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Wednesday, July 10th, 2019

Do Prisons Make Us Safer?

Author:     David J. Harding
Source:     Scientific American
Publication Date:     June 21, 2019
 Link: Do Prisons Make Us Safer?
Stephan:   The American Gulag ought to be one of the country's great shames and embarrassments. We have 4.4% of the world's population and 22% of the world's prisoners. Even worse the system is being increasingly privatized, and with that privatization The New American Slavery has been created. And that's not even getting into the child concentration camps where we keep children under conditions that would not be acceptable for a kennel keeping dogs. But let's ask the fundamental question that no one ever seems to ask, certainly no one in a policy making position: Does this whole multibillion dollar human warehousing industry actually make society safer?  You may be surprised at the answer, an answer based on actual facts not political bloviation.

An American prison
Credit: Geoff Livingston Getty

One person is sentenced to state or federal prison every 90 seconds in the United States, amounting to almost 420,000 per year.   The U.S. has the highest incarceration rate in the world. We incarcerate for multiple reasons, including justice and punishment, but one of the main justifications is public safety. Putting individuals convicted of crimes, especially violent crimes, in prison is thought to make the rest of us safer.

But how much safety does all this imprisonment actually buy us? A study I recently published with colleagues shows the answer is very little, especially in the long-term.

There are good reasons to think prisons might prevent crime. The experience of imprisonment could deter someone from committing crimes to avoid prison in the future. Prison might provide opportunities for rehabilitation, such as drug and alcohol treatment, education, or counseling. And, at the very least, someone who is in prison cannot commit a crime in the community, an effect criminologists call “incapacitation.”

Yet there are also […]

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