LOCKUPS

The U.S. Resembles a Penal Colony

Convicting the Justice System

Today is a special day for 1,600 men and women: They are being released
from a state or federal prison. Tomorrow will be a special day for another
1, 600 people. As will be the day after that. Some 600,000 inmates will
leave prison this year -- more than the population of Washington, D.C.
After quadrupling its imprisonment rate in just 30 years -- the United
States now has 700 people of every 100,000 under lock and key, five times
the proportion in Britain, the toughest sentencer in Western Europe -- the
world's most aggressive jailer must now confront the iron law of
imprisonment: that those who go in almost always come out.

The result is a society that, statistically at least, is beginning to look
a little like early Australia. Nearly 1 in 8 American men has been
convicted of a felony. One black man in 5 has been to prison, 1 in 3 has
been convicted of a felony. These convicts, particularly those who have
been to prison, contribute little good to the places where they live.
Two-thirds of ex-prisoners are rearrested within three years. Prisons are a
breeding-ground for terrible diseases, both medical (such as AIDS) and
social (the Aryan Brotherhood), that soon spread to the outside world.

The high rates of imprisonment are partly related to the number of crimes
committed in the United States, but they also reflect a determined policy
to increase the number of mandatory sentences, particularly for drug
offenses. Since the 1980s, laws have limited the discretion both of judges
to make the punishment fit the crime and of parole boards to determine when
prisoners are fit to be released. In the 10 years after 1986, the average
term in federal prison rose from 39 to 54 months.

This offensive against crime is generally held to be a success. America's
crime rate has fallen in recent years, and though it has now started to
rise again, no politician in America thinks that arguing for more lenient
treatment of criminals will bring in votes. That does not mean that it
would be wrong to do so. Put simply, the United States probably sends
people to prison too willingly, and looks after them too carelessly
afterward. Some believe the upturn in the crime rate is directly linked to
the number of unreformed ex-convicts on U.S. streets.

There is a good case for opposing tough mandatory sentences merely on moral
grounds. Locking up a young woman for 10 years just because her boyfriend
was a drug-dealer ill becomes a civilized country.

But there are also practical doubts about the United States' sentencing
policy. The lower crime figures may have had more to do with demography
(fewer young men around) and changes in policing than with sentencing policy.

Once you compare like with like, a different picture emerges. The fiercest
imprisoner, Texas, which locks up more than 1,000 people for every 100,000
citizens, has far worse crime statistics than New York state, where the
imprisonment rate has risen much more slowly. And when it comes to drugs
and violent crime, the two plagues hard sentencing was supposed to cure, it
has failed dramatically. Drug- taking is as widespread as ever, and the
U.S. murder rate is still nearly four times higher than the European Union's.

For many Americans, sentencing has become purely a matter of punishment.
But it surely behooves those who favor sending ever more people to prison
to try to make prison work better. Each prisoner who emerges unreformed
will start committing crimes again (a more frightening thought when you
realize that one in four commits violent crimes). Even if such people are
caught quickly, it costs money to imprison them: The United States spends
more than $50 billion a year on its prison system.

Rehabilitation has become something of a dirty word in American debates
about crime. Prisons the world over are fairly awful places, with a poor
record of converting people from a life of crime. Even so, the U.S. system
seems peculiarly devised to ensure that prisoners remain criminals.

One advantage of leaving some degree of discretion over sentencing to
parole boards was that it obliged prisoners to prove they were ready for
outside life. This incentive has now gone. Outside prison, the aftercare
system is weak. Many ex-cons are simply presented with a one-way bus
ticket. The number of prisoners for each parole officer has risen by 50
percent.

There is a long list of jobs from which felons are banned, many of them
having nothing to do with security. And, of course, nearly 5 million of
them are denied the vote. If a convict can pay taxes, own property, send
his children to school, ought he also to be deprived, permanently in many
cases, of a voice in how society is governed?

This question matters because it goes to the root of how the United States
treats criminals. Punishment requires a fixed term. In justice, just as
much as in literature, every sentence finishes, eventually, with a full
stop. After that, the ex-convict should enjoy the same rights as anybody
else. He has served his time. The United States is not alone in denying its
convicts the vote. But it seems odd that a country built on giving people a
second chance should have turned against this principle so savagely when it
comes to convicts. Particularly now that it is creating so many of them.