Lazarus Austin is a junior majoring in history. He can be contacted at [email protected].Last week, a new report by Pew Center on the States shows that one out every 100 adults in the United States is in prison. The United States has more people in prison than any other country (including China, which has more than 1 billion people) and also the highest incarceration rate in the world.
This begs the question, “Are we being too tough on crime?” At first, it seems we are imprisoning an outrageously large amount of people. Most experts will agree that tough incarceration reduces violent crime rates. Since the 1980s, when a lot of legislation was passed to toughen up on crime, the crime rate has dropped 25 percent.
On the other hand, states spend on average 7 percent of their budget on corrections, trailing only health care, education and transportation, according to the National Association of State Budget Officers. One in nine state employees work in corrections.
You would think the money spent is well worth it. As we have seen, the tangible benefits to higher incarceration rates are probably reduced crime rates. However, after 20 years of being tough on crime, our incarceration rate continues to rise, while crime rates continue to drop.
What we have not given attention to are the long-term consequences of high incarceration rates. The financial problems are obvious. The more people we imprison, the more it costs. In order to pay for corrections, we have to redirect money from other programs, such as education and social security, or increase taxes.
Lowering the quality of our education system and taking money away from citizens is a surefire way of increasing crime. It is a never-ending circle. As the crime rates rise, we incarcerate more people. By doing so, we increase crime, and therefore the incarceration rate continues to rise.
By spending so much of our resources on incarcerating criminals for every little offense, we are possibly encouraging crime in the long run by creating opportunities for it to happen. Part of our problem stems from our focus on the symptoms or effects of crime instead of the causes. Crime cannot be attributed to any one problem. Everything in politics is interconnected. You cannot talk about incarceration rates without talking about our economy, immigration and education.
Crime rates are influenced by the poor state of the economy. If people are suffering financially, they are more likely to commit a crime. Illegal immigrants and minorities have high crime rates. Poor education increases the chance of committing a crime.
If we attack the causes instead of the effects, the long-term benefits would be enormous and would have a domino effect. We wouldn’t see immediate rewards; in fact, it might cause several problems in the beginning, but it would be well worth it in the end. With more people out of prison, more people would contribute to the economy. Less money would be spent on corrections and more on education and crime prevention. Lastly, if political leaders would run the other aspects of our country more effectively all around, then we wouldn’t have many of these individual problems.