The Most Difficult Question in America
Published April 17th, 2007What I believe to be the most difficult question in American society and politics will probably not be addressed in the next election. The moral, social and economic issues will not even be discussed. Other issues will be deemed more important. That isn’t to say they aren’t important - equal rights, the Iraq situation, homeland security and abortion are all very important issues. But there is one issue that has faced us for decade upon decade and America has done little to address it.
Prisons. Inmates. Convicts. Life sentences. Death sentences. America has 5% of the world population and 25% of the world’s prison population. There are more people imprisoned in America (Land of the Free), percentage-wise, than any other developed country on earth. The list of countries that still employs the death penalty is filled with those countries whose human rights records we deplore. And it is only accelerating. Three-strikes rules (Constitutional? Where’s the discussion?) and other harsh and harsher penalties for crimes are only increasing the permanent prison population. To what end?
We as a society need to rethink imprisonment. The modern prison system in this country began with the goal of rehabilitating those who committed crimes. This goal cannot be achieved when a person is sentenced to life without parole or death. Once convicted of a felony, the job opportunities for the person after they serve their time drop to near zero. They continue to pay their debt to society forever, in a modified life sentence. We should not be surprised that so many return to a life of crime, sometimes to get back into prison - at least there they are guaranteed a roof and food. The fact that this is an appealing option should ring alarm bells. Something has gone wrong.
You may believe the prison system is to punish. Fine - that is a reasonable belief. You commit a crime and you should be punished. This should deter others from committing crimes. Yet harsher penalties barely affect crime rates. And the death penalty is the most bizarre example of this - in states with high execution rates, capital crime rates are actually higher than in states with low or no execution rates. There is no evidence that the death penalty does much of anything to change criminal behavior.
Is life imprisonment a valid option though? The Constitution protects against cruel and unusual punishment. Is there anything more cruel than putting someone in a cell 23 hours a day forever? How does locking the person up forever serve society? How does it serve better than simply executing them?
These are difficult questions. I myself still cannot reach a conclusion on how I feel about the death penalty. It is an irrational subject. It defies logic.
The bottom line is that the prison system in America is an anchor upon our society. As the population swells, so does the money necessary to run the system - money that comes from taxes. Is this the most efficient use of our money? Does pouring money into a broken system make any sense? I believe the American prison system should be the #1 priority of top elected officials (state and federal). The problem is only getting worse. Death penalty not withstanding, the rest of the system needs a serious overhaul as well. I recognize that there are just people out there that are incapable of following the law and positively contributing to society while a free person. These individuals should be put in prison - and they should be contributing to society while imprisoned. In some way. I can recall watching 30 Days last year where Morgan Spurlock spends 30 days in a prison. The prisoners did NOTHING all day. Every day. Wouldn’t it be wiser to have them working in some productive way? A good number of prisoners Spurlock spoke to said “This is the last time, I’m going straight, I don’t want to come back here.” And yet, many of them ended up back in prison within months. Was it because they were compulsive criminals? Was it because they had no other option on the outside? I don’t know. But both possibilities need examination. Both possibilities need to be addressed differently - not identically.
I don’t know the answers to these questions. I just know they’re probably more important and affect more American lives than any other issue on the table. Crime and how to handle it is one of the most difficult but important issues of human society. If America is the best country on earth (and I believe you can make a good case for that) we need to find the best way to handle crime. Because what we have now is not the best, and it doesn’t even work well.
A summary then of my views: The prison system is broken, it neither rehabilitates nor effectively reduces crime. The death penalty is possibly cruel and inhumane and does nothing to lower the rate of capital offenses - but life imprisonment is absolutely cruel and serves no purpose when the individual is confined in solitary 23 hours a day. Convicted felons have few or no options after release other than returning to crime, and better help needs to be available to those who want and will productively take advantage of it. Individuals should be giving back to society in some useful way while serving their sentence - not doing nothing for the duration.
Will my thoughts change the system for the better? Maybe, maybe not - but it’s a start. And that’s more than you’ll hear about it than from candidates campaigning for office.
(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)
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