Prision Reform to Fight the Defecit

And what if the prisons were emptied? In these times of budget austerity, American leaders have imagination. Until now, prison overcrowding only bothered the editorialists of the New York Times and organizations that defend minorities. And now the idea is gaining ground: from Kansas to California, the state penal administrations are vying to outdo each other with initiatives to relieve the prisons. One wonders if this is really the moment to put detainees back on the streets, which are covered by fewer policemen due to cuts in the budgets of local communities, but this is the way it is. With the help of the crisis, even partisans of the all-repressive are coming to think differently.

The United States has a ways to go. The country, it must be remembered, is the champion of the world in incarceration. It even outstrips China, which is four times more populous. With less than 5 percent of the world population, America counts nearly a quarter of the planet’s prisoners. Since 2008 the growth has stopped, but currently there are still 2.3 million under lock and key, or 1 adult in 100 (as opposed to 1.5 million prisoners in China). If we add individuals who are free on probation or parole, the number reaches 7.3 million, or 1 adult in 31. According to the Pew Center on the States, an independent organization that analyses politics in the 50 states, 1 in 9 African-Americans, age 20 to 34, is in prison. And 109 minors are serving a life sentence, without possibility of reduction, even though their crime did not lead to a human death: a situation without equivalent in developed countries. Seventy-seven among them are in Florida.

In thirty years, the prison population has tripled, due to infractions of drug laws. Specialists do not agree on the effects of these measures. But it would be difficult not to mention that the United States has seen a spectacular drop in criminality. In cities like New York, Dallas, Los Angeles, it is at its lowest level in forty years.

But today incarceration costs too much. Forty-three states are in debt, and the prisons are their second greatest expense, after Medicaid, the health insurance for the poor. Far above education. For the governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, a system that devotes 45 percent more to prisons than to universities, “is turned on its head.” Last week, he proposed to prohibit such a disproportion through constitutional amendment. California is one state where detainees have made a collective complaint against overcrowding. The justice system has supported them. It ruled that the governor must reduce the number of detainees by 40,000 in two years (but it was appealed to the Supreme Court).

Forced to eliminate school bus service or to close the library to pay the prison bill, elected officials have attacked operation costs. The majority of states have already eliminated guard posts or drastically cut their salaries. Some have limited the number of medical and dental visits given to detainees. Georgia has reduced the number of meals (but the number of calories remains the same, it has asserted!). Four states have completely closed facilities, like Colorado or Michigan, where the prison population has already shrunk by 8 percent in 18 months.

In the longer term, the states are also revisiting their penal policy. Several of them have replaced sentences for violation of parole with public service. Kansas has put in place a system of points for good behavior, which convert to days of reduction in sentence. Others impose rehabilitation to substitute prison for drug use. Nothing very original, but a new idea in the country of “three strikes and you’re out.”

To reduce the prison population, there is still one infallible solution: free the innocents. In this respect, the American justice system is not failing. Thanks to DNA tests, 249 detainees determined to be not guilty have been released since 1989. In December, James Bain, 54 years old, left his cell after thirty-five years of prison, which, to date, makes him the record-holder, if you can call it that, for judicial error. He was sentenced in 1974 for life for the rape of a 9 year old child. Thanks to a compensation law voted in Florida (50,000 dollars for year of incarceration), he should receive 1.75 million dollars. The same week, Donald E. Gates, imprisoned in Arizona, was found innocent after twenty-eight years behind bars. He had also been sentenced based on dubious testimony. He took the Greyhound to Washington, with a ticket given by the government, winter clothing and a fortune of 75 dollars.