To some degree, it does translate to street crime. Petty street crime (pickpocketing and purse snatching, for instance) is somewhat more common in major European cities which have much less severe penalties for such things.
And I insist on believing that harsher sentences keep the miscreants locked away where they can’t commit crimes against me.
My wife and I practice, and have taught our kids a concept that apparently eludes a portion of the populace. We call it “Not Breaking the Law”. Amazingly, this simple idea seems to keep you outside the prison walls.
I have zero sympathy for criminals, and make it crystal clear to my elected representatives that I want the bastards locked up. The longer the better.
I would assume a large contingent like myself is part of the answer to the OPs question.
Well, then, like so many people, you insist on believing something that isn’t true. There are a lot of ways that overly harsh penalties can and do backfire, but I don’t guess you really care about that.
The question was about why the US in particular has such a high rate of incarceration, not whether there is a way to avoid getting oneself incarcerated, or whether we should feel sorry for criminals.
Just so we have some actual statistics about the composition of the prison population. From a paper here:
Composition of the Federal Prison Population – Mostly Non-Violent
• More than half (55%) of federal prisoners are serving time for a drug offense, and 13% for a
violent offense.
• Nearly three-fourths (72.1%) of the population are non-violent offenders with no history of
violence.
• One-third (34.4%) are first-time, non-violent offenders.
• More than half (55.7%) of persons sentenced for a drug offense in 2002 fell into the lowest
criminal history category (Category 1) of the sentencing guidelines, and in 87% of cases no
weapon was involved.
In your view, what should happen to people accused of a crime, but cannot make bail?
I am curious, because a friend-of-a-friend of mine has been in jail for about 6 months now because of an accusation. I don’t know if he’s guilty or not, but his girlfriend (my friend) says he’s in a county jail with convicted criminals and has been to the infirmary twice (that he’s told her about) for injuries sustained from “falling out of his bunk”.
I understand that one anecdote does not make for data, but in my friend’s story merely *“Not Breaking the Law” *has not protected her boyfriend from going to jail.
So, the incarceration rate is so high because people like you want it that way.
And also because all of those incarcerated weren’t raised properly by their parents.
Let’s assume that’s true.
What makes America unique in those regards? We’re comparing the incarceration rate to that of other countries.
I don’t completely disagree, but one Nitpick: An extremely adversarial system does* not* mean “he who has the best lawyer wins.” In criminal cases that go to trial, the defendant often has “the best lawyer.” Even the best lawyer cannot prevail (usually) in the face of overwhelming evidence. When I practiced criminal law I won my share of trials, but certainly lost a whole bunch too. If I was the “best lawyer” in the cases I won, than I was probably also the “best lawyer” in the cases I lost. The reassuring truth, however, is that juries usually get it right.
I had a friend who might have had a good defense against aggravated assault but couldn’t afford a lawyer. He couldn’t even afford bail so was faced with the choice of pleading not guilty and staying in jail or pleading guilty to a lesser charge and being released. He pled guilty. I don’t think that was an isolated anecdote.
Was this directed at OP? If so, is your claim that Americans are more likely to be stupid? If so, why?
Entire lyric postings are against the rules, FoieGrasIsEvil, so I’ve edited your post to take them out.
TOS says:
If this is just for federal prison it does not reflect the nation as a whole. 90% of inmates are state or local prisoners.
When it comes to property crimes America has a slightly lower crime rate than Europe. However before the prison population started to rise America had a much higher crime rate. In 1970 American had 3.5 times the property crime rate that Europe had. Now Armerica has a property crime rate that is about 15% less than it had in 1970 and now Europe has a property crime rate about 350% higher than it had in 1970.
Mandatory sentencing is a big reason the incarceration rates are so high. In the 1960s there was a trend in the judiciary to make it harder to arrest and incarcerate criminals. According to Bill James’s book there were jurisdiction where someone sentenced to life in prison could routinely get out in 7 years. At the same time the crime rate tripled in about ten years. As a response politicians started running as law and order candidates. They past harsher laws, but many judges used their discretion to mitigate that. So politicians started passing mandatory sentencing laws. They have kept judges from letting hardened criminals off easy but they have also swept less dangerous criminals along with them. Crime rates have been falling for 20 years so as crime has less salience in people’s lives more flexible laws will probably have a chance of passing, especially in regards to drug offenses.
Youtube video of a sermon delivered on July 15 by Angela Herrera of Albuquerque’s First U.U. Church. It speaks directly to the topic of this thread. She is an engaging speaker, and it is worth a watch even if you don’t care much about the topic.
Her thesis is that once a minority it convicted of any felony (such as drug possession) it becomes completely legal to discriminate against them in employment matters, effectively locking them out of the legal economy, and they simultaneously become disqualified for many safety net programs…leaving them no alternative to illegal activity to house and feed themselves and their families.
Maybe you could dig up some State/Local statistics for us.
Mandatory minimums were an extreme response to judges handing out light sentences or penal systems which didn’t “lock” people up for the time they were given. WV never did those reforms because crime isn’t that big of an issue here, but it comes up sometimes.
In WV, you get a day for day credit for good behavior and are eligible for parole after serving half of your sentence. So, a person convicted of second degree murder is punished by 10 to 40 years in prison. The victim’s family feels justice.
But, after serving just five years the convict is eligible for parole. And with day to day good time credit, he can be released on parole in 2 1/2 years. For murder!!!
That’s what the whole country had before mandatory minimums and people in high crime areas were outraged.
Well, “eligible for parole” doesn’t mean he’ll get out. I assume the Parole Board knows that he’s in “For Murder!!!” If someone is paroled after 2.5 years for murder!!!, I would think there was a compelling reason to do so. Most parole boards I’ve seen are not too quick to let people out for violent crimes.
China recently had a crackdown on meth labs, all 600 suspects resisted arrest and were killed. This means they did not go to jail!
Correct. But, some of the cases I’ve been working on makes me question the sanity of the WV Parole Board. We had a guy doing 2 to 10 for a non-violent felony. Eligible for parole in May, 2012, after 6 months (2 years/2 /2). His crimes were minor enough, but his prison record looked like a horror movie.
He was threatening suicide daily, throwing feces on the corrections officers, placed in 4 point restraints a few times a month; just an all around crazy bastard. In his 6 months, he went from general population to the most restrictive segregation unit in the state. He made parole on his first date while incarcerated behind double steel doors.
But, as I said, crime is so infrequent in WV that you don’t have the populace up in arms over stronger penalties like what happened in the rest of the country in the mid to late 80s. For example, WV has no state death penalty. Polls show that 85% of state residents favor the death penalty, but there’s no trigger to make politicians enact it because crime is so rare.
I was just trying to illustrate that stuff like this was happening in NY, CA, and FL in the 1980s to early 90s and people DEMANDED harsher punishments. Now they are living with the consequences. Why can’t there be a responsible, happy medium?
You are the dataguy, but since you asked according to DOJ in 2010, 53% of state inmates were imprisoned for violent offenses, 19% for property crimes, 18% for drug offenses, and 9% for public order offenses.
Cite http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/p10.pdf
This means of the total prison population around 23% is in prison for drug offenses. If every one of those people were released the US incarceration rate would go from 730 per 100,000 people to 532. This would move the US from #1 in the world to number 4.
Excellent speech. One interesting statistic she mentioned is that there are more blacks in prisons now than were slaves just before the Civil War, and most are in prison from drug charges.