-americans-in-prison-jail-on-parole/628694/33 "2012-07-20T05:55:29Z")
> [@Blackberry](#): > > You can’t get the whole picture by just looking at the numbers, because most criminals start out small and being in prison makes them more likely to escalate into more serious crimes. They don’t call it criminal college for nothing. True. Which shows me that people who are doing hard time for a large number of years likely had multiple chances. ---
**Author:** ![Blackberry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecd19e/32.png) [@Blackberry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blackberry)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-americans-in-prison-jail-on-parole/628694/34 "2012-07-20T06:10:16Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > True. Which shows me that people who are doing hard time for a large number of years likely had multiple chances. It’s debatable how much of a chance many of them ever really had though. I think generally law-abiding people need to stop trying to put themselves in the shoes of criminals. They think, “Well gosh, the likelihood of long prison time would sure stop \*me \*from committing crime,” and extrapolate that to the people who actually are committing crime, and you can’t do it. The person thinking that already has something else stopping them from committing crime, obviously, and the criminal doesn’t. It seems like harsher punishment would work, but the facts say it doesn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-americans-in-prison-jail-on-parole/628694/35 "2012-07-20T06:18:38Z")
They got fuckin’ _caught_, then didn’t they? Rule #2 of crime: _Don’t get fuckin’ caught!_ ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-americans-in-prison-jail-on-parole/628694/36 "2012-07-20T06:52:12Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > Do the incarceration rates of each nation take into account the difference between prisons and jails? Do other nations outside the United States even make such distinctions? I have no idea and am just curious to know. Spain doesn’t, at least in everyday speech. We distinguish between _detenido_, _prisión_ and _prisión preventiva_: _detenido_ is when you’ve been taken in by the cops and are waiting for paperwork to be processed and for the judge to decide whether you will be released awaiting trial or go into _prisión preventiva_. _Prisión preventiva_, you’re awaiting trial and, because you have been considered at risk (either of escape or of commiting further crimes) or because of the seriousness of the charges (violent crimes), you wait for it in prison. Any time you spend in _preventiva_ will be considered already done; if you are declared innocent you’re supposed to get compensated for it. _Prisión_ is when you’ve already been declared guilty. I think a big difference is that the US has an extremely adversarial system (he who has the best lawyer wins), perhaps countries with inquisitorial systems (the important point is to find out what happened and to avoid repetition) are less likely to go for the kill. In the US, a DA or judge with a high convinction record is more likely to get reelected: in most other countries, they’re not elected, their job does not require them to convict as many people as possible. The whole American system is geared towards imprisoning as many people as possible; it comes from trying to put control of the law in the hands of “the people” (by making judges and prosecutors elected) but, both by the adversarial nature of the legal system and by the adversarial nature of elections, it ends up being “he who jails most wins”. ---
**Author:** ![Blackberry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecd19e/32.png) [@Blackberry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blackberry)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 7:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-americans-in-prison-jail-on-parole/628694/37 "2012-07-20T07:04:04Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > I think a big difference is that the US has an extremely adversarial system (he who has the best lawyer wins), perhaps countries with inquisitorial systems (the important point is to find out what happened and to avoid repetition) are less likely to go for the kill. In the US, a DA or judge with a high convinction record is more likely to get reelected: in most other countries, they’re not elected, their job does not require them to convict as many people as possible. The whole American system is geared towards imprisoning as many people as possible; it comes from trying to put control of the law in the hands of “the people” (by making judges and prosecutors elected) but, both by the adversarial nature of the legal system and by the adversarial nature of elections, it ends up being “he who jails most wins”. I agree that the US justice system is very adversarial, but judges and DAs are not elected in all jurisdictions here. Supreme Court justices aren’t even elected (although the presidents who appoint them are, of course). ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-americans-in-prison-jail-on-parole/628694/38 "2012-07-20T07:09:16Z")
True, that yours aren’t elected at all levels. But in most other countries, they’re not elected at any levels. They’re “civil service” type of jobs (in Spain the requirements involve having a law degree, passing an extremely difficult essay-based exam, passing an interview with people who have the job you’re trying to get, several years on-the-job training). ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 7:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-americans-in-prison-jail-on-parole/628694/39 "2012-07-20T07:27:56Z")
> [@SciFiSam](#): > > You should re-read what he just wrote - he was saying that the large prison population _doesn’t_ translate to less petty crime. > > If you have cites saying that the US has lower rates of petty crime than similar countries with lower incarceration rates, then you might have a point. > [@septimus](#): > > **grude** ’s phrasing could have been improved and I had to read his paragraph twice, but I think you’ve interpreted it backwards. He means, I think, that America does _not_ have a particularly low rate of petty crime, despite the high incarceration. > > Sorry. I have no stats on America’s relative crime rates, nor certainly would they would be with less incarceration. 🆒 You’re right. My mistake. The crime rate in the United States has been declining as the incarceration rate rose and I thought grude was commenting on that. But I see he apparently was not. That said, my point stands. Regardless of whether grude is aware of it or not, the crime rate has been declining as the incarceration rate rose and that offers a possible explanation to the question he asked. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-americans-in-prison-jail-on-parole/628694/40 "2012-07-20T07:45:54Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > How many of these types of criminals do you think represents the prison population? Not sure of the numbers, but a few of them certainly are there for drug use, which is what bill was talking about. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-americans-in-prison-jail-on-parole/628694.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-americans-in-prison-jail-on-parole/628694.md?page=3)