What lessons can today’s correctional professionals learn from the historical punishment practices covered in this chapter?

Discussion Chapter 2: Some people believe the history of corrections shows a continuous movement toward more-humane treatment of convicted people as society in general has progressed. Do you agree? Why or why not?

Discussion Chapter 3: What lessons can today’s correctional professionals learn from the historical punishment practices covered in this chapter? Which practices should we not reinstate? Which practices should we consider adopting?

1)

WITH THE SECOND-HIGHEST INCARCERATION RATE IN THE UNITED STATES, Oklahoma has been at the forefront of the nation’s “tough-on-crime” agenda. The state’s elevated incarceration rate is now 78 percent higher than the national average and is projected to grow another 25 percent in the coming decade. Oklahoma already spends half a billion dollars annually on corrections, and the projected growth will more than double the state’s yearly operating budget for prisons and cost more than $1.2 billion in new construction, on top of that. The state is now changing course. Seeking a Better Return on Investment, a 21-member, bipartisan and multi-sector select group, was appointed by Governor Mary Fallin to “develop comprehensive criminal justice and corrections reform policy recommendations designed to alleviate prison overcrowding and reduce Oklahoma’s incarceration rate while improving public safety.”1 Oklahoma is not alone in wanting a more cost-effective corrections system. Political leaders all over the country, once the loudest voices for ever-tougher penal policies, are suddenly instead looking for ways to control the cost of the corrections system. One census of prison-related reforms found that 46 of the states have passed legislation designed to reduce the number of people going to or returning to prison and jail.2 This pattern is true in traditionally conservative states, such as Texas, which has actually closed three prisons,3 to more-liberal states such as Michigan, which reduced the prison population by 12 percent and closed more than 20 prisons.4 During 2015 almost half the states in the United States had actual reductions in the number of people in prison.5 Since 2010, in fact, more than half the states have reduced both their imprisonment rates and their crime rates.6 These changes come after nearly four decades of uninterrupted prison growth (see “The Great Experiment in Social Control” on pages 6–7). The scope of America’s longterm commitment to a big corrections system has been described as one of the greatest policy experiments in modern history. In 1973 the prison incarceration rate was 96 per 100,000 Americans. For 38 consecutive years after that, the number of people in prison increased—during periods when crime went up, but also during periods when crime Almost two-thirds of the members of the current U.S. population, including most of the readers of this book, were born after 1971. For them it has been entirely normal to see yearly increases in the number of Americans in prison, in jail, and under correctional supervision. This group of citizens has seen corrections grow every year—in good economic times and bad, during periods of rising crime and of dropping crime. This growth trend began with the “baby boom” generation: When Americans born in the two decades after World War II hit their twenties and thirties, the peak crime-prone age, they clogged the criminal justice system. The large and growing correctional populations that seem so normal have not always been so. From 1900 until about 1970, U.S. prison populations were quite stable, hovering between 90 and 120 per 100,000 citizens. After more than 35 years of steady growth, the rate of incarceration is now five times as high as it was in 1973. In 2007 the correctional population reached its highest point in U.S. history—by most accounts the largest correctional population in the world, with more people in prison than China, which has four times more citizens. This period of U.S. history could be called the “great experiment in social control,” for it has defined a generation of Americans who have witnessed the greatest expansion in government control ever undertaken by a democratic state. Researchers have tried to explain the sources of this growth. Some of it stems from increases in crime, but most of this crime growth occurred during the first half of the “experiment.” Some is because of increased effectiveness at apprehending, arresting, and convicting criminally involved people. But this aspect of the “experiment” is minor compared with changes in punishment policy. In the United States the chances of a person convicted of a felony getting a prison sentence instead of probation have increased steadily for several decades, to the point where the chance of getting a probation sentence is now a fraction of what it used to be. Therefore, more people are going to prison, and they are serving longer terms as well. Further, the strictness of postrelease supervision has also increased so that more people on probation than before are being sent back to prison because of a failure to abide by strictly enforced rules. This triple whammy—less probation, longer prison terms, and stricter postsentencing supervision—has fueled a continuing increase in correctional populations, especially prison populations, even when crime rates are dropping. Some scholars have tried to explain the unprecedented punitiveness of the late-twentieth-century U.S. policy (see “For Further Reading” on page 28). They discuss the importance of U.S. politics and culture, and they expressly point to the effects of two decades of the “war on drugs.” This is certainly a part of the explanation, but nationally only 16 percent of people in prison are there for a drug crime.7 Yet why this punitiveness occurred is far less interesting than what its results have been. Over the coming years, researchers, scholars, and intellectuals will begin to try to understand what we have learned from this great experiment. The effects of this experiment in social control fall into three broad categories: its effects on crime, on society, and on the pursuit of justice. First, and most important, how has the growth of corrections affected rates of crime? Because so many factors affect crime, we cannot easily distinguish the effects of a growing corrections system from those from other factors, such as the economy or times of war. Researchers who have tried to do so have reached divergent conclusions, but even the most conservative scholars of the penal system now seem to agree that further growth will have little impact on crime.8 Others note that because the crime rate today is about the same as it was in the early 1970s, when the penal system began to grow, the corrections system has not likely had a large effect on crime.9 Second, there is a growing worry that a large corrections system—especially a large prison system—damages families and communities, and increases racial inequality. For example, almost three million children have a parent in prison or in jail, including more than 10% of African American children.10 How do these experiences affect their chances in life? And what does it mean that more than one in four male African Americans will end up in prison? Third, how does a large penal system affect the pursuit of justice? Do people feel more confidence in their justice system? Is it right to have people who break the law end up punished the way that America punishes them? In this great experiment in social control, have we become a more just society?