Behind Prison Bars
The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling that California must clear out its overcrowded prisons, together with Attorney General Eric Holder’s comments on minimum mandatory sentences have brought to the fore the question of how long convicted felons should be kept incarcerated.
From this perspective, the answer is the same as for a number of other issues in criminal justice: It depends.
First of all, regardless of how you feel about the legalization of illicit drugs, the anti-drug laws are largely out of whack. A lot of nonviolent offenders are doing long prison sentences, which serve no purpose other than to spend huge amounts of government money and ruin lives. If there were any evidence that this was having a positive effect on illegal drug trafficking and use, that would be one thing. But such evidence is scant.
This is not to suggest that prison is never a good option for nonviolent offenders. I think most of us feel that grossly antisocial and conscienceless folks like Bernie Madoff need to be put away – not because they are physically dangerous to others, but because their crimes deserve severe punishment that, at the very least, ends their lifestyles. But for a large majority of nonviolent offenders, we have to look much more seriously into alternative sentences. Restitution is a viable option for certain types of crimes. Genuine and committed community service – as opposed to the symbolic punishments meted out to certain celebrities – makes real sense for other types of crimes, and may actually serve as a kind of rehabilitation, which prison rarely is.
There is some controversy among judges, prosecutors and legislators as to whether federal mandatory minimum sentences are actually rules judges must follow, or rather strong suggestions that can be overridden when individual circumstances dictate. Either way, judges understandably don’t like them. They feel it is their job to evaluate a case based on the facts at hand, rather than bowing to a politician’s abstract ideas on law enforcement. This makes a lot of sense.
We have all heard the horror stories of unfortunate felons who have fallen through the mandatory minimum cracks and had their lives destroyed without any social benefit. One example is the man who had three drug convictions early in his life, then several decades later was labelled as a “career criminal” with commensurate prison time simply because he was found to be in possession of a firearm, even though he had never used it.
If we could strip the prisons of many of the nonviolent offenders whom society is getting nothing out of keeping confined, we wouldn’t have to face court orders to let inmates out simply because of overcrowding. Arbitrarily reducing the prison populations in this manner is bad public policy, and undoubtedly leads to more violent crime. Few in corrections or law enforcement dispute this. If we have to spend more money on building and maintaining more prisons even though we spend more than any other nation in the world, so be it. But let’s be sure we’re doing it for the right reasons.
Which gets us to the issue of violent offenders. Parole has been largely eliminated from the federal system, which means real truth in sentencing – not a bad thing. In state courts, however, it is still very much an issue. Sometimes parole is appropriate, based largely on the circumstances of the crime and a full – and I mean full – evaluation of the inmate. But I don’t believe we should ever take a chance on paroling a violent predator.
Take the case of Stephanie Schmidt of Leawood, Kansas, whom John Douglas and I wrote about in Obsession. This kind and beautiful 20-year-old was assaulted and murdered by a monster named Donald Gideon, who had been paroled after serving 15 years for a violent rape.
Now, here’s the way John and I look at situations like this: Assume 100 guys who roughly fit Gideon’s description and you are going to consider paroling all of them. What is your acceptable failure rate? Five percent? Two percent? One percent? In other words, how many Stephanie Schmidts will you tolerate dying in horrible circumstances to see if these men can assimilate successfully back into society? Our acceptable failure rate is zero.
All I’m saying is, we have to do a better job of understanding who doesn’t belong in jail, and who does.
oops, i forgot to add that somewhere between his five year sentences he had a third “violation” of parol, again someone called the parol dept said they seen him out of bounds… take a wild guess? yup… 1 year.
true story, i know of a guy who was sentenced to five years for beating up someone, he had never been to prison before, five years! when he was paroled he violated his parole by stepping outside the county line of his prison sentence violation, he got a year for that, a year! after he was released someone said they saw him outside the county line, they put him away for another year! after his second release he completed his parole, got in a fight, went to court, five years! gee i wounder why are prisons are soo full.
Laws against crime have been in effect since the beginning of time – this generation has taken civil rights a tad too far in some places. Nobody should be hated for race or sexual preference. All deserve to be fed, clothed and educated. That’s it. Time to take the psychology out of things – the ‘oh poor you’
In Africa – abuse is common – they don’t become killers etc.
One more thing – I don’t mean to be a board hog but – intelligent man domesticates animals often by fencing, law, or commands, come, sit, etc. makes them fit to be around people.
Foolish man fights this nature. Meaning excuse their less than average behavior – tear down society.
Man does with animals which God does with man.
Society wants everybody to be less than par. Stupid people are in charge nearly everywhere.
Society/Crime for the most part is an easy study. We care more to keep up with those who have things – than to worry about those who have nothing. Even if it means de-valuing life – and once laws bend to accommodate drug addicts , dealers, professionals or named people in crime – you begin to have no law.
Which will create a cycle of everyone doing whatever it can get away with.
Just lock them up – let them rot – more people pressure Washington to give prisoners rights than to clean up inner cities – which is helpful?
The beauty of this is that if this was done – how free would the people being born be now – simply by just not having the option to de-value life – karma exact
Drug dealers should be kept off the streets as they don’t value life – choices – addicts probably deserve rehab but after 3 times – should rot
All violent rapes – should rot
All child molesters should rot
In jail
Theft varies btwn weapon/no weapon – everybody alive on earth probably feels justified in stealing from someone in a sense that a lot of people do others wrong.
All murderers unless self defense or accidental – certainly all planned unless the killer was being abused .. Should rot
America would be cleaner
I completely agree with you. Of course, I came from a culture of recreational drug use, so maybe I’m not exactly objective, but then neither are people who never did it. What I know is that many more people use drugs than ever become addicts; that most people who use drugs do not move on to using needles; that most people who use drugs do not sell drugs; that people who use nonaddictive drugs recreationally and never had the propensity to steal before will not begin stealing because they are now getting high recreationally; that the same goes for becoming violent from drug use; that most people cycle out of it and become bored with it and move on. But we never ever hear about those people, and they are the majority, no different than college freshman who drink too much beer and then get it out of their systems eventually.
That said, I am not advocating everyone get high, by any means, since a certain percentage of people are born into addiction and cannot handle any substances well.
I don’t even think someone who fails a breathalyzer should automatically be blamed for an accident they are involved in, as is currently the case, which causes greatly inflated statistics. If someone had 2 drinks 3 times and got caught in a drunk trap, they could be jailed, whether an accident was involved or not, whether they hurt anyone or not. In an accident, a person who is a bad driver all the time or was on their cell phone is more likely to be the cause of an accident than a person who has been drinking. So I’ve long been an advocate that we stop targeting them and trapping them and just make it the policy to stop everyone who is driving bad, for whatever reason.
According to the 2005 Bureau of Crime Statistics numbers, a fourth of convicted felons never did any jail time. It’s crazy to be releasing them early willy-nilly and continue to pull pot-smoking, ecstacy-taking dance clubbers off the street and wasting a jail cell on them.
Like you, I agree the white-collar crime should be locked up and definitely denied unmonitored phone or computer use since they could continue a scam from prison. And I think a lot more of them should be locked up, including a healthy portion of politicians. They do the country far more harm than any recreational drug user. I also think thieves should be locked up, having been burglarized a number of times myself and knowing that in addition to losing things you worked hard for, you also lose your sense of security forever. Pot smoker next door – not so much.