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Drug policy can not end drug use for the same reason that criminal justice policy can not end crime. The core of the problem, the root cause, is ignored. Some policies even create more crime than it prevents. The drug laws in this country, although designed to decrease criminal activity, actually create more of it according to many criminologists. "We should return the treatment of addicts to the medical profession" and stop relying on the criminal justice system to solve the problems of society and the individual. One of the biggest problems with the criminal justice system is that we as a society depend on the government to handle and solve problems that it was never designed to handle or solve.

"In America, crime does pay because our nation's prison system is not working". The nation's prison system is not working because we expect too much from it. According to the 1967 President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice report, the justice system is only intended to "enforce the standards of conduct necessary to protect individuals and the community".

Mathew B. Robinson, author of Justice Blind? Ideals and Realities of American Criminal Justice, has thoroughly investigated what the main goals of the criminal justice system are supposed to be and so far as he can conclude, the two main goals of the criminal justice system are "doing justice" and "reducing crime". Both goals are wrought with conflicting elements, but reducing crime, although a criminal justice goal, is not a power that congress is indwelled with explicitly. This is one of the central problems with our attitude towards crime. We expect the government to engage in crime control, even though it is not designed to do so, only because since the 1960's crime control has increasingly become a national issue as a consequence of the politicization of crime in elections and the media's coverage of crime.

The criminal justice system is doing the only thing it can to prevent crime and enforce laws. It does not succeed in preventing crime because it is not designed to do so. The root causes of crime are far too complex and go far too deep for the bandage of criminal justice to cover and heal. It will take major surgery by qualified professionals to truly prevent crime and the cooperation and coalesced effort of American society to cure it.

Brendan Bickley
A.S., B.A., C.A.T.S., CADC II, Doctoral Candidate
Director of Education Morningside Recovery

Labels: incarceration

The statistics report that crime is increasing, but depending on whom you ask, crime rates are the same as they have always been. There are many variables that must be considered when looking at criminal justice statistics and many questions that must be asked. Who is reporting the crimes? What crimes are being reported? What do certain groups have to gain or loose by reporting higher crime rates?

Police are hired to prevent and contain crime, and yet if they fail to do so (i.e. by showing that crime is increasing), then they have grounds to ask for expansion. After all, the police depend on crime for job security. New laws restricting certain behaviors can cause an increase in crime rates. More police to catch more criminals can also cause an increase in crime rates. The war on drugs is a good example of criminal justice policy that creates the illusion of rising drug trafficking. As Jesilow and Pepinski point out, "how much the amount of illicit drug traffic has increased is determined by how much officials find; and, how much they find depends on how hard they look". Mathew B. Robinson, in his book Justice Blind? Ideals and Realities of American Criminal Justice, says, "Given the current limits of the criminal justice system, it is difficult to catch, convict, and punish criminal offenders". Does this mean that we should increase police, prosecutors, and prisons? We could increase the capacity of the criminal justice system, but it would not be the solution to crime that the country so desperately needs and often demands from the government.

System capacity is related to the perception of rising crime rates. The larger the criminal justice system becomes, the more criminals they can process. Because police are responsible for reporting the crimes, there have been allegations that they are bias in their reports. Pepinsky and Jesilow believe that there is little doubt whether the criminal justice system creatively adjusts the numbers to reflect rising or falling crime rates depending on their financial needs. "It is questionable whether Americans need more police protection now than ever; it is unquestionable that criminologists have conspired to make it appear that way". There may not be more crime at all. There is no way of knowing for sure. "Crime statistics, then, tell us how citizens and officials are responding to crime, but not how big the crime problem itself is". One look at the numbers of inmates admitted to prison and released from prison in the same year gives a clear picture of our system's capacity to handle criminals.

2001 Admissions / Releases
U.S. Total 639,569/630,207
Federal 45,140/38,370
State 594,429/591,837

If the criminal justice system were not functioning at maximum system capacity, the admissions and releases would not resemble each other so closely. These figures often ignite passionate fires within people for stricter sentences and mandatory minimum sentences, but that would be throwing more gasoline on an already uncontrollable fire.

Labels: incarceration

The publics attitude toward crime and criminals plays a major role in the development of criminal justice policy and has lead to many of the laws that are causing the prison's and jails to burst at the seams today. There is a market for fear. Fear of crime and criminals has led to mandatory minimum sentencing, three strikes laws, and an increase in the number of police officers roaming the streets. Most of the people in prison and jail are there for crimes that lack any of the elements that the public believes are serious or that they associate with dangerous criminals. In 1995, when California was at the height of its fear of violent criminals, only 40 percent of California's prison population was incarcerated for a violent offense as opposed to 60 percent incarcerated for nonviolent offenses, which involve property and drug-related offenses. The numbers rarely match the media's portrayal and the publics perception of violent crime.

There are many myths about crime that pervade society and undoubtedly help to shape criminal justice policy that must be revealed and absorbed if we are ever to change things for the better.

Paul Jesilow and Harold E. Pepinsky have outlined ten different crime myths:

1) Crime is increasing,

2) Most crime is committed by the poor,

3) Some groups are more law abiding than others,

4) White-collar crime is nonviolent,

5) Regulatory agencies prevent white-collar crime,

6) Rich and poor are equal before the law,

7) Drug use can be ended by policy efforts,

8) Community corrections is a viable alternative,

9) The punishment can fit the crime,

10) Laws make people behave.

Of the ten myths identified the two myths that are among the most pertinent to this discussion are: Drug use can be ended by police efforts, and crime is increasing.

Labels: incarceration

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, an estimated 61,000 (16%) of convicted jail inmates committed their offense to get money for drugs. Two-thirds of convicted inmates were actively involved with drugs prior to their admission to jail. Texas completed an exhaustive study of its felony sentencing patterns and found that the most frequent crime resulting in a prison sentence was drug possession (22%), followed by burglary (20%), theft and fraud (20%), and drug delivery (15%).

The days of rehabilitating criminals have long since vanished in a whirlwind of impatience and cynicism. For a brief time, people were enthusiastic about treatment and its possibilities, but that attitude was quickly replaced by an attitude of "just desserts." Poor research and quick fix attitudes scrapped many of the earlier attempts the criminal justice system tried at rehabilitation. People were not impressed with the results of rehabilitation, specifically for drug offenders, and so many programs were cut off from funding and collapsed.

Today, because of the overcrowding problem, many cities are being forced to look at treatment as a viable alternative to imprisonment. Laws have been passed that are designed to foster an increase in the use of alternatives for incarceration. The most notable of these efforts is Proposition 36 in California. Having worked in the recovery field for over five years, I have had first hand experience in helping develop programs that satisfy the court's requirements for alternative sentencing and that fit Proposition 36 guidelines. Unfortunately, I have also been able to see how Proposition 36 was doomed from the start.

In the year 2000, an overwhelming number of people, over sixty percent, voted for The Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act in California, commonly known as Proposition 36. The passage of this law represented a major shift in penology, from incarceration to rehabilitation. Not since the Progressive Movement of the early 1900's and the original Quaker penology before that, has rehabilitation been part of the penal system.

Proposition 36 allows non-violent drug offenders to be placed on probation and into drug treatment. The person who is granted entrance into the Proposition 36 program is required to participate in treatment on a daily basis at a designated facility, submit to random drug tests, and participate in outside recovery meetings. Unlike the prisoner who is confined bodily to his cell in prison, the same criminal can now be granted a soft mattress at a recovery facility somewhere in California, and be given at least the illusion of greater freedom.

Unfortunately, Proposition 36 is poorly funded and understaffed. Furthermore, the kind of treatment that Proposition 36 offers (people who qualify for Prop 36 are sent to a treatment center that meets the program's standards) is poor and halfhearted. The treatment is poor because Prop 36 will only pay $1200 per month for treatment and most quality inpatient facilities cost at least $4000 a month. Nancy Clarks is the most notable Prop 36 treatment facility in Orange County, California. The facility offers different levels of monitoring and treatment, but the basic program remains the same for everyone and the program does not offer the intensive treatment that many of the drug offenders need.

Opening up treatment centers that cater to Prop 36 is almost as difficult as opening a new jail or prison in an area. Neighbors object and law abiding citizens cry out in fear. The biggest problem lately with Prop 36 treatment facilities is the people who are admitted to them. One lawyer in Orange County commented that the biggest problem they are having with Prop 36 facilities is the property crime that takes place as a result of clients who relapse.

Treatment programs have sprung up in many states other than California. In Quincy, Massachusetts, first-and second-time DWI offenders may be placed on probation as an alternative to jail and ordered to a certified drunk driving treatment program. In this 26-week program, offenders are required to attend weekly group counseling sessions and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.

"Some jurisdictions are actually reducing their prison terms and funding alternatives to prison". Jails are beginning to open their own treatment programs within their walls. The Boulder, Colorado jail has created a Drug/Alcohol Evaluation Unit that evaluates offenders convicted of alcohol-or-drug-related driving offenses for level of alcohol or drug dependence and petty misdemeanor drug offenses.

This program boasts high success rates, but one thing that treatment facilities, judges, and public defenders have realized since the last rehabilitation surge in the criminal justice system, is that politicians and the people like high success rates and they will coax research statistics to reflect a successful image. There is undeniably a high recidivism rate for drug addicts and alcoholics, but the most effective treatment is one that accepts this fact of addiction and works with it instead of against it. For many drug addicts and alcoholics, relapse is a part of rehabilitation and it takes patient and perseverant case workers, judges, and politicians to understand this simple truth.

Rehabilitation has begun to make a faint reappearance, but only in so far as it is a solution to overcrowding. With Proposition 36 and alternative sentencing, courts can siphon a steady stream of nonviolent offenders from the jails and put them into rehabilitation programs. Nancy Clarks in Orange County is one of the more frequently used alternative sentencing facilities for nonviolent drug offenders. Nancy Clark offers a variety of monitoring devices, levels of confinement, and in and out patient options for judges to utilize.

Orange County has another option available to non-violent drug offenders called Drug Court. Drug Court is another one of the more innovative efforts towards rehabilitation. Judge David McEachen was the first judge to reside over the new felony drug court in March 1995 and in 2000 they had 189 participants and 50 successful graduates.

Drug Court was designed with more of a rehabilitative spirit in mind, and ironically, or perhaps predictably, according to the current president of the Orange County chapter of the National Counsel on Drugs and Alcohol (NSDA), Grant McNiff, the program is in danger of collapsing for lack of funds despite its success. "Many have finally begun to openly question the wisdom of lengthy mandatory prison terms for drug users. The huge costs of the imprisonment binge have led states to reconsider prison construction programs".

Labels: incarceration, jail, prison

In 1995 America was spending approximately $112 billion each year to operate the nation's entire criminal justice system; in 1985 it was $40 billion and in 1982 it was $9.1 billion. There is more money spent on prisons and jails than on education in some areas of the country. In New York, the Correctional Association reported that between 1988 and 1998 it spent $761.3 million on corrections, while during the same time period, New York's spending on state and city colleges dropped by $615 million. The Rand Corporation estimates that for every $1 million spent incarcerating repeat offenders in California, it prevented only sixty-one serious crimes, whereas the same amount spent on high school graduation incentives prevented 258 serious crimes. One of the solutions many states have fallen back on in an effort to save money is private prisons.

Privatization refers to the transfer of traditional responsibilities from the public sector to the private sector. Privatization is not an original evil, "historically, all prisons were private endeavors which gradually came under the control of government", but the current trend towards privatization is motivated by slightly different goals than it was historically. Privatization today is both a new capitalistic opportunity for the wealthy and a solution to overcrowding in jails and prisons. Three trends in the criminal justice arena converged in the 1980's to create the prison industrial complex: The ideological imperatives of the free market; the huge increase in the number of prisoners: and the concomitant increase in imprisonment costs. In some cases, government will consider privatization in an effort to reduce the overall cost of corrections, but since the genesis of the private prison in this current criminal justice era, research has been conducted that fails to support the idea that private prisons will save money.

Privately operated prison facilities held 86,626 inmates and the largest drop was among inmates was in the state of Texas. Proponents of privatization argue that accountability will be increased by privatization, whereas opponents argue that the result will be that private contracting agencies will actually be insulated from public scrutiny. Opponents argue that private prisons might selfishly reduce costs at the expense of the inmate's rehabilitation and living conditions. Both have good arguments, but there needs to be more research done on the quality of care within private prisons.

Prisons all across America are "Cashing in on tight labor markets and public disenchantment with rehabilitation programs". Wall Street is cashing in on crime by urging investors to invest in the major corporations involved in the private prison business such as Corrections Corporation of America and Wackenhut Corrections. For-profit businesses are also making money off of labor within prison walls. In many prisons, prisoners are leased out to companies for minimum wage work and some state laws are being passed to encourage and even require prisons to become involved in profit making enterprises. In Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution, a law called Measure 17, passed in 1994, requires that work programs within prisons be run "to achieve a net profit". This is good for the companies that participate in programs like these across America, because it can cut a corporation's payroll costs by 35 percent.

The privatization of the prison industry concerns many who are worried about crime generating profits for big businesses. Their doubts are not entirely unrealistic, but the prison-industrial complex is not the real concern. To assume that companies could, or would desire more prisoners behind bars because it means more profits for them is paranoid. As an article in the Atlantic Monthly by Eric Schlosser titled "The Prison-Industrial Complex" points out: The prison-industrial complex is not a conspiracy.It is a confluence of interests that has given prison construction in the United States a seemingly unstoppable momentum. It is composed of politicians, who have used the fear of crime to gain votes; impoverished rural areas where prisons have become a cornerstone of economic development; and private companies that regard the roughly $35,000,000,000.00 billion spent each year on corrections not as a burden on American taxpayers but as a lucrative market.

One outspoken critic of the private prison industry Phil Smith has said that, "By reducing the number of repeat offenders, they are in effect reducing the supply of profit producing 'customers'". This is one of the often voiced concerns regarding prisons for profit, but along the same type of reasoning, a person could also say that it is more profitable for doctors and pharmaceutical companies to keep people sick in order to retain customers and generate profit. Or perhaps, it would be better to use drug and alcohol treatment facilities as a comparison to the private prison industry. Having worked in the treatment business for quite some time I have heard it said that it would be better for business if recidivism rates remain high, therefore private treatment facilities must want people to remain sick. My common response to people who make this type of comment is that there will never be a lack of drug addicts and alcoholics to treat in America, and although my job depends on people's addictions, my intention to help them get better is driven by basic human compassion and not profit. The same can be said for the prison industry; crime will always happen and there will never be a lack of criminals to incarcerate, or even better, to rehabilitate.

Labels: incarceration, prison

Research and years of criminal justice experience have revealed the complexity of the jail and prison crowding problem and the futility of expecting one program or process to eliminate the phenomenon of jail populations and crowded cells. According to studies of the criminal justice system, most of the multitude of people in prison are there for petty property and drug crimes or violations of their conditions of probation or parole.

Governors and mayors openly state that they cannot afford to build another jail or prison. These people suggest that the public sector should turn to other types of sentences such as probation and parole instead of incarceration. The problem that often concerns many when these alternatives are discussed is that criminals will not be getting the punishment they deserve, but the criminal justice system might not have any other choice.

Labels: incarceration

Mental institutions are becoming scarce because of deinstitutionalization, so now many of the mentally ill are being handled by the criminals justice system. There are 283,800 inmates identified as having a mental illness. The mental illnesses are varied, ranging from severe depression to paranoid schizophrenia. These are identifiable mentally ill inmates who need medication, but who often do not receive it because of an overburdened prison and jail system. No one knows how many mentally ill go undetected through the system, or how many are mentally ill as a result of prison conditions. Suicide is the leading cause of death among inmates and more than half of the suicides are thought to be attributable to mental illness.

Because of the system's inability to handle the amount of prisoners it is forced to handle, many mentally ill people are siphoned in to jails or prisons instead of mental hospitals where they belong. Incarcerating the mentally ill is not a new phenomenon, it has been happening since the beginning of incapacitation, but with the resources and knowledge we now have at our disposal there is little excuse for our imprisonment of the psychologically handicapped. The lack of treatment for mentally ill inmates is tragic because mental disorders are highly treatable with a 60-80% success rate. It is possible that many of the mentally ill in prisons and jails could be treated, or stabilized, with current medications, but for that to happen, people, politicians, and judges would have to have a radical change of policy, ideology, and heart.

Labels: incarceration, mental-illness

Jails and prisons are understandably not supposed to be comfortable and pleasant, but since the system has far exceeded its maximum capacity it has created conditions that can border on inhumane. In some eight by five jail cells across this country, six to seven inmates are crowded into a space that is designed to fit three to four people. Because the system is overloaded, jails are forced to stack criminals one on top of the other, literally. When six or seven people are put in a cell that is designed to accommodate four, one or two people are forced to sleep underneath the metal beds on the concrete floor of the cell while the remaining person gets the luxury of the toilet to sit on.

A website called Free Chantal details life in a federal prison from the female perspective. Here are some of her descriptions of incarceration.

During court appearances Chantal is housed in county jails around Orlando. County jails are purposely horrible, to discourage homeless people from thinking three meals and a bed in jail is preferable to life on the streets. Chantal lives in a pod, which is a two-story structure with a dozen cells and a small common area with plastic tables and chairs for meals. In all facilities, there is constant noise-florescent lights always on, continual counting of prisoners, and rules, rules, rules.

Before and after visitations Chantal is stripped searched. She pays a premium on phone calls and when she calls collect she is charged exorbitant rates. All books must come from the publisher or Amazon.com and Newspapers are not allowed. All non-legal mail is read by the prison before given to Chantal. Chantal is subject to being transferred from prison to jail, from jail to prison, without notice. When she is transferred she is often left for hours in holding cells.

Chantal's experience can be tame when compared to other more gruesome accounts of what life in prison is like. It is not relative to this discussion to recount other more horrific experiences some prisoners have had behind bars. The general theme is that life in prison is not easy. There are some who cry out that prisons are too lenient and life inside prison is too comfortable, but America's imprisonment binge has made life in prison intolerable, inhumane, and abusive. What is worse is that people who should not be in prison because they are mentally ill or have drug addictions are encapsulated within the prison and jail system, deteriorating for lack of medical treatment.

Labels: incarceration

There have been many law suits as a result of overcrowding in prisons and jails. Among the states with the worst problems of overcrowding and the most law suits against them are California, New York, and Texas. Many states are being forced by judges to reduce overcrowding problems and poor conditions in their prisons and jails.

Here are just a few.

In California, Penal Code Section 919(b) requires a Civil Grand Jury to "inquire into the condition and management of the public prisons within the county" This law allowed the Monterey County Civil Grand Jury to investigate conditions at Salinas Valley State Prison in 1999. According to an article from the Superior Court of California, County of Monterey, after interviewing inmates, the Grand Jury found that the prison was placing minimum security inmates with maximum security inmates in the gymnasium at SVSP. The placing of Level I inmates with Level IV inmates in an open space like a gymnasium was of great concern to the Grand Jury. "Overcrowding and housing Level I and Level IV inmates together creates a dangerous situation for both inmates and staff". On that day, Salinas Valley Prison has 4,200 inmates with a designed capacity of 2,224.

In New York, U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson set a deadline for the Tutwiler prison for women to develop and submit a plan that details the actions the prison will take to ease overcrowding and the "unconstitutionally unsafe" conditions that exist there. The inmates at Tutwiler prison sued over the deplorable conditions at the jail. The prison has a designed capacity of 364 inmates, but it holds over 1000 inmates. Due to the high possibility of violence as a result of the overcrowding at the prison, another judge, Montgomery Circuit Judge William Shashy, has ordered the state to transfer state inmates from crowded county jails to state prisons within 30 days of their sentencing, has fined the state, and held it in contempt of court for not meeting earlier deadlines to move the prisoners.

In Texas, the prison system has been under attack for its poor conditions for quite some time. In Ruiz v. Estelle, Judge William Wayne Justice ruled that Texas prison conditions were so dismal as to violate the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution, the prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment. Judge Justice ended up placing the Texas prison system under court supervision. During the time of the Ruiz lawsuit, "inmates were packed into cells and dormitories, with some even being housed in tents. Physical and sexual brutality between inmates and beatings at the hands of guards were commonplace and medical and psychiatric care were negligible". "Researchers have found that residing in dormitories rather than single or double occupancy cells was associated with increased stress and dissatisfaction with the living environment", which in turn can lead to greater incidences of violence. Even Twenty some odd years later, after Texas has built many new prisons, these serious problems still remain.

Labels: incarceration

Criminal justice policy has played a major part in the current overcrowding situation. The current spirit of the nation towards criminals is one of retribution and incapacitation. Retribution, a main reason for administering criminal justice sanctions to offenders implies that the harm inflicted by the criminal upon the victim will in some way be returned by the government to the offender. Our reliance on the government to inflict harm on the criminal represents the general attitude that it is the job of our government to play a role in which it was never designed to play.

Michel Foucault said, "There remains, therefore, a trace of 'torture' in the modern mechanisms of criminal justice - a trace that has not been entirely overcome" Some of the more politically minded have developed policies that satisfy the nation's thirst for vengeance. Some of these reforms include "restrictions or abolition of parole, mandatory minimum sentences, determinate sentences, sentencing enhancements (e.g., for weapons or for use of violence), and longer sentences". "A growing number of judges are speaking out against the system of sentencing guidelines and mandatory minimum sentences", but the problem continues to exist despite the outcry of some in the criminal justice system because of political agendas and the publics merciless attitude.

James Austin and John Irwin, in their book It's About Time-America's Imprisonment Binge, outline some basic trends in the current political agenda that act as "conceptual building blocks" for criminal justice policy.

They are as follows:

The War on Poverty, which sought to fight crime through education, job training, and rehabilitation in the 1960's and 1970's, was a total failure.

Dangerous criminals repeatedly go free because of liberal judges or decisions made by the liberal Supreme Court that help the criminal but not the victim.

Swift and certain punishment in the form of more and longer prison terms will reduce crime by incapacitating the hardened criminals and making potential law breakers think twice before they commit crimes.

Most inmates are dangerous and cannot be safely placed in the community.

It will be far cheaper to society in the long run to increase the use of imprisonment.

Greater use of imprisonment since the 1980's is the most effective way for reducing crime.

All of these statements are based on poor information and a general lack of knowledge about who commits crime, why they commit crime, and who is affected by the crime they commit. Imprisonment has proven to be a slothful solution to a complex problem. A study on the impact of density on jail violence done by Christine Tartaro found that the increase in mandatory sentences has resulted in more inmates waiting in jail until their trial. Longer and harsher sentences for non-violent offenders have flooded our criminal justice system, crime continues to increase, and the cost of imprisonment is skyrocketing. Because of these facts, the courts have had to intervene in some of the more severe cases.

Labels: incarceration

There are a few things we know about jails and prisons.

We know that prison produces more criminals than it cures. We know that more than 70 percent of the inmates in the nation's prisons and jails are not there for the first time. We know that prison inmates are denied autonomy and privacy and subjected to indignities, mortifications, and acts of violence as regular features of their confinement-all of which is heightened by overcrowding.

"On June 30, 2002, 1,426,118 prisoners were under Federal and State jurisdiction, which includes inmates in custody and persons under the legal authority of a prison system but held outside its facilities. During the 12-month period ending June 3o, 2002, the number under State jurisdiction rose by 0.9%, while the number under Federal jurisdiction rose by 5.8%". For the first time ever, the entire number of people incarcerated reached over 2 million. The problem of prison and jail overcrowding has become epidemic, especially in states like Texas and California. The problem is complex, but researchers have identified certain areas of the criminal justice system which have contributed more to overcrowding than others, but first it is important to amass the scope of the problem by looking at the recent statistics.


The Stats

The following statistics are the most recent available from the Bureau of Justice Statistics Bulletin.

At midyear 2002 local jail authorities held or supervised 737,912 offenders. Ten Percent of these offenders (72,437) were supervised outside jail facilities in programs such as community service, work release, weekend reporting, electric monitoring, and other alternative programs.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons became the largest system at midyear 2002.

An estimated 12% of black males, 4% of Hispanic males, and 1.6% of white males in their twenties and early thirties were in prison or jail.

At midyear 2002, a total of 3.055 State prisoners were under age 18. Adult jails held a total of 7,248 persons under age 18.

The number of inmates in custody in local jails rose by 34,235; in State prison by 12,440; and in Federal prison by 8,042.

During this same period the Federal prison system grew at a rate of 8.1%, the State prison system rose at a rate of 3.0%, and local jails rose at a rate of 4.3%.

The Nation's prison and jail population exceeded 2 million inmates for the first time in 2002.

These statistics are just a taste of the state of our corrections system. The numbers seem hopeless at first, but a more thorough review of the people who are going to prisons and jails and why they are going there reveals a different picture. It would seem from the statistics that this nation is in the midst of a crime epidemic, but criminal justice policy aided by the media has had the tendency to make things look worse than they really are.

Labels: incarceration

Prisons and jails come in many shapes and sizes. They have evolved over the centuries, but the basic design remains the same. Many facilities built today opt for the panoptic design. As Michel Foucault points out, "the major effect of the Panopticon is to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power. So as to arrange things that the surveillance is permanent in its effects, even if it is discontinuous in its action; that the perfection of power should tend to render its actual exercise unnecessary; that this architectural apparatus should be a machine for creating and sustaining a power relation independent of the person who exercises it; in short, that the inmates should be caught up in a power situation of which they are themselves the bearers".

The panopticon prison or jail is designed to increase the perception of power and surveillance without the actual increase of power and surveillance. The intention of this design of power is to make the prisoners into their own guards by producing in them the uneasy feeling that they are being watched at all times.

During a visit to a new wing of the Orange County Jail, I was able to take a tour of one of the new cell blocks they were in the process of finishing. The place was empty and quiet. The design was panoptic, but it had other features that ensured the actual, or perceived threat of power. Each cell had a clear glass front for easy surveillance. Each cell was equipped with an intercom system which allows the guards to listen to any conversations going on in any of the cells at any time. The guards also had the ability to speak to the prisoners through the speakers in their cells, from their guard tower situated in the middle of the cell block. The guard post had tinted windows all around it, allowing the guards to see out, but keeping the prisoners from seeing in. Whether there is one guard on duty or a hundred, the prisoners will never know the difference.

There were tiny windows in the backs of each of the cells. I assumed they were windows to the outside world, but upon closer inspection I saw that they were not windows for the prisoners to enjoy nature, but viewing stations for the guards. Looking out of one of the tiny windows I saw a walkway filled with plumbing pipes and orange florescent lights. The walkway appeared to encircle the outside of the entire cell block. I asked our tour guide, a veteran prison guard, what the windows were for. He told me that the windows allow the guards to spy on the prisoners and the florescent lights, which stay on 24 hours, illuminate the cells just enough to allow the guards to see what is going on in any cell at any time. Later, one of the prisoners told me that the sound of the florescent lights buzzing coupled with the constant illumination inside the cell at night has kept him from sleeping since he arrived.

Is this where we should be spending our tax dollars for drug rehabilitation?

Labels: incarceration

Prisons and jails have never been the monastic establishments they were at first intended to be. Since the first house of correction in 1556, at the former palace of Bridewell in the City of London the corrections system did little to rehabilitate. As early as the fourth century, popes began to decree that delinquent monks and nuns should be forced to serve a term of penitential confinement and by the twelfth century each monastery in Europe was expected to contain its own special cells for deviant clergy. What was life like in these early prisons? One story about the Nun of Watton describes the conditions.

Around 1160 (the Nun of Watton) became pregnant by another member of the religious order. Her condition was discovered, and she was fettered and placed in a cell with only bread and water to live on. She remained in prison after her lover had been castrated. But, as the story goes, through an act of divine intervention all traces of her pregnancy disappeared and her chains and fetters miraculously fell off.

Her story remains an important historical milestone to this day because it represents one of the first instances of confinement for a specific period for the purpose of moral correction, which remains the stated goal of the modern American department of correction. Moral correction may still be the stated objective of our criminal justice system, but the reality of our current penology is something vastly different.

The Quakers were the first to establish prisons in America around the early 1800's. The idea of the penitentiary as a place for penance was a concept first developed by this strict religious sect. Originally, the prisoners cell was designed as a place where the criminal could contemplate his sinful actions and repent for his sins. Prisoners were required to sit in their cell in complete silence. They were only given a Bible and something to work on with their hands. The cell experience was intended to produce a change of heart in the criminal, but often the person went insane instead.

Around 1850, prisoners were held in large holding tanks. The term "Big House" was coined during this time period in reference to the large warehouse style buildings the prisoners were housed in. By allowing the prisoners to interact with each other, the environment facilitated a highly crimineogenic atmosphere. The close contact prisoners had with one another turned prison life into a college for crime, much like todays prisons and jails. During this period, prisoners were forced to work outdoors on chain gangs. The focus was on deterrence and the idea of rehabilitation had been swept under the rug.

During the 1900's, the idea of rehabilitation briefly resurfaced. Prisons were called "reformatories" instead of big houses, and the focus was on curing the social problems that were thought to be at the heart of criminal behavior. Sociologists convinced the nation that criminals were basically good people who turned to a life of crime as a result of poor social conditions.

In the 1950's, psychology and the medical model set the stage for a prison system that was focused on correcting the individual and not society. "Prisoners were to be 'rehabilitated' through new scientific methods". The term "correctional facility" replaced the name reformatory, parole boards and intermediate sanctioning were created, and the modern prison and jail system began to take shape.

In the 1970's, after a couple of decades spent trying to rehabilitate the criminal, the general attitude was that nothing worked. Social scientists who studied the results of rehabilitation came to the conclusion that sentences were increased and many inhumane programs and routines were practiced. To everyone concerned, rehabilitation was an expensive failure. Society and government policy makers gave up on rehabilitating criminals and began warehousing them once more. Today, we are a society bent on incapacitation and retribution and we continue to stubbornly hold on to the idea that nothing works, but we are on the frontier of a new era that might force us to reexamine the way we approach crime and criminals, not because we have had a change of heart, but because we have no other choice.

Or do we?

Labels: incarceration, jail, prison