Myths and More

This past Sunday’s Washington Post presented an interesting Op Ed piece by Marc Mauer, Executive Director of the Sentencing Project and David Cole, Professor of Law at Georgetown University detailing five myths about Americans in prison.  From its opening paragraph:  “No country on earth imprisons more people per capita than the United States.  But for America, mass incarceration has proved a losing proposition.”  These two gentleman detail common misunderstandings about America’s incarceration explosion.  Here are the five common myths:

1.    Crime has fallen because incarceration has risen.  In countries with rapidly dwindling inmate rates, the crime has actually dropped significantly more.  There is no correlation between incarceration rates and crime rates.

2.    The prison population is rising because more people are going to prison.  No.  The inmate population is dramatically rising because of harsher, lengthier sentences aimed more at nonviolent crimes.  Worse, there is no correlation between sentencing and deterrence.

3.    Re-entry programs help substantially reduce the prison population.  No.  Prison is not the place to teach criminals to change their behavior.  Prisons are training grounds for more crime.  That is precisely why recidivism rates have increased as we spend more to lock people up.

4.    There’s a link between race and crime.  Yes, there are significantly more black and Latino inmates as white.  But, whites use and deal drugs in the same percentages as other races.  They just don’t go to prison in the same percentage.

5.    Racial disparities in prison rates reflect racial prejudice in the courts.  No.  The laws are racially neutral.  There effect is felt more in certain communities.  Take the disparity between crack cocaine (5 grams gets you 5 years) versus powdered cocaine (90 grams gets you 5 years).  And that’s the new law.  The old law was 100 to 1, not 18 to 1.  Which cocaine is more harmful?  They are the same.  It just happens crack is more prevalent in poor, urban areas populated by African Americans and Latinos.

Here’s the bottom line:  America is currently spending $50 to $70 billion on prisons.  Behind Medicaid it is the fasting rising cost in state budgets.  Incarceration does not turn peoples’ lives around.  Prison is more likely to embitter the inmate and damage family relations.  What is the divorce rate for the incarcerated?  What percentage of children being raised in single parent homes with one parent serving a prison sentence live below the poverty line?

Each day, some talking head tells you how important families are to this nation.  Yet, the corrections system currently in place destroys families.  Each day, some politician tells you how important Judeo-Christian tenets are to this nation’s fabric.  Well, Jesus

certainly wasn’t pro-prison.  “Forgive”; “Show Mercy”; “He that is free of sin cast the first stone.”

America’s love affair with incarceration is built on myths that are unsustainable.  As the Gospel of John records, “but the people loved the darkness.”  Yet we know the truth – not myths – will make us free.