Mass Imprisonment is Ineffective as Deterrence to Crime - Literature review Example

POSITION PAPER: MASS IMPRISONMENT IS INEFFECTIVE AS DETERRENCE TO CRIME AND COMES WITH HIGH ECONOMIC, MORAL AND SOCIAL COSTS 1.0 Introduction Mass incarceration or mass imprisonment is a phenomenon that has emerged over the last few decades in some Western countries. Imprisonment rates shot up in many counties, such as the United States (Bosworth 2004), Russia, China (Garland 2001), and even Australia (Baldry 2008). This phenomenon, according to Garland (2001), is characterised by two distinguishing factors: sheer number and social concentration of imprisonment effects. Sheer number occurs when the rate of imprisonment has risen above the average historical rate of imprisonment for that country – best exemplified by the US case. On the other hand, social concentration of imprisonment effects, according to Garland (2001), refers to transition of the system from individual-centric to becoming a system of imprisonment of whole groups of the population. In the US, for example, one out of 3 blacks aged between 20 and 29 were in penal custody, according to 2001 statistics (Wakefield 2014). Studies have shown, as will be discussed later, that the policy of mass imprisonment, as proven by experience, is not only ineffective in meeting its goals, but also carries a heavy cost, economically, morally and socially. 2.0 Disadvantages of Mass Imprisonment 2.1 Fails to meet its goal of curbing criminality The overall goal of mass imprisonment is to reduce crime, but mass imprisonment does not necessarily meet this goal. Although modern penology is gravitating towards rehabilitation, deterrence of criminality has always been its underlying justification. Duff (2001) stated that deterrence or crime prevention is the consequentialist’s primary justification for punishment. Consequentialism, according to Duff (2001), is the philosophy of punishment that stresses actual results so that if criminal threat or harm is diminished, then the measure that generated it is deemed good. It is not punishment per se – its amount or type – that contributes to the deterrence of crime, but the possibility of punishment (Lacey 2004). Mass imprisonment, and even the threat of death penalty, has failed to curb or deter criminality, recidivism and offending (DPIC 2012). The implication of these findings is that effective and swift crime detection and offender apprehension provide more use to crime prevention than imprisonment because they make the possibility of punishment a certainty. An unfortunate side effect of incarceration, according to Stevenson (2011), is the complication of criminality through acculturalisation and socialisation. The war against drugs in the US, for example, entailed the arrest and imprisonment even of low level drug offenders. The confinement of low level drug offenders has exposed them to the company of hardened criminals. This is the so-called criminogenic effect. Stevenson (2011) had also cited studies comparing drug offenders sent to prison and those given probation and the comparatively higher rates of recidivism in the former. A California study revealed that drug treatment is 8 times more likely to lessen the use of drugs than incarceration and a RAND study likewise showed that treatment is 15 times more effective in decreasing drug-related crimes than imprisonment (Stevenson 2011). Austin et al (2007) likewise noted various studies showing that the rise in incarceration rates did not effectuate a corresponding decline in crime rates. The authors cited that between 1980 and 1991, states that saw the most increase in imprisonment rates and those that had the least increase, both experience the same level of decline in crime rates. Overall, the findings revealed that the relationship between incarceration and crime rates was negligible to minimal (Austin et al 2007). A good illustration is New York City in the US. In 1991, NY had a total prison population of 21,448, but after adopting a policy that emphasised best police practices, the population dwindled to 13,362 or a 38% decline. The reason behind this decline was fewer felony arrests generated by more effective policing, according to Austin and Jacobson (2013). A similar decline in crime rates accompanied this development – from 719,887 in 1988 to 198,419 in 2008, or a 72%. The 78% decline contrasted well with the mere 38% decline in places outside NY City (Austin and Jacobson 2013). The Australian experience also mirrored that of the US. Ritchie (2011) conducted a review of empirical studies on the effectiveness of imprisonment in curbing criminality, particularly focusing on studies on the Victorian case. The review showed that the experience of imprisonment does not deter persons from reoffending as illustrated by the 37.4% rate of recidivism in 2002-03. Young offenders – or those aged between 17 and 20 - constituted the highest group of recidivists at 55.7%. In contrast, non-custodial or community-based sanctions are more effective. Other studies have also associated recidivism to imprisonment and negatively affecting lower risk offenders (cited Ritchie 2011). 2.2 A dearth on government’s resources Mass imprisonment entails high costs and expenses for the maintenance of large prisons all over the country, which takes a toll on government resources that could have been used in more important projects to serve the greater good. This is illustrated by the US, which is the prime show window of the rise of mass imprisonment in the last few decades. Stevenson (2011) cited the US total prison population of 300,000 in the early 1970s vis-à-vis its current prison population of more than two million. The current figures, according to Stevenson (2011), imply that 1 in 31 adults are likely to have spent jail time. This massive prison system requires the US government to pour in $68 billion a year for its maintenance – a far cry from the $6.9 billion it used to spend in the 1980s. States spend more than $50,000 per prisoner housed in a state facility or prison (Stevenson 2011). In Australia, imprisonment has doubled since the 1980s, which stood in 2008-09 at 165.6 per 100,000 adults, according to Brown (2010). New South Wales has a higher rate than the national rate at 184.8, whilst Victoria has 103.6. The national cost for maintaining this expanding prison system was A$2.79 billion, as of 2008-09, more than a third of this amount was directed to NSW prisons. On a per day basis, the cost is A$205.94 per prisoner (Brown 2010). 2.3 Exacerbates marginalisation of minorities Garland (2001) and Cunneen (2006) noted that the prisons of many countries are chiefly populated by minorities and other marginalised groups. In the US, the growth of mass imprisonment has been phenomenal leading Garland (2001) to refer to it as “an unprecedented event in the history of the USA and, more generally, in the history of liberal democracy” (cited Roberts 2004), blacks are over-represented in prisons. It is estimated that about 1/3 of young black men – those in their twenties – are somehow under the supervision of the country’s criminal justice system. The rise in the incarceration rate of young blacks in the US is also seeing a parallel rise in the gap of incarceration between blacks and whites (Roberts 2002). Figure 1 shows these disparities for the year 2002. Thus, out of the 2 million men imprisoned for the year ending 2002, the black males constituted 46% in contrast to the 35% of whites and 19% of Hispanics. This is significant considering that blacks are a small minority in that country. As of 2014, for example, there are only 12.85% blacks as compared to 79.96% whites, with the rest of the population consisting of Asians, Amerindians and Alaska natives, Hawaiians and native Islanders (CIA Factbook 2014). Fig. 1 Ratio of Incarcerated Males in the US, 2002 This phenomenal rise is attributed, according to Roberts (2002), to the policy of ‘war against drugs.’ This policy, combined with harsher sentencing, generated more aggressive street-level law enforcement against drug crimes. The result is the overwhelming admission of young blacks into American prisons – 60% as opposed to the 40% whites – although whites had a higher rate of drug use. Also, a majority of the black prisoners originated from neighbourhoods characterised as poor and racially segregated. In 1992, for example, 72% of state prisoners in New York came from only 7 of the 55 community board districts. This disparity of origin was also reflected in Illinois where 34% of the 53% released prisoners in Chicago in 2001 came from only 6 out of 77 Chicago communities (Roberts 2002). As can be seen from the above-cited figures, the US’ mass incarceration policy has hit hardest the most marginalised members of the black group. A similar trend is being experienced in Australia. Cunneen (2006) wrote of the overrepresentation of the Indigenous in the Australian prisons. In 1992, for example, Indigenous people only accounted for 14% of the prison population, but in 2007 this figure rose to 24%. Thus, the 1,787 per 100,000 Indigenous population, which was the figure in 2007, further implied that this group of people are 13 times more likely to be imprisoned that whites (Baldry 2008). This figure has even risen, as of 2013, to 1,959 per 100,000 adult Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (2014). The implication of this increased figure is that this group of people is 15 times more likely to be imprisoned than other groups. This is graphically illustrated in Fig. 2. As shown, the incarceration rate for the Indigenous people was already high in 2003 as compared to the non-Indigenous and this kept on increasing as the years passed. Thus, in 2003, the standardised rate for this group was 1,393 per 100,000 as opposed 128.9 for the non-Indigenous. In 2013, the figures are 1,958 and 131.3, respectively. Thus, whilst the rates for the Indigenous went on an upward trend from 2003 to2013, the trend for the non-Indigenous from 2003 to 2013 is characteristic of a flat line (ABS 2014). These figures are significant considering that present statistics show the Aborigines as constituting only 1% of the country’s population in contrast to the 92% whites and 7% Asians (World Factbook 2014). Fig. 2 Age Standardised Imprisonment Rate, 2003-2013 (ABS 2014) The overrepresentation of minorities is also evident in other countries, such as the United Kingdom and France, according to Bosworth (2014). Such overrepresentation, however, is of a lesser scale than the in the US and Australia. In the UK, for example, 19% of the men and 25% of women prisoners in 2000 were identified as ethnic minorities. Of the men prisoners, 12% were black, 3% were South Asian and 4% were Chinese. In that same year, the prison population of France, which totaled 47,837 individuals, consisted of 21.4% was of foreign origin (Bosworth 2004). According to Roberts (2002), the racial imbalance and nesting of prisoners’ neighbourhoods create negative and harmful impacts on those communities. “There is a social dynamic that aggravates and augments the negative consequences to individual inmates when they come from and return to particular neighborhood in concentrated numbers” (Roberts 2002, p. 1281). First, imprisonment damages social networks because taking out an individual from his home and neighbourhood disrupts his relationship with his family and friends. This disruption is multiplied many times over when a large number of individuals are taken out from the same community. The disruption of social networks jeopardises the community’s informal social control, which plays a pivotal role in maintaining peace and order, because of the resulting disorganisation. Community unity, including voluntary participation in community activities, thus, suffers as a result of incarceration nesting (Lynch and Sabol 2004). Finally, the incarceration of many individuals from the same ethnic or racial group results in an unspoken stigma for that group. This is turn, affects the participation of that group in political exercises. Imprisonment disenfranchises one’s right to vote and when a large portion of a group’s population is imprisoned that group loses its political power as a whole (Roberts (2002). 4.0 Conclusion The system of mass imprisonment that has recently emerged in some Western countries, including Australia, entailed the confinement of a substantial number of citizens into prison houses and facilities. Various studies, here and abroad, have, however, revealed that mass imprisonment is minimally effective, if at all. Worse, this system carries with it high economic and moral costs. As shown in the NY City case, crime reduction is best effectuated by best police practices that put premium on crime prevention, effective detection and swift arrests rather than shoving everyone into prisons without the guarantee of preventing recidivism. 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