After reading the article answer the embedded critical think question at the end of the article. They may carry over to the next page. All submissions must be in your own words. Do not copy your responses straight from the article, this is considered plagiarism. This is a 25 point assignment. Each response to each question should be a minimum of 5-7 sentences.
ruel and Unusual
;’heTrue Costs of Our Prison System
ROBERT DEFINA
AND LANCE HANNON
«P-
I
in a series of policy changes aimed at winning political
favor by “getting tough on crime.” These included mandatory sentencing, “three strikes and you’re out” laws,
and harsher rules for probation and parole. And so the
same amount of crime yielded substantially more incarceration. Nor did the strategy of mass imprisonment contribute much toward keeping crime down. Even the most
generous estimates suggested a relatively minor role in
crime prevention; many studies showed that rates of violent crime were unaffected. Indeed, as we shall see, some
evidence suggests that certain crimes might actually have
increased as a result.
For the bishops a decade ago, the existing approaches
to criminal justice were severely at odds with the church’s
scriptural, theological, and sacramental heritage. “A
Catholic approach begins with the recognition that the
dignity of the human person applies to both victim and
offender,” they wrote. “As bishops, we believe that the
current trend of more prisons and more executions, with
too little education and drug treatment, does not truly
reflect Christian values and will not really leave our communities safer.” The overriding emphasis on punishment,
the harsh and dehumanizing conditions of prisons, the
lack of help to prisoners attempting reentry into society:
these and other failures of the system led the bishops to
call for a new direction, one that emphasized restorative
justice and reintegration while insisting on the well-being
and fair treatment of both prisoners and their victims.
The system envisioned by the bishops offered prisoners reintegration into the community, including the
opportunity for reconciliation with those harmed, even as
it supported victim restitution. It rejected crudely punitive strategies, such as mandatory sentencing, that neglect
the complex sources of crime and the particularities of
an individual criminal’s makeup. The bishops also called
for better treatment within the prison walls, including
expanded counseling, health care, education, and training
decade ago, in November 2000, the U.S. Confer_-_
ence of Catholic Bishops issued a pastoral state”
ment titled Responsibility, Rehabilitation, and
. _’Restoration:A Catholic Perspective on Crime and Crimi’Inal Justice. Unapologetically critiquing a criminal-justice
system focused primarily on punishment, the bishops
{ called the American response to crime “a moral test for
–ournation and a challenge for our church.”
Their statement chastised the United States for its
“astounding” rate of incarceration, “six to twelve times
,: higher than the rate of other Western countries,” and went
, .onto suggest changes that would make the system more
humane and socially beneficial. “Putting more people
in prison and, sadly, more people to death has not given
, Americans the security we seek,” the bishops declared.
~ “It is time for a new national dialogue on crime and corrections, justice and mercy, responsibility and treatment.”
The backdrop to the bishops’ pastoral was a dramatic
rise in the incarceration rate. In the twenty years preceding their report, that rate rose steeply and steadily,
more than tripling to 683 prisoners per 100,000 of the
population-which
meant 2 million people behind bars
and a total bill to federal, state, and local governments
of about $64 billion. Closer inspection of the ranks of
the imprisoned raised even more concerns. Prisons were
increasingly admitting nonviolent criminals, especially
those guilty of drug-related infractions. The prison population was increasingly made up of minorities: by 2000
about 60 percent of those imprisoned were either black or
Hispanic. And Harvard sociologist Bruce Western noted
that more than half of all African-American men who lack
high-school diplomas were imprisoned by age thirty-four.
Scholars who studied the issue concluded that the
prison buildup was not simply a response to rising crime:
violent-crime rates in 2000, in fact, roughly equaled those
of 1980, while property-crime rates were actually lower.
The trend toward mass incarceration was rooted rather
*’A–
59
_nicle 14
Cruel and Unusual
‘.he True Costs of Our Prison System
ROBERT DEFINA AND LANCE HANNON
“A
in a series of policy changes aimed at winning political
favor by “getting tough on crime.” These included mandatory sentencing, “three strikes and you’re out” laws,
and harsher rules for probation and parole. And so the
same amount of crime yielded substantially more incarceration. Nor did the strategy of mass imprisonment contribute much toward keeping crime down. Even the most
generous estimates suggested a relatively minor role in
crime prevention; many studies showed that rates of violent crime were unaffected. Indeed, as we shall see, some
evidence suggests that certain crimes might actually have
increased as a result.
For the bishops a decade ago, the existing approaches
to criminal justice were severely at odds with the church’s
scriptural, theological, and sacramental heritage. “A
Catholic approach begins with the recognition that the
dignity of the human person applies to both victim and
offender,” they wrote. “As bishops, we believe that the
current trend of more prisons and more executions, with
too little education and drug treatment, does not truly
reflect Christian values and will not really leave our communities safer.” The overriding emphasis on punishment,
the harsh and dehumanizing conditions of prisons, the
lack of help to prisoners attempting reentry into society:
these and other failures of the system led the bishops to
call for a new direction, one that emphasized restorative
justice and reintegration while insisting on the well-being
and fair treatment of both prisoners and their victims.
The system envisioned by the bishops offered prisoners reintegration into the community, including the
opportunity for reconciliation with those harmed, even as
it supported victim restitution. It rejected crudely punitive strategies, such as mandatory sentencing, that neglect
the complex sources of crime and the particularities of
an individual criminal’s makeup. The bishops also called
for better treatment within the prison walls, including
expanded counseling, health care, education, and training
decade ago, in November 2000, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a pastoral state.
ment titled Responsibility, Rehabilitation, and
, Restoration: A Catholic Perspective on Crime and CriminalJustice. Unapologetically critiquing a criminal-justice
;..;system focused primarily on punishment, the bishops
called the American response to crime “a moral test for
i our nation and a challenge for our church.”
j
Their statement chastised the United States for its
.~.”astounding” rate of incarceration, “six to twelve times
: higher than the rate of other Western countries,” and went’
.onto suggest changes that would make the system more
~ humane and socially beneficial. “Putting more people
in prison and, sadly, more people to death has not given
Americans the security we seek,” the bishops declared.
” “It is time for a new national dialogue on crime and corrections, justice and mercy, responsibility and treatment.”
The backdrop to the bishops’ pastoral was a dramatic
rise in the incarceration rate. In the twenty years preceding their report, that rate rose steeply and steadily,
more than tripling to 683 prisoners per 100,000 of the
population-which
meant 2 million people behind bars
and a total bill to federal, state, and local governments
of about $64 billion. Closer inspection of the ranks of
the imprisoned raised even more concerns. Prisons were
increasingly admitting nonviolent criminals, especially
those guilty of drug-related infractions. The prison population was increasingly made up of minorities: by 2000
about 60 percent of those imprisoned were either black or
Hispanic. And Harvard sociologist Bruce Western noted
that more than half of all African-American men who lack
high-school diplomas were imprisoned by age thirty-four.
Scholars who studied the issue concluded that the
prison buildup was not simply a response to rising crime:
violent-crime rates in 2000, in fact, roughly equaled those
of 1980, while property-crime rates were actually lower.
The trend toward mass incarceration was rooted rather
.
59
ANNUAL EDITIONS
and, perhaps most important, the scarlet letter of a prison
record. Ex-prisoners are barred from a large array of
occupations in this country, ranging from emergency
medicine to cosmetology; in thirty-seven states, employers are allowed to consider arrests without conviction
when making hiring decisions. And loss of income is
not limited to the incarcerated parent, but also afflicts
the remaining parent, since childcare needs can signifi- of
cantly decrease the time available to find and keep a job ..
Research has consistently shown, moreover, that children
with an incarcerated parent frequently suffer high levels
of anxiety, shame, and depression; and attending to these
needs forms a further obstacle to the remaining parent’s
participation in the labor force.
Such considerations reveal just how complex and multidimensional the impact of mass incarceration can be]
At the community level, it disrupts social networks thai
bolster the chance for quality employment. The loss 0
an adult family member, especially one with years 0
experience in the legitimate labor market, reduces th
“friend-of-a-friend” connections that aid employment. Pi.
sociologists Robert Sampson and Stephen Raudenbus
point out, whole communities with high incarceratioj
rates can become stigmatized, decreasing the likelihoo .
that members will be hired, even those with no priso]
-record. Other studies have suggested that mass incarcera
tion disrupts a neighborhood’s informal mechanisms 0′
social support, as the constant churn of people in all’
out weakens bonds and diminishes collective identic
This in turn strains individual resources-as
when P”ents who cannot rely on neighbors to look after childres
must spend money or forgo wages to do it themselvq
The removal of adult breadwinners, meanwhile, eli,;
nates role models important for young people. And t.
blatantly unequal and racialized use of incarceration C; ,
delegitimize governmental authority among youth aft
fuel an oppositional subculture in which mainstreas
activities such as work are devalued. These detrimeri] i
effects of concentrated incarceration on a communit
norms and sense of collective efficacy may ultimate
prevent residents from escaping what might otherwise”
merely episodic poverty.
to help emerging prisoners integrate successfully into
society. They recommended that prisons be easily accessible to family, friends, and religious communities able to
support the development and growth of prisoners. Finally,
they reminded us of the community’s responsibility to
work toward reducing crime and helping those at risk of
engaging in criminal activities.
These proposals added up to a progressive analysis ‘of
crime, punishment, and prevention, and it would be hard
to argue against the bishops’ prescriptions or the moral
basis that underpinned them. A decade later, however,
both the pastoral’s criticisms and its suggestions seem
all too limited. The criticism focused mainly on shortcomings in the condition and treatment of individual
prisoners and victims. While these remain important
concerns, recent research has highlighted serious detrimental effects that the justice system has on the broad.er
communities from which prisoners come and to which
they ultimately return. These community-level effects
have added substantially to the individual-level problems
the nation’s prison policy has created. Recognizing these
consequences will help lead to a broader and deeper critique than the one articulated in the pastoral-a
critique,
moreover, that points the way to a criminal-justice system more in line with the principles of Catholic social
thought.
he bishops analyzed the effects of prisons using
what ~u~ger~ sociologist To?~ Cle.ar has called an
.
“atomistic VIew.” An atomistic VIew focuses on
the individual prisoner-why
he commits a crime, how
he is treated within the criminal-justice system, and what
happens to him once he is released. While such a view
addresses the important issue of personal dignity, it mostly
ignores the larger social fact that the individual prisoner
is but one of over 2 million, and that those imprisoned
come from geographically concentrated neighborhoods.
A broader view discloses other problems. Imprisoning a
large fraction of individuals from a particular community,
it turns out, can cause that community substantial harmespecially when that community was disadvantaged to
begin with.
Recent studies have illuminated the many ways this
harm can occur. To begin with, mass imprisonment
removes spending power from a community, as most ·of
those incarcerated are working at the time of their arrest
and contributing significantly to their families’ income.
Furthermore, as sociologists Bruce Western and Devah
Pager have demonstrated, incarceration significantly
limits the earning capacity of ex-inmates through the
erosion of their marketable skills, the loss of social networks, prison socialization into destructive behaviors,
T
nother direct link to poverty is the increas
prevalence of single-parent families. Not o
.
does mass imprisonment shrink the pool”
young men available for marriage, but the prison exp’@
ence itself can make men less suitable for marriage.A
single parenthood is a significant contributor to pov
and related social ills. As for released inmates, they,
restricted access to the social-safety net. Several st
such as Texas and Missouri, deny them food sta
A
60
Article 14. Cruel and Unusual
1ie~.housing,and TANF, federal assistance for needy
es. And the overhaul of the federal welfare system
..:6-the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportu-conciliation Act-included
a lifetime ban on cash
, ce and food stamps for anyone convicted of a drug
le, These rules not only impede the re-integration of
‘~oners, but put the community as a whole at risk,
ially children. Mass incarceration has also been
iated with growing and serious community-health
ems. Economists Steven Raphael and Michael Stoll,
ample, have linked the prevalence of AIDS in poor
unities to the transmission of the disease through
l violence in prison. This in turn renders communiess able to deal with other crucial concerns.
yond all this lies a political dimension. Mass incarion can exacerbate a community’s long-term eco’.c deprivation by politically disenfranchising those
~ t4 the greatest stake in policies that might help lift
p~~pleout of poverty. In forty-eight states, prisoners can[0 .vote. Many states disallow voting while on probati@”‘orparole, and a few states, like Florida, permanently
di~enfranchise those convicted of a felony. According
t€(~study by the Sentencing Project and Human Rights
.\~tch, as of 1998 3.9 million Americans-about
one
ilil,::fiftyadults-had
either temporarily or permanently
I~?ttheir right to vote. A clear racial imbalance chara;~terizesthis loss; the study revealed that about one in
seven black men had either temporarily or permaneritly
10s~,
the right to vote, and in several states, nearly one in
fo~r black men of voting age were permanently disenfranchised. To make matters worse, census procedures
dictate that prisoners be counted not in their home communities, but in the jurisdiction where they are imprison,~d.Since the areas where prisoners come from tend to
benuban, diverse, and Democratic, while prisons are frequently located in rural, white, and Republican districts,
high-incarceration communities suffer a sort of electoral
double-whammy, with political power drained away from
them and transferred to politically antithetical communities that receive greater representation because· of their
sizable, nonvoting inmate population. The end result is
less legislative support for-and greater opposition to-a
variety of progressive initiatives that could aid disadvantaged communities, including, for example, a boost in the
statewide minimum wage.
Finally, as if all this weren’t bad enough, it is clear
that the harms done to a community’s economy by mass
incarceration are likely to be multiplied. In a vicious
feedback loop, decreased spending caused by lost income
due to incarceration results in fewer businesses being
able to remain solvent. When businesses go under, additional residents lose their jobs and fall below the poverty line, depressing spending further. Crucial nonprofit
institutions, such as community churches, can be negatively affected as well by the economic contraction .
Because such institutions frequently provide goods and
services that alleviate poverty, crime, and other social ills,
their weakening can intensify the collateral consequences
of mass incarceration.
Some observers have suggested that increased incarceration can benefit disadvantaged communities by
removing socially disruptive young men. This idea
has intuitive appeal, yet it loses force in the context of
mass incarceration. While the removal of just a few “bad
apples” might well have positive implications, in some
communities more than a third of the population of young
males is in prison; this is less like removing a few apples
than like uprooting the whole tree. In such situations the
negative effects will likely outweigh whatever positive
effects might exist. Our own research indicates that mass
incarceration in recent decades has plunged millions of
Americans into poverty. Other studies suggest potentially
criminogenic consequences of mass imprisonment, arising from the release into the community of large numbers
of prisoners exposed to an isolating and sometimes violent
prison environment. According to criminologists Lynn
Vieraitis, Tomislav Kovandzic, and Thomas Marvell,
imprisonment trends in the past few decades actually
increase the incidence of various types of crime. And
our own research suggests that any such crime-inducing
effects of imprisonment can persist for many years.
r,
nlight of these manifest problems, we believe that
Catholic Social Teaching (CST) should broaden
its engagement with the criminal-justice system to
include what we term “community justice.” By community justice we mean the consideration of the community
as an organic whole whose treatment should be subject
to the demands of justice. Understanding communities
this way is common for sociological analysis, but not perhaps for the kind of analysis typically used in CST. Yet
with mass incarceration, it is simply not the case that the
total damage equals the sum of individual harms. Rather,
entire communities have been damaged, suffering perilous losses to their collective social, cultural, and physical
capital.
This perspective opens up new questions and suggests
new applications of CST to the criminal-justice system.
Diminution of the common good, for instance, is much
graver when entire communities are destroyed. The
urgency of a preferential option for the poor is heightened when policies push millions more people into
poverty. The social nature of the person and solidarity are
violated more seriously when entire social networks and
sets of norms are damaged. Barriers to participation are
I
61
i:
ANNUAL EDITIONS
much greater when whole communities are stigmatized
because of high levels of incarceration. Such perspectives
both require and inform a broader, deeper critique of our
penal system.
A community-justice lens can also help highlight the
racial imbalance in mass imprisonment. Bruce Western
and Loic Wacquant have argued that policy initiatives,
like the “War on Drugs,” that have led to mass incarceration and the disproportionate incarceration of minorities
constitute a reaction against the civil-rights movement.
They represent, in other words, a new means of social
control, in the tradition of such outlawed forms as blatant
job discrimination, Jim Crow laws, and housing segregation, which effectively isolates members of a devalued
social group and limits their access to valued resources.
To the extent that this is accurate, criminal-justice policy
directly violates several principles of CST, including the
dignity of the person, the social nature of the person,
participation, solidarity, and the universal destination of
goods. Seen this way, mass incarceration isn’t merely an
ineffective system needing improvement. Rather, it is a
sinful, repugnant, and disordered structure worthy of
wholesale replacement.
2008 suggests a heightened recognition of the problems
of prisoner reentry and a new political willingness to
do something about them. Signed by President George
W. Bush and supported by President Barack Obama,
the law authorizes federal grants for employment and,
housing assistance, drug and alcohol abuse treatment.,
and other services to reentering offenders. In addition,
all restrictions on work should be scrutinized, and those
not demonstrably necessary to community safety should
be removed. States can also reconsider allowing arrests!
without convictions to be factored into employment
decisions.
The voting rights of ex-prisoners and those on probation and parole should be guaranteed, not only to assure,
individual rights (as the bishops stressed), but to give
reentering prisoners a tangible stake in their communities.
They should also be given full access to the safety net;
including the basic programs (such as food stamps and
TANF) that are essential for low-income communities
especially children. Public programs should treat POQ’
ex-prisoners as well as they treat nonpoor ex-prisoners,
Today, while public housing is denied to ex-inmates, the
mortgage-interest deduction, essentially a housing pro’
gram for middle- and upper-class families, is not. Th{
surely runs counter to the call for a preferential option fo
the poor.
The principles of Catholic Social Teaching have pro
vided a useful framework for reflection and guidanc
in addressing countless social problems over the pa~
century. The arena of criminal justice is no exceptio’
For a decade, the bishops’ pastoral has served as a po ‘
erful reminder that justice involves not only punis
ment but also the hard work of supporting, the commot
good. As the bishops have pointed out, supporting t,
common good means helping the individual rejoin tM
community. And as we have stressed here, there rmf
be a strong and vibrant community available to reint
grate with.
Sadly, in the ten years since the bishops’ pastoral w;
published, the disturbing trends it addressed have 0:,
continued, with the latest data showing the 2008 incarce
ation rate reaching 753 per 100,000 of the U.S. popuJ’
tion, at a total direct cost of about $75 billion. The tren·
in racial composition and the decreased severity of crim
meriting incarceration have continued as well. Me
while, the evidence for incarceration’s crime-reduci
effect has weakened considerably. These failures dema
our renewed attention and effort.
I~
We have tried here to broaden the view presented
the bishops’ pastoral to recognize that incarceration’
the scale seen in this country affects not only the iiI’
vidual but also the community at large, significai[
hat practical steps might be taken to bring
this disordered system into line With, Catholic principles? First and foremost, we need
to incarcerate fewer people. One recent proposal by
economists John Schmitt, Kris Warner, and Sarika
Gupta argues that half of all nonviolent criminals could
be removed from prison and put on probation or parole
with no appreciable effect on public safety, at a savings
of close to $17 billion-considerable
resources for the
common good, an especially attractive benefit for struggling state governments. Meaningful reductions in incarceration can also be achieved via judicious changes to
parole and probation rules. Minor violations (such as
lying about previous prison time on job applications)
that can now land parolees back in jail, could be handled
less punitively, keeping ex-inmates in the community. All
in all, sociologist Todd Clear has suggested, the prison
population could be cut in half by eliminating imprisonment for technical parole violations, trimming the length
of parole supervision, and reducing prison sentences to
those used twenty years ago.
Policies should be enacted to strengthen the efficacy
of communities and their ability to exercise social control and offer social support. Foremost here are access to
decent legitimate employment opportunities as well as to
the childcare and transportation that facilitate working.
Along these lines, the bipartisan Second Chance Act of
W
62
amplifyin
Analyses
effects wi
by the cu
The prine
hand, can
system. R
ways con
a path to’
ment of tl
us reverse
communit
From Common\<
.,
Article 14. Cruel and Unusual
,f the problems
willingness to
:sident George:,
arack Obama,<
lploymen.t and:;
use treatment,
s. In addition,
zed, and those
. safety should
lowing arrests
, employment
<
ose on probaonly to assure
), but to give
communities,
he safety net,
d stamps and
communities,
Id treat poor
ex-prisoners.
-inmates, the
housing pro,is not. This
ial option for
Critical Thinking
lifying poverty, crime, and other social pathologies.
lyses that fail to incorporate these community-level
\;ts will continue to underestimate the harms caused
the current American approach to criminal justice.
principles of Catholic Social Teaching, on the other
d, can markedly improve what is clearly a broken
em. Reconstructing the criminal-justice system in
s consistent with those principles will put us on
iath toward respecting both the authentic developt of the individual and the common good, and help
-reverse an all-out assault on our most vulnerable
mmunities.
1. Why are so many Americans incarcerated?
I
Commonweal,
January 28, 2011, pp. 11-14. Copyright
© 2011 by Commonweal
2. Discuss the extent that the incarceration rate lowers the
crime rate.
3. Why do all other countries have lower incarceration rates?
ROBERT DEFINA is professor of sociology at Villanova University
and co-editor of the Journal of Catholic Social Thought. LANCE
HANNON is associate professor of sociology at Villanova University.
The authors' work was supported in part by a Veritas grant from
Villanova University
Foundation.
ng have prond guidance
ver the past
o exception.
ed as a pow'nly punishhe common
iporting the
11 rejoin the
there must
Ie to reinte)astoral was
I have only
D8 incarceris. populaThe trends
:y of crimes
'ell. Meanie-reducing
:es demand
'esented in
:eration on
y the indi~nificantly
63
Reprinted
by permission.
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www.commonwealmagazine.org