Authors Marc Mauer and David Cole published an editorial in the Washington Post entitled "Five Myths About Americans in Prison," that exposes some common misconceptions about incarceration.
The first untrue belief is that crime rate has fallen because of the increased incarceration in the U.S. Canada has not experienced an increase in the amount of prisoners per capita that the U.S. has, yet Canadian crime rates have fallen also. Researchers have determined that only 10-25% of the decrease in crimes is a result of increased incarceration. Methods that are very effective at lowering crime rates are "changes in drug markets, policing strategies and community initiatives to reshape behavior."
Second, the belief that the prison population is rising because more people are being sentenced to prison is untrue. When crack was new and associated with a lot of violence and gang activity lawmakers responded by establishing mandatory minimum sentences, especially in the 1980's and 1990's. Mandatory minimum sentences and three strikes laws are very inefficient and can be extraordinarily harsh. They take all discretion away from the judge or jury and have been criticized for creating an unconstitutional breach in the separation of the legislature and judiciary. Further, mandatory sentences do little to deter crime, as people do not think of the sentence they might receive when committing a crime. Mandatory sentences do not deter crime, but they do cause prisons to be overcrowded. Where almost 10% of prisoners in the U.S. are serving life sentences, for many of them incarceration in their older years make little sense, as people are less likely to commit crimes as they grow older.
The article claims that helping prisoners rejoin society will substantially reduce the prison population, and cites as proof the fact that the federal government allocates about $120.00 per prisoner to help them acclimate to life on the outside. The article argues that this meager expenditure is not sufficient to overcome low levels of education, drug abuse and psychological issues that many inmates suffer from. The supposed myth is actually true, but there is no commitment, financial, political or otherwise, to provide truly effective support to released prisoners. As the model for incarceration has moved in the past few decades from rehabilitation to punishment in the prisons, it is not surprising that there is little to help released prisoners on the outside. Most prisoners will be released one day, and it only makes sense to properly prepare them to be successful.
Another myth is that there is a link between race and crime, and it is true that there is no difference in criminal acts and drug use when viewed as a percentage of every racial population. The article glosses over the fact that police arrest a disproportionally large amount of non-whites for criminal acts. So the reason that a larger portion of whites than non-whites is in prison is due to race. Just not the way one would think. It is not that non-whites commit more crimes, they are just targeted more for investigation and arrest. That is racism no matter how it is viewed.
Inexplicably the next supposed myth is that racial disparities in incarceration reflect police and judge's racial prejudice. They might as well add legislators in that mix too, given the disparities in crack sentencing that existed for many years. While the article tries to refute that race plays a part in arrests and incarceration their arguments are not convincing. They argue that many arrests occur in urban areas which have a higher non-white population (due to enhanced penalties in school zones, which happen to be in those urban areas) and legislative spending that focuses more on incarceration than on prevention. Another aspect that the authors don't consider is the effect of class. Prisoners are more likely to be poor than rich.
So while the article makes some good points and raises an important issue that gives facts to contradict the often knee-jerk reaction of legislatures when dealing with crime, and the media's messages about crime in our society, they fall short in taking a good hard look at these issues and giving the unvarnished truth.