| THE PHILOSOPHY OF PUNISHMENT
(the idealistic purposes of punishment/imprisonment) CONSERVATIVE APPROACHES Deterrence - psychological inhibition of future behavior through punishment/threat of punishment. Deterrence theory assumes that behavior is "rational" and freely chosen and involves careful consideration and balancing of costs/risks and benefits/rewards. Deterrence theory assumes that the more severe, certain, and prompt the punishment, the stronger the deterrent effect will be. Specific deterrence - punishing a particular person to deter his/her future crime. General deterrence - punishing some people in order to deter crime in the general population. Marginal deterrence - the extent to which punishment changes the rate of crime. Problems with deterrence theory (as it relates to crime) * Most criminal behavior (probably except corporate crime) is impulsive and not "rational." * The �10% clearance� problem - the risk of getting caught is very low. * Most used where least effective (street crime), least used where most effective (corporate crime). * Countered by reinforcement effect (prison violence, sex, drugs, stealing, power, corruption). * Research (from spanking children to capital punishment) generally fails to support deterrence theory. Indeed, much research indicates that severe punishment increases crime (by reinforcing a �culture of violence� which leads to a "brutalization effect" of punishment). Incapacitation - confinement/monitoring (or execution!) removes the opportunity for crime. Incapacitation theory assumes that incapacitation will lower crime rates if three assumptions are met: 1. Some offenders are repeaters - they are likely to keep offending in the future if not stopped. 2. Offenders who are incapacitated are not quickly replaced by other offenders (e.g., through �aging in� or for economic crimes through altering supply and demand). 3. Prison does not reinforce future offending more than it reduces future offending. * Selective incapacitation - attempts to incapacitate only high-rate offenders. * Gross incapacitation - attempts to incapacitate large numbers of potential offenders. Problems with incapacitation theory * The prediction problem - there is no way to predict which caught offenders are low rate & high rate. Imprisoning low rate offenders (false positives) is very expensive and doesn't lower serious crime. Failing to imprison high rate offenders (false negatives) leaves them free to commit more crimes. * Discrimination - incapacitation targets those least able to resist punishment (the poor and powerless). * Research indicates that incapacitation doesn't work and is extremely expensive. * Some research indicates that incapacitation increases crime in the long run (when they get out). Retribution - society (on behalf of victim) �pays back� the offender, the offender �pays debt� to society. Retribution emphasizes "just desserts" "an eye for an eye" and revenge for society/victims. Problems with retribution theory * Hard to identify how particular punishments fit particular offenses. * �Just desserts� undermined by discrimination, mistakes, and stigmatization. LIBERAL APPROACHES Rehabilitation - based on the "medical model" - criminal behavior is a symptom caused by underlying problems - rehabilitation seeks to determine and treat causes of the problem to eliminate the symptoms. Rehabilitation involves non-punitive planned intervention to restore offenders to "normal" behavior. Rehabilitation programs include such approaches as individual therapy, group counseling, family intervention, education and work programs, behavior modification, and a number of other approaches. Rehabilitation also typically includes "diversion" programs to keep less serious offenders out of prisons. Problems with rehabilitation theory * The causes of behavior are very complex and extremely difficult to determine and treat. * Programs often focus on individual change and ignore the environmental context of behavior. * Rehabilitation requires cooperation from "clients" - very difficult in a coercive environment. * Rehabilitation programs are very expensive (and nobody wants to spend money on poor people). * Recidivism/failure rates consistently indicate that programs don't work in practice. Re-education - based on a developmental model, seeks to change attitudes, values, orientations, beliefs through literacy, GED, and higher education programs in prisons. Problems with re-education theory * Little agreement about the goals of re-education (moral? political? practical? etc.). * Violates individualistic ethic; linked to indoctrination, brainwashing, cults, etc.. * Re-education also requires cooperation and thus is difficult in a coercive environment. * Re-education programs are very expensive and hard to evaluate. CRITICAL/RADICAL APPROACHES The "Pathology of Punishment" View - based on humanist philosophies and social science research, argues that punishment, especially coercive institutions, is inherently pathological and should be minimized. Prisons/punishment should be used only as a last resort and even then the focus should be humanistic, not punitive (because almost all prisoners will get out someday). The key problem is that punishment always involves power, and in practice power tends to warp every other aspect of punishment - fairness, accuracy, goals, etc. Closely related to the issue of power is the issue of discrimination (class, race/ethnic, etc.). In addition to these problems, coercive institutions also face the custodial/warehousing problem - the overwhelming focus of institutions becomes order and security. Proponents of this view often point to Philip Zimbardo�s artificial prison experiment - the �Stanford County Jail� experiment - as a key illustration of the pathology of imprisonment. Zimbardo set up an experimental jail randomly assigning students as guards and prisoners. Within days the "jail" was having such destructive effects on both guards and prisoners (and the experimenters!) that the experiment had to be ended early. Click here for a fascinating slide show on the experiment Critical approaches to punishment and imprisonment range from ideas about "humanizing" prisons (becoming more and more common in Europe) to proposals to abolish prisons completely. SOME BASIC FACTS ABOUT AMERICA'S "IMPRISONMENT BINGE" Historically, the binge is unprecedented - by far, we now have the highest imprisonment rates in history. The US has the highest imprisonment rates in the world - 4 to 20 times higher than comparable countries. Click here for stats on international imprisonment rates (IM) Another "rule of thumb" - a "normal" imprisonment rate (IR) for a modern prosperous country (US, Europe, Japan, etc.) would be about 50 to 125 per 100,000 population. Most modern countries fall within this range and so did the US until the binge - US IR in 1970 was about 100, US IR today is about 700. The binge started in the late 1970s - the national prison population was about 200,000. The national prison population is currently over 1.4 million -- six times as large as in the 1970s. The growth of crime slowed in mid 1970s (baby boomers aging out) and crime dropped in the 1990s. The imprisonment binge is driven by politics, not increases in population, crime, or arrests. States with highest imprisonment rates are in the South & West (politically conservative). First admissions to prison: male, minority, young, low education, non-violent offenses. National study: 80% of offenses �Petty� or �Moderate� 20% �Serious� or �Very serious� The higher the imprisonment rate, the lower the proportion of serious offenders in prisons. Costs of the binge are huge: 1982-1992 increase of $60 billion nationwide - Police costs doubled, Courts almost tripled, Prisons more than tripled. Even larger increases since early 1990s. This drains public funds away from social programs that might actually help poor people and lower crime rates, and leads to decreased spending on education and health care. BACKGROUND OF THE IMPRISONMENT BINGE IN AMERICA Prisons before the binge: complex isolated self-contained prison societies. � Like live-in factories -- inmates were labor force, prison staff were management (organized like military). � During free time, leisure, sports, socializing. � Emulated the larger society � language, value system/social solidarity (inmate code), stratification system. � Prison administration tolerated all of this because it worked. The public mostly ignored it. � Inmates returned to poverty neighborhoods they came from - little rehab, little attempt to change them. �Correctional institutions� -- 1950's/60's liberal reforms (linked to the �war on poverty�). � Rehabilitation & indeterminate sentencing (never funded adequately; wouldn�t have worked anyway). Assumptions -- problem is with individual criminals, would return to �normal society� (and jobs that in reality didn�t exist). � Liberal adjustment in 1970�s -- shorter determinate sentences to minimize damage done by imprisonment. � Crime policy became political battleground about same time -- Nixon/conservatives �law & order.� � Both liberals and conservatives attacking rehab approach -- conservatives won -- mandatory sentencing, etc. � The binge started in the 1970�s and escalated in the 1980�s (as crime rates were dropping!!). � There were two quick results: overcrowding (few new prisons) & racial skewing (heavy dipping into the 3rd layer and resulting discrimination). These factors broke down prison society & also often led to court intervention in prisons. � Prison admin also changing: 1. rehab professionals entered prisons, 2. new hiring to deal with expansion. � All of this resulted in breakdown of prison administrative structure and led to bureaucratic prisons. � Instead of a �symbiotic� relationship between a self-contained prison society and a military prison admin, new prison system involves fragmented inmate society & fragmented admin/staff. � Destruction of inmate social order led to racial conflict and other violence, which in turn leads to inmate gangs which spill over into larger society, especially as inmates rotate in and out of prison. � Bureaucratic prisons make serious offenders out of many nonserious offenders!!! � Administrative response to racism, violence, and gangs is �lockup� -- maximum security prisons to try to solve problems created by bureaucratic prisons. � With threat of gangs/violence on one side & lockup on the other, most inmates withdraw into isolation. � Meanwhile, intervention by the courts led to fairer treatment (bureaucratic) but this and crowding also led to loss of access to resources -- sports, education, socialization -- end of prison society. � With longer & longer sentences, this leaves prisoners crippled & alienated with respect to life on the outside. � Meanwhile on the outside, ex-cons are regarded as pariahs & have difficulty finding jobs, etc. (get tough!!). � So when they get out (as the vast majority do) they can no longer simply return to normal poverty life -- even that has been eliminated -- no longer able to function at all, normal poverty society rejects them. Prisons didn�t work very well before the binge started - they were ugly regimented institutions reserved almost entirely for the poor. But they also didn�t do much further damage. They punished poor offenders who got caught without utterly destroying them. As the imprisonment binge has continued, prisons have become a (growing) disaster over the last twenty-five years. Now they are even uglier dehumanizing institutions that do huge damage to all involved at great expense to the public. Why increasing imprisonment doesn't work (why it doesn't lower crime rates) First, because clearance rates are so low. Second, serious/chronic offenders (the few who get caught!) are routinely sent to prison ("doing justice"). When politicians, exploiting public misperceptions based on publicized crimes and TV, impose "get tough" reforms, the system "dips into the third layer" and imprisons huge numbers of petty offenders who are already aging out of crime. Meanwhile, the next generation of poor, young, "surplus" males are aging into crime and replacing those who have been imprisoned. Further, when the petty offenders are later released from prison (in huge numbers!) they can't return to even a normal poverty lifestyle (they are "ex-cons") so they join the growing surplus population as continuing petty offenders/derelicts/etc. contributing to higher crime rates until they return to prison (recidivism). Copyright � 2009 Ernie Thomson. All rights reserved. email: [email protected] |