Mass incarceration not actually that great

Cross-posted from WagingNonviolence.org.

The imprisonment of 2.3 million American citizens, comprising 1 in 99 adults, has been a “success,” according to columnist Ross Douthat in the New York Times:

For a generation now, conservatives, not Dukakis-style liberals, have been making policy on crime. They’ve built more prisons, imposed harsher sentences and locked up as many lawbreakers as possible. Their approach has worked. The violent crime rate has been cut by nearly 40 percent since its early-1990s peak. The murder rate is at its lowest point since Lyndon Johnson was president.

Except… facts are stubborn things.

Mass incarceration has indeed lowered the crime rate, but not by much. According to The Sentencing Project (pdf), three-quarters of the decline in violent crime can be attributed to factors other than incarceration, such as economic opportunity and treatment programs. Between 1998 and 2003, for example, states with stable or decreasing incarceration rates experienced the same average drop in crime as states with increasing incarceration rates.

In addition, “80% of the crime prevented by the incarceration of each additional prisoner is for nonviolent offenses,” continues The Sentencing Project, citing research. That undercuts Douthat’s implication that lower violent crime and murder rates can be attributed primarily to increasing rates of incarceration.

Douthat also ignores the “war on drugs,” a conspicuous oversight given its centrality to the lock-‘em-up ideology. The war on drugs is by most accounts a policy failure with no end in sight. While drug offenders packed our prisons, drugs became deadlier and more widespread. “If anything,” writes Georgetown law professor David Cole, “the war on drugs has probably increased the incidence of crime; about half of property crime, robberies, and burglaries are attributable to the inflated cost of drugs caused by criminalizing them.”

Mass incarceration is a human rights disaster that exacerbates race and class disparities. It would be widely condemned, Cole hypothesizes, if its effects weren’t “concentrated on the most deprived among us.” Ending this shameful chapter in American history involves not just alternatives to prisons, as Douthat ultimately recommends, but an honest account of their impact on crime.

Peace is radical

With three hundred others last Sunday, I went to Cincinnati’s Fountain Square to protest the Israeli offensive against Gaza. I held a manufactured sign that read, “Gaza women and children are being murdered,” though I tend to think that killing men is pretty awful, too. The rally had been spontaneously organized by a local mosque at a vigil the preceding Friday night. Most signs were homemade, giving the rally a grassroots feel but also an unruly political message.

Some signs lacked nuance, declaring: "Zionism = terrorism." Another read, "Israel is the real terrorist." Geez, does it have to be an either/or? Other signs, comically, squeezed in big ideas: "America: Stop funding Israel and start worrying about your own problems!!!" Some were more "moderate," e.g., "Salaam, Peace, Shalom," while others more "radical," e.g., "End the Gaza Holocaust," or equating the Jewish star with the Nazi swastika. The Israeli offensive violates the human rights of Gazans, but it's still not a systemic ethnic slaughter, much less on the scale of the Holocaust. In any case, in the context of the Middle East, the truly "radical" idea is peace.

With a single megaphone, the call-and-response was more streamlined. Chants of "Free Palestine!" were interspersed with "Allah Akhbar!" (So much for Palestine's Christian minority.) And, I wonder, was it really necessary to fly the Hamas flag? Why not just the Palestinian flag? And even for a sympathizer with Palestine, some chants were simply infuriating, led by people clearly detached from reality: "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!" I mean, really?!

Meanwhile, though men and women attended the rally in equal numbers, only men operated the megaphone, led the march, and dominated the inner circle for the entire two hours.

For half-an-hour, I spoke with a young Arab Muslim woman named Saha, with a three-year-old son. Her homemade sign ridiculed Ehud Barack, the Israeli defense minister. Was she Palestinian?, I asked. From Khalil, she said. Khalil is the Arabic name for the West Bank city more widely known as Hebron, which I pronounced, "Hevron," instantly giving away my familiarity with the Jews. "You're one of them," she said, excited and suspicious at the same time. She understood the conflict along strict ethnic lines and wondered why I had come. "I know some Hebrew!" she then announced, reciting: "Baruch atah adonai elohanu melech ha-olam, shelo asanai goy" - thanking God "for not making me a non-Jew," one of the more offensive prayers retained by some Orthodox Jews (edited out by others). Meanwhile, talk about her propagandist education about Jews...

A (white male) reporter from a local news channel asked to interview me, though I was clearly the only white person around. "Why don't you ask Saha," I said, "she's actually Palestinian." He asked her, "Can you explain the conflict to the average television viewer?" I would have said simply, "No," but Saha made a feeble attempt. He interviewed me later. I considered explaining a Palestinian perspective: "Hamas might like to kill children, but Israelis actually do," or saying something like, "The Palestinians wouldn't care about a Jewish state in Australia. It’s about Palestine, the land." But the reporter asked, "What doesn't the average viewer understand about Palestinians?" So I said blandly, "A lot gets misconstrued on TV, with rock-throwing and tanks. Most Palestinian are simply trying to build a peaceful life for themselves and their children."

I find rallies unpleasant events. Much gets flattened to fit on a sign. But I feel obligated to stand for the larger cause of justice. If nuance and justice cannot co-exist, I'll sacrifice some nuance.

Recognizing the problem

...is the first step toward recovery. But prison administrations would rather fool the public and congratulate themselves. GED classes, vocational training, substance abuse counseling, mental health care, and pre-release programs all look fantastic on paper. Problem is: Many of them, perhaps most, simply do not exist. People move from prisons to homeless shelters. They don't get enrolled in Medicaid before their release. It's one thing to claim to provide education to inmates; it's another to squeeze 25 rowdy guys with varying academic abilities into a single classroom.

The ineptitude stems partly from poor management, partly from inadequate budgets, and partly because prison overcrowding has transformed prison facilities into humanitarian aid camps, obsessed with the basics: food, housing, safety. Ohio prisons hold 50,404 people, but have the capacity for just 38,320. How can they possibly provide education, health care, training, etc.? I know U.S. prison administrators feel under siege. I just wish they wouldn't lie about it.

From a personal "perspectives" piece in the Denver Post:

According to the Colorado Department of Corrections, almost all Colorado prisons have a chapter of Alcoholics Anonymous, and at least half offer Narcotics Anonymous. "We also have mental health staff in each facility," said Katherine Sanguinetti, spokesperson for the corrections department. "Every incoming inmate goes through an initial assessment, followed by appropriate treatment." Education is a high priority of the prison system, too. Inmates who lack a high school diploma or GED are required to go to class. For those with more education... educational and vocational programs are tied into the community college system, meaning prisoners can leave the facility and slide right into a classroom. And there are many job opportunities.

This perspectives piece sounds like an infomercial for the department of corrections. Do they have to lie so blatantly? It's infuriating. How can we convince the public to invest more money in prison rehabilitation if correctional departments apparently have everything they need?

"Our focus has shifted toward offender re-entry from day one," she said. "We're giving them every opportunity to change their lives."

Implication: If prisoners don't reform, it's their own damn fault. Ugh.

See these images of overcrowding from California prisons:

No duh non-sequitur

From a Reuters article on British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's U.S. visit today:

After their meeting, Obama, who would be the first black U.S. president, said he and Brown discussed issues they have in common such as Iraq and Afghanistan, the global economy and Africa.

Obama's race is obviously relevant, but does it need to be ubiquitous? It's like writing, "Ice cream is very popular in the U.S., which is on the planet Earth." It's extraneous, obvious, and tokenizing.

Update: Jeff the pig herder recommends this video:

Republican for gay marriage

I'm simply regurgitating the news here, but it's worth it. Get a tissue. In this emotional statement, San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders announces his support for a gay marriage resolution:



The statement was an about-face for Sanders, who had previously threatened to veto the city council's resolution. In the statement, he says: "I've decided to lead with my heart. . . to take a stand on behalf of equality and social justice. ... I just could not bring myself to tell an entire group of our community they were less important, less worthy or less deserving of the rights and responsibilities of marriage than anyone else, simply because of their sexual orientation."

Less courageous was the sub-headline of the LA Times article:

"Jerry Sanders, a Republican and former police chief, has a daughter who is gay."

"Oh," I'm supposed to think, "that explains it." Not.

Tax-exempting the rich

Lots of organizations present their tax-exempt status as if that were proof of a good cause. But what does it really mean? It means donors get a tax break. When I give money to charity and report doing so to the IRS, I thereby don't give my money to the government. Sometimes this rule makes sense, such as when I want to give money to an organization that doesn't receive government funding. But most of the time it doesn't make sense. My alma mater, for example constantly solicits for donations. But in taking a tax-exemption on gifts to Brown, donors are in effect taking money that would have gone to the government. And the government needs the money far more than Brown does, especially because social programs are the first to get cut in a crunch. Let me say it outright: Donations to universities, cultural institutions for the rich (say, Carnegie Hall), and religious institutions (say, the Catholic Church) should not be tax-exempt.

How much money does the government lose? I don't have those numbers right now. The NYT (which doesn't cite the numbers either, though it should) presents data from the Center for Philanthropy at Indiana University: "For every three dollars they [rich philanthropists] give away, the federal government typically gives up a dollar or more in tax revenue, because of the charitable tax deduction and by not collecting estate taxes." So we're talking billions of dollars.

First caveat: Some people worry that the government would squander the money (Iraq War, cough cough) instead of say, using it to expand health insurance coverage (which is what John Edwards would do with heavier taxes on the rich). So in that case, it may be better to let rich people themselves decide where to direct their money. But we have to question whether the decisions of the rich are any better than the government's. Rich people tend to give their money to art museums and concert halls, not to the local soup kitchen. NYT: "[L]ess than 10 percent of the money Americans give to charity addresses basic human needs, like sheltering the homeless, feeding the hungry and caring for the indigent sick." Not only that, but the "wealthiest typically devote an even smaller portion of their giving to such causes than everyone else."

Second caveat: Is citizen action as good as I make it sound? Take the example of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Last year, its philanthropic donations were directed primarily to public health projects in developing countries. "Valuable as that may be," opined the NYT reporter, "it also meant that the American public effectively underwrote several billion dollars worth of foreign aid by private individuals, even though poll after poll shows Americans are at best ambivalent about using tax dollars in such assistance." Yikes! Better leave the money in Bill Gates' hands!

Or at least that was my first reaction. Then I realized that it's just a reporter's (shameful) attempt to stir controversy. "Valuable as that may be," she writes. How cynical! "Poll after poll," she continues. I doubt that, and she doesn't back it up. Americans give just .16% of our GDP to international aid, and as far as I've seen, most people think that's too little. (Norway gives .87%.) And since when are the government's spending priorities decided by opinion polls? But let's suppose that they are. Pretend that the majority of Americans really don't want that money going to global health causes or to places where the life expectancy is less than 35 years old. Where would they send that money instead? If recent polls are correct, then at least 64% of Americans would use it to insure the 47 million uninsured people in this country (2.2 million more than there were in 2005). Covering America's uninsured is still better than covering the university's golf team.

In short, tax exemptions come at a cost. And the poor are paying it.

Going veg for the planet

Global warming is one more reason to go vegetarian (among the ones I listed before) in a sea (read: melting ice-caps) of others.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization's report, "Livestock's Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Options" (November 2006), found that animal agriculture generates an extraordinary output of greenhouse gas emissions - indeed, more so than all forms of transportation combined. The report addresses livestock's role in climate change, air pollution, and water depletion. I would especially refer you Table 15 in Annex 2, which tracks the CO2 emissions of major meat trade flows. So, for example, the US shipped 2 million tons of poultry meat to China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Russia, Mexico, and Canada, from 2001-03, generating 137,000 tons of CO2 emissions. And that's just the USA. But the bulk of CO2 emissions comes from the burning of fossil fuels to produce nitrogen fertilizer for feedcrops (Table 3.4). This practice emits 41 million tons of CO2 worldwide, with the USA contributing almost 12 million. A skeptic might say that plant agriculture also generates CO2 emissions. But it is still far more efficient for a person to consume vegetarian products than to cycle food calories through an animal before finally consuming it oneself.

Now comes the scandal, and hence the NYT article, "Trying to Connect the Dinner Plate to Climate Change." The article disgusts me. We don't have to try. The evidence is there, though the NYT mostly ignores it. Instead, the NYT covers the following debate: Some have argued that one can't be an environmentalist without also being a vegetarian. See, for example, "How Environmentalists are Overlooking Vegetarianism as the Most Effective Tool Against Climate Change in Our Lifetimes." It suggests that our anti-climate change work should include vegetarian outreach, say in school lunch programs. To that end, animal welfare organizations have been running ads like the one above (by the Humane Society) or the one below (by PETA). Yes, their ads may seem opportunistic since these organizations clearly care more about reducing cruelty to animals than reducing CO2. But so what? Why deride this rather neat alliance?