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9.4.2: Geography of Punishment

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    Geography of Punishment

    Crime prevention is the goal of law enforcement agencies. There are several strategies for preventing crime, but in the United States, the favored method is punishment. Americans favor the idea that putting criminals in jail not only punishes the criminal but also offers them a chance for rehabilitation. Americans also cling closely to the idea that jail time serves as an effective deterrent to those considering crime. It’s a questionable philosophy.

    Auto rate thefts within the U,S.png

    Figure US Map- Auto Theft Rates by States. People steal cars much higher in California than they do in the state of New York. Why might this pattern occur?

    The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world at over 700 persons per 100,000. Although Americans constitute only about 5% of the world’s population, about one-in-four imprisoned persons are in American jails. England, Germany, and Japan, as well as many other highly industrialized nations, have much lower incarceration rates, ranging between 50 and 100 persons per 100,000. Americans could learn from the beliefs and practices of other countries, but we stubbornly refuse to learn from other countries when it comes to some issues. Crime is one of those issues.

    From an international perspective, the American criminal justice system, which relies on mass incarceration as the principal crime prevention tool, is a terrific failure. People go to prison for offenses that generally would not warrant jail time in other countries, like passing bad checks or possessing small amounts of marijuana. American criminals go to prison a lot longer as well. The rate at which people go to jail in the US and many European countries is nearly equal, but American prisoners stay jailed twice or three times longer than their European counterparts. Part of the disparity in sentence length is attributable to the disparity in crime type. The non-violent crime rate and the simple assault rate in the United States are similar to those in Europe. However, very violent crimes are committed much more frequently in the United States. It appears that Americans’ exceptionally easy access to firearms creates far more opportunities for Americans to use a weapon in a crime. Because gun-related crimes receive far longer sentences than those without guns, American criminals wind up serving much longer prison sentences than criminals elsewhere.

    San Quentin prison.png

    Figure San Quentin, CA - This prison, like many, far exceeds its designed capacity. Officials have turned to private corporations or early parole to cope.

    Another significant component of America’s love affair with prisons is attributable to the cultural politics of the United States. Americans decided to fight the “war on drugs” primarily through imprisonment rather than through drug- addiction treatment or by investing in effective drug prevention programs. In the 1970s, a cultural backlash against a perceived level of cultural permissiveness led to a “get tough on crime” political populism, called law and order politics. Because the United States’ judicial system is one of the few in the world that allows citizens to elect judges, law enforcement leaders(Sheriffs), and prosecutors, candidates for these positions worked hard to prove they were “tough on crime”. Rarely do candidates for these positions campaign on being the smartest on crime. As a result, prison populations exploded since about 1970. Some states also turned to corporations that run private prisons to help house inmates, and by doing so created an economic incentive to those in that industry to maintain high crime rates, incarceration rates, and recidivism rates.

    Officials in the US also execute those convicted of particularly heinous crimes more frequently than is the case in most of the world. Internationally, locations with a devout religious population (e.g., Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan) and China execute more people at a greater rate than the US. The Chinese execute far more than any other country. However, China’s executions seem focused on political crimes. The death penalty is not used in Europe, Canada, or Mexico. After a hiatus of almost 20 years, the Trump administration resumed Federal executions in 2020.

    Incarceration Rates in the U.S (2016) .png

    Figure Maps Incarceration Rates- 2016. Some states have pursued mass incarceration more fiercely than others, but the efficacy of this strategy is in question.

    Americans' opinions on the Death Penalty have swung back and forth. During the Great Depression, nearly 200 people per year were executed in the US. After World War II, it became far less common and for much of the 1970s, there were none because the US Supreme Court found execution to be cruel and unusual punishment, and therefore unconstitutional. But, law and order politics caught up to the justice system and after 1977, executions resumed in some states. By 1998, executions reached a post-moratorium peak of 98 Americans per year, about half the peak number in the 1930s. That number has fallen since partly because DNA evidence showed that some death row inmates were innocent leading some states to abolish the practice. In 2019, 22 Americans were executed.

    Executions are far more likely in some parts of the US than in others. They are most common in places where Americans favor a Biblical “eye-for-an-eye” type justice, and/or where there is a long-standing legacy of violent racism. States from the former Confederacy, led by Texas (40%), account for roughly 85% of all executions since 1976. In fact, over half of the death penalty cases in the US come from just a few counties in the country. Duval County, Florida (Jacksonville) is one of those counties where jurors and/or judges regularly condemn prisoners to death. Critics of the practice are quick to point out that frequent death sentences in Duval County have not resulted in a significant reduction in crime there. California has over 700 prisoners on Death Row, but none are likely to be executed because of the numerous court cases challenging the death penalty. Perhaps, it’s not surprising that several studies point to very disturbing trends indicating differential treatment for people of color when it comes to death penalty cases.

    Proponents of harsh penalties for crime argue that “getting tough on crime” has worked. Indeed, crime rates have fallen in the United States since the 1980s. In 2016, the violent crime rate in the US was about half of what it was in 1993. However, crime rates in the US have not fallen evenly, nor does there appear to be a significant correlation between states with high rates of incarceration and declining crime rates. New research suggests that locking up the worst offenders is effective at reducing specific types of crime, but long-term imprisonment for lesser crimes does little to reduce overall crime rates.

    By looking only at national statistics, one could still make an argument that mass incarceration is an effective strategy. However, by examining trends internationally, or even just looking at Canada’s experience, it’s easy to see that crime rates are dropping worldwide; including in those countries, like Canada that have never used mass incarceration as a crime prevention strategy. Some criminologists have pointed to demographic changes accompanying the maturation of the post-war baby boomers as the main reason for falling crime rates across the US, Canada, and Europe. As populations age, the number of people in the prime criminal age-cohort (15-30 years old) has fallen dramatically.

    U.S crime rates through the years.png

    Figure Rates for violent and property crimes have fallen dramatically in recent years.


    9.4.2: Geography of Punishment is shared under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by LibreTexts.

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