“Don’t be in a hurry to condemn a person because he doesn’t do what you do, or think as you think or as fast. There was a time when you didn’t know what you know today.”
To put a dent in our mass incarceration moral failure, we should follow the road to prison abolition. This does not mean we should tear down prison walls immediately and unleash the condemned masses into society. Rather, prison abolition means striving to make prisons obsolete through crime prevention, sentencing reforms, and reevaluating what constitutes a crime. Legal and penal reforms, as opposed to “prison-backed policing,” are better methods to accomplish this goal.
A knee-jerk reaction to the term “prison abolition” is not generally positive, as it seems an unrealistic and dangerous concept to many. Prisons offer society a sense of security, even though violent offenders are walking among us daily. Current policies driving incarceration are not effective against reducing crime. Recidivism rates show that prison is not a successful deterrent against future crimes. Effective deterrents exist in the prison abolition movement, while acknowledging there are a “dangerous few,” who will require confinement. These “dangerous few” are a rare group of people resistant to rehabilitation and will likely remain threatening to society. This small percentage of individuals does not derail the larger goal of prison abolition.
The pinnacle of abolition is reducing the prison population, which will disintegrate the need for prison facilities. To collapse mass incarceration, our penal system must undergo a drastic transformation. Instead of focusing on retribution, deprivation, and punishment, the system should stress rehabilitation and reintegration into society. Some states have already achieved “large reductions in their prison populations without experiencing any concurrent increase in their crime rates.” Without a shift towards rehabilitation, mass decarceration will fail.
Our nation’s mass incarceration problem is virtually undeniable. Legislators no longer ignore the fact that the United States incarcerates people at an absurd rate. While being harsh on crime was a popular position for politicians in the past, being in favor of sentencing reform is now a safe political play. Both sides of the political aisle agree on the need for criminal justice reform.
To support mass incarceration, the costs are staggering—estimated to be as high as $182 billion per year. Shifting funds used to fuel incarceration to other budgetary vehicles is appealing. However, recent sentencing reform has been like bringing a garden hose to a forest fire. The intentions are good, but it does not come close to making a significant dent in incarceration rates.
Part II of this note details the problem of mass incarceration in our criminal justice system. It provides historical context from the 1960s through the present to explain the creation of our mass incarceration state. Next, it discusses how systemic power structures, such as prosecutorial discretion, mandatory minimums, and sentencing guidelines, are rooted in racism and inequality. Then it explains how these power structures allowed courts to incarcerate the masses, resulting in an exploding prison population.
Part III describes new approaches being used to address the mass incarceration issue. First, it discusses attempts at sentencing reform and how such reforms are treating this epidemic but are doing little to end its terminal prognosis. Second, it discusses prison abolition as the only moral, legal, and just model for a humane penal system. For instance, other developed countries, such as Norway and the Netherlands, successfully operate criminal justice systems focused on rehabilitation and reintegration by treating offenders like humans. As a result, either directly or indirectly, these countries have incredibly low crime and recidivism rates. What other countries are doing is not going unnoticed in the United States. North Dakota, using Norway as a model, implemented policies focused on decreasing the segregation population, fostering a less aggressive atmosphere, and establishing a re-entry camp to help acclimate prisoners as they approach their release dates. Such a strategy does not take decades and an act of Congress to implement.
Finally, Part IV recommends the steps we can take to make prison obsolete in the United States, including systemic changes, cultural changes, and the utilization of restorative justice programs. Critically, we must treat offenders more humanely. As a prisoner from Norway said, “[T]reat people like dirt and they will be dirt. Treat them like human beings, and they will act like human beings.”
The systemic changes this article recommends include eliminating cash bail, jail for misdemeanors, and sentencing guidelines. Eliminating cash bail can free defendants sitting in jail simply because they cannot afford freedom. Eliminating jail for misdemeanors prevents citizens from being introduced to the system for minor offenses, a step that can often lead to a lifetime of repeated incarcerations. Alternatives to incarceration are available for virtually every misdemeanor offense. These include diversionary programs, restorative justice, community service, and house arrest. Finally, we should eliminate sentencing guidelines for all nonviolent crimes. Sentencing guidelines at both the state and federal levels place people in boxes. Judges must send offenders to prison based on their criminal history and offenses. Recent sentencing reforms in Minnesota and at the federal level are a good start but are not enough to significantly decrease incarceration rates.
Besides changes to the judicial and political system that effect people after they break the law, cultural changes need to be made to impact communities and prevent at-risk people from committing crimes. This article recommends cultural changes, such as a focus on crime prevention, greening efforts, and decriminalizing of drug offenses. It can be a challenge to understand how to prevent people from breaking the law, but to reach prison abolition, it is vital we eliminate the need for so many prisons across our country.
Lastly, this article recommends the use of restorative and rehabilitative justice as opposed to punitive consequences for offenses. This means eradicating segregation units in prison and drastically remodeling prisons in a Norway model. Making incarceration feel as close to what life is like outside of prison walls helps prevent recidivism. This means amending the current probationary model, and preserving offenders’ civil rights as they reintegrate into society.