Welcome to the Mass Incarceration State!

by Freedom Freddy 

The United States of America has more than 2.4 million of its citizens in state and federal prisons, which is far and away the largest national prison population and highest incarceration rate in the history of the world. Just look at the current situation!

One in every four prisoners in the world rot in American prisons. Americans spend, in many states, over $60,000 a year per prisoner to maintain this distinction, and we can’t afford it. Prison overcrowding and an inability to properly house and care for inmates has gotten so bad in the state of California (home of the “three strikes” law which doles out life sentences to repeat felony offenders regardless of whether violence was involved) that the US Supreme Court in 2011 forced the state to either let prisoners out or build more prisons. They said it was “cruel and unusual” to treat people this way. The Federal penal system is doing no better. Driven by “get tough” sentencing legislation for non-violent drug offenses that overwhelmed both Congress and state government in the 1980s and 1990s – like the three strikes laws – the prison population of America has spiked. This was also the beginning of America’s doubling down on its “drug war” – which had been failing badly since President Nixon declared it in the 1970s and is still failing, miserably. But we sure have thrown a lot of people in prison! Look at this graph showing the spike beginning in the 1980s! Holy cow!

Now let’s look at a graph showing the who is the target of this imprisonment. Answer: African-Americans compose a vastly higher proportion of prisoners than they represent in the general population. 

Maybe this isn't so helpful for race relations? 

Ok, enough graphs. This is a problem so obvious and so bad that during one of the most polarized political climates in Washington in a century, the issue has spurred Republicans and Democrats to craft and promote a bipartisan plan to do something about America’s incarceration problem. If passed, the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act (House) and Sentencing Reform Act (Senate) would be the first major and substantive pieces of non-budgetary legislation since the gridlock that ensued after Republicans took over the House in 2010 and stonewalled the Democratic President, Barack Obama. The laws would reduce federal mandatory minimums for nonviolent drug offenses, reduce life sentences for three strikes felony offenses to 25 years, and would apply retroactively, which would do a great deal to immediately reduce the prison population. As wild as this seems, it should not be that surprising. After all, both political parties are equally to blame for the mandatory minimum sentences and both have zero interest in raising the taxes necessary to continue to pay for a mass incarceration state. The bill is more popular with Democrats than Republicans, whose political image has always rested more squarely on “law and order” when it comes to corrections over the more liberal approaches of prevention and rehabilitation. But key Republican support from figures like Iowa Senator Charles Grassley has helped get the legislation out of the judiciary committees in both houses, a feat in and of itself.

Whether the legislation will ever get to the President’s desk to sign is questionable in an election year, but there is real hope on both sides of the aisle. This blog is devoted to stirring up discussion on this important issue, discussing some aspects in more depth, and keeping you abreast of development as this legislation works its way through Congress over the next several weeks. We welcome your comments. Freedom is the only way!