BY THE NUMBERS: Behind Bars in the U.S. and Europe

Most Western countries have put more people behind bars in recent years, but
in none has the incarceration rate risen more than in the U.S. The cause of
the extraordinary American figure is not higher levels of crime, for the
crime rate in the U.S. is about the same as in western Europe (except for
the rate of homicide, which is two to eight times greater. mostly because of
the ready availability of guns).

The high U.S. rate--which rivals those of former Soviet nations-- can be
traced primarily to a shift in public attitudes to-ward crime that began
about 30 years ago as apprehension about violence and drugs escalated.
Politicians were soon ex-ploiting the new attitudes with promises to get
criminals off the streets.

Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush pro-moted tough-on-crime measures,
including the "War on Drugs." Bill Clinton, breaking with previous
Democratic candi-dates, endorsed the death penalty and as president signed
an anticrime bill that called for more prisons and increases in mandatory
sentencing. Governors in about half the states signed "three strikes and
you're out" legislation. Local officials who make most of the day-to-day
decisions that affect incar-ceration, including police, prosecutors, judges
and probation officers. were strongly influenced by the law-and-order
rheto-ric of governors and presidents. Increas-ingly, they opted for
incarceration of law-breakers in local jails or in state prisons.

As a result, the length of sentences, al-ready severe by western European
stan-dards, became even more punitive.

Con-sequently, the number of those locked up rose more than fivefold between
1972 and 1998, to more than 1.8 million. Most of those sentenced in recent
years are perpetrators of nonviolent crimes, such as drug possession that
would not ordinarily be punished by long prison terms in other Western
countries.

The rise in the population behind bars happened while the rate of property
crime victimization was falling steeply and while the rate of violent crime
victimization was generally trending down.

Conclusive proof is lacking as to whether harsh sentences actually deter
crime. The most obvious result of harsh sentencing is the disruption of the
black community, particularly as it bears on young black men. A substantial
minority of both white and black teenage boys engage in violent behavior. In
their twenties, most whites give up violence as they take on the
responsibility of jobs and families, but a disproportionate number of
African-Americans do not have jobs, and they are most likely to contribute
to crime and imprisonment rates.

The system is biased against blacks in other ways, such as in sen-tencing
for drug offenses: although 13 percent of drug users in the U.S. are black,
blacks account for 74 percent of all those sentenced to prison for drug
offenses.

One in seven adult black males has lost his voting rights because of a
felony conviction.

Two British criminologists, Leslie Wilkins (retired) and Ken Pease of the
University of Huddersfield, have theorized that less egalitarian societies
impose harsher penalties.

Imprisonment thus becomes a negative reward, in contrast to the positive
reward of wealth.

The theory perhaps explains why the U.S. has higher incarceration rates than
other Western countries, where income inequality is less extreme, and why
rates began to rise in the early 1970s, shortly after income disparities
began rising.

If the theory is correct, high U.S. incarceration rates are unlikely to
decline until there is greater equality of income.