Prison System

"With the law books filled with a great assortment of crimes, a prosecutor stands a fair chance of finding at least a technical violation of some act on the part of almost anyone. In such a case, it is not a question of discovering the commission of a crime and then looking for the man who has committed it, it is a question of picking the man and then searching the law books, or putting investigators to work, to pin some offence on him." - Robert H. Jackson [63]

The United States has the highest percentage of its population in prison of any country on earth [19].
It imprisons more than seven times as many people per capita as China [23].
Appallingly, a full 25% of all people incarcerated on the planet, are incarcerated in the United States [3].
The prison population in the U.S. is so large that it ranks as the third largest city in that country [14].
It has the highest rate by far of capital punishment (murder by the state) of any developed country [4].

Prisons dot the US landscape [4], prisons built by private for-profit corporations. To maintain profit centers for shareholders, these for-profit incarceration facilities need of a constant supply of new inmates. With the co-operation of law makers, this has indeed occurred. For example in the three decades from 1970 onwards the number of prisoners in that country increased exponentially [3], requiring an increate of more than 700% in the number of (rather profitable) prisons[1]. This system can boast that the United States imprison more than 1000 new inmates per week [3]. A world record unsurpassed in history. In fact, the rate of imprisonment in the United States has long since far outstripped that country's rate of population growth.

One in every thirty-one adults (almost 8,000,000 people) in the United States is behind bars or on parole, (even higher if total counts of private prisons, non-state funded prisons, military prisons, and similar are included). This is by far the highest rate of incarceration in the world [3,4,5,6,19]. That country also has the highest rate of skin colour-based incarceration in the world - the Pew centre has indicated that with 1 in every 9 persons with darkly pigmented skin in that country is incarcerated [7,8,9].

There is also in that country a highly disproportionate imprisonment of non-majority ethnic groups. But this is common around the world as well: The Maori [11] of New Zealand, Australian aboriginals [12], Natives in Canada [13,14] and natives in the US [15], Algerians under French rule [16], Caribbean immigrants in England [17], foreign immigrants in Holland [18] and in Sweden [19], the Lapps in Finland [20], the Burakumin in Japan [21], Arabs in Israel [22], and so on.  What is different in the United States however, is that the disproportionate rates of imprisonment of non-dominant ethnic or pigmentation-based groups is far greater in the United States [3,14,9,20,21,22] than in any other country in the world. The disproportion is so great in fact, that some academics (notably [20,23]) have alleged that racism in the United States is an entrenched part of the the legal system.

A small example: There are as many young African-American males detained by the US criminal justice system as there are African-Americans of any age in four-year US college programs [24]. A staggering 40% of young African-American males are either incarcerated or wanted by the California police [24]; only 5% of white males are similarly treated [24,25]... yet African-Americans make up only 7% of the Californian population [ibid]. Data from twelve similar US states indicate that African-Americans are incarcerated at least ten times as frequently as those with light skin colour but with similar economic and social backgrounds [26]. A full 51% of US executions of US citizens are of African-Americans – a group comprising less than 12% of the US population [27].  These differences hold over time, and are not the product of a particular generation [19,27,28]. Interestingly however, in longitudinal polling most white US citizens believe the law is applied equally to all, regardless of ethnicity [29]. A society whose prison population is dominated by those with particular skin pigmentation far, far out of proportion to socio-economic status, regardless of area, may perhaps be wanting.

Further, prisons in North America are primary incubators for AIDS. The probability of contact in AIDS for black citizens in the United States became, in the space of less than a decade, nine times that of white males. Why did they so suddenly contact a disease formerly associated primarily with gay white men? The data strongly indicates prisons and rates of black male incarceration as the primary line [26, 30]. “Our results reveal that the higher incarceration rates of black males... explain the lion's share of the racial disparity in AIDS infection... rates between racial groups.” [ibid]. Not only is race a factor in incarceration, but it is a fact in acquisition of fatal disease. Sentencing a black male to prison may also mean sentencing him to an early death.

In general politicians have supported high rates of incarceration as a well developed 'tough on crime' mythos. The erstwhile California governor for example ordered $7,800,00,00 USD [31] be spent to expand California's prison system - a system already the larger than that for any other country in the world save the US. This was sold to the citizenry (who of course were the one's paying for this) as a means of relieving overcrowding in jails. Yet never in the history of the United States has expanding a prison system relieved overcrowding [26,32]. Instead it has always led to progressively higher rates of incarceration. The fact that less than 1% of this amount to be spent on 'rehabilitation' [2,26] made the government's priorities rather clear. This is the lowest of all industrialized nations [27].

It has been pointed out by many researchers that the fairness of the US legal system is somewhat questionable in regard to then manner in which those of lower socio-economic background are incarcerated. For example [28] presents well researched and compelling evidence on a case by case bases of a chaotic legal system bereft of fairness [29] or even conformity with the UN Charter of Human rights [30].
It is an indisputable fact that many innocent citizens are in US jails, as evidence by the thorough research of [28,29,31] and in particular the number of Amnesty International cases for that country [32]. Once in the prison system, there are a plethora of examples such as [32,33,34] that prisoners are poorly treated, routinely facing what many researchers have termed "inhumane conditions".

One such example pointed to repeatedly in the literature is the case of the US state of Texas. In a single five year period Texas ranked first in the number of prisoners executed in the entire world [20,28]. This dubious distinction was not the only honour achieved - it was also rated last in social services for the poor of any state. The governor of that state opposed legislation banning the execution those with IQs under 65 - thus becoming one of the only places in the civilized world where the government condoned murder of severely mentally handicapped humans. A report by Amnesty International [35] found that "at every step in the death penalty process in Texas, a litany of grossly inadequate legal procedures fail to meet recognized minimum international standards for the protection of human rights." There have been a variety of methods used by the state to kill - gas chamber, hanging,  lethal injection, and the ever popular but often slow (it can take two hours or more at times of excruciating pain), electrocution. Those who died where often assigned attorneys (since they could not afford their own) who were allegedly incompetent – in one or two cases even falling asleep during the trials [36]. According to the Washington Post, "With few public defender offices in Texas, most indigent defendants must rely on court-appointed lawyers. Interviews with lawyers and other experts, as well as a review of 16 Texas death penalty cases, revealed instances in which lawyers in capital trials slept though key testimony, failed to file crucial legal papers correctly or on time, or had been cited for professional misconduct repeatedly in their careers" [37].

Yet such harsh laws as the "three strike" clauses in the United States, the excessive incarceration rates, and high numbers of death sentences have been shown repeatedly [19,32,38,39,40,41] to have little or no  deterrent value. As criminology studies, history, and common sense show, locking people up in a multi-billion dollar system of over crowded and often violent incarceration has no deterrent value upon crime. Perhaps if the billions had been spent elevating poverty, improving education, improving aid and retraining to those in prison,  and eliminating the gap between rich and poor (which proportionally in the United States is the highest on the planet [42,43,44]) rather than building the largest prison system on the planet, crime and the corresponding need for prisons might have indeed been lessened? Naw - couldn't be.

"I have yet to see a death case among the dozens coming to the Supreme Court
on eve-of-execution stay applications in which the defendant was well
represented at trial. People who are well represented at trial do not get the death penalty."
-- Supreme Court Justice R. B. Ginsburg [38]

There are so many alternatives to imprisonment that one may wonder why the wealthiest nation on the planet does not use any, preferring to lock up so many for so little. A few of these alternatives:

•  Ankle monitors - Used extensively in Sweden [45] even for fairly serious crimes these allow a person to be a home, albeit with limit boundaries of movement. Repeat offenses under this system are much lower than in the United States where imprisonment is highly correlated with further criminal activity once the person has served her time [46].
•  Sentencing Circles - Used in Canada, New Zealand, and Australia, primarily for native offenders. This is a traditional system whereby the criminal must face and be sentenced by her victims. The result is almost never imprisonment, but rather community service on the part of the perpetrator, of one form or another, removal of access to drugs or alcohol, set boundaries on movement, daily meetings with community members, and the like. Although reliable data is still being acquired, there is indication in the literature that repeat offenses  are far lower than for similar periods of imprisonment [47].
•  Matching punishment to severity of crime - In the United States people have been imprisoned for stealing food for starving children [19,48]. Women have been imprisoned for breast-feeding their infants in public [49]. Students have been imprisoned for asking awkward questions of politicians at rallies [50]. Grandmothers have been imprisoned for marching with signs antithetical to some politicians. And so on. All whilst political war criminals, industrial polluters, and the like walk free or garner minimum sentences sans imprisonment. There is a considerable literature [51,52,53,54] on this issue, and on the inequality of laws in that country particularly in regards to matching criminal severity to degree of punishment. In the United States imprisonment is often the de facto rule for even minor crimes, particularly should the criminal in question be so foolish as to have few fiscal resources [53,54].
•  Supervision - In New Zealand the youth court system has had considerable success in diverting youth from the criminal justice system via methods developed to make youth accountable without the need for imprisonment. In particular heavy use of supervision both human and technological have been shown [55] to reduce youth criminal activity at lower cost to the state. All without use of the prison system.
•  Many, many more. Please peruse the references (particularly [19, 48-56]) for far more examples. Most of these are far less expensive and have shown much lower recidivism than the United States model of mandatory sentencing, three strikes, and long term imprisonment of more and more people for even minor offenses. A model every reputable study has shown quite to simply not not work in reducing crime or repeat offences. It is in fact, a model which has never worked other than in elevating costs to the public purse and profits to the corporations and government systems which enable it.

There is also the issue of mandatory minimum sentencing so beloved by officials in the government of that country as part of the theater security of being "tough on crime" (non-corporate, non-government crime only, of course).  A study prepared for the Justice Department in 2005, said that several jurisdictions, including South Africa, Australia, England, and the state of Michigan, have retreated from minimum sentences in recent years because of evidence that they do not deter crime. For example, the Correctional Service of Canada has done a longitudinal study [55] showing no deterrent effect resulting form minimal sentences. The US JFA Institute in Washington has called such  policies costly, harmful, and a complete failure [62]. But despite this and similar studies done by the University of Toronto [58,59,60] the head of the Republican Party of Canada recently announced "tough on crime" legislation increasing length-of-stay mandatory sentencing for a host of crime [61] (but interestingly without increasing police, research, social work, or similar). Identical initiatives were announced the same week by the head of Britain's Republican Party. Remarkably such announcements exactly mimic legislative initiatives in the United States toward longer imprisonment for even minor crimes.

It is far easier for politicians to ignore research and fact and simply legislate. Such theater security gives the appearance of progress against criminality, but does very little or nothing toward actually solving any of the issues involved - or of protecting the public. Quit the opposite in fact - such laws significantly reduce funding available for crime prevention and similar social programs [ibid]. Further, the United States' Department of Justice has also produced several studies, notably [56, 57] indicating that recidivism is increased with the longer imprisonment durations mandated by these compulsory sentencing laws. To some extend too, the mandating of these longer sentences for minimal crimes leads is highly correlated not merely to recidivism but to more violent recidivism than the original crime entailed.

In sum, prisons and imprisonment has become a private for-profit business in the United States. Tougher laws are being passed which coincidently ensure these profits as more and more prisons are built, and more and more people are imprisoned, often in overcrowded, violent, drug-filled institutions. Again - a full 25% of all people incarcerated on the planet, are incarcerated in the United States with no proof that this model of incarceration decreases crime. All in a country proclaiming itself "the land of the free".  Perhaps one may be allowed to question the efficacy such a system of justice, and who such a system really serves?

(67 references)
If you are interested in this subject, might I suggest the following references, which provide an enjoyable introduction to this field of study:
Bauman, Zygmunt, 1995 Life In Fragments: Essays in Post-Modern Morality. Blackwell, Oxford
Christie, Nils, 1994. Crime Control as Industry: Towards Gulags Western Style, Routledge,  London
Mathiesen, Thomas, 1990. Prison on Trial: A Critical Assessment. Sage Publications, London
Miller, Jerome G., 1966. Search and Destroy: African American Males in the Criminal Justice System. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, Mass