The Criminal Justice System

So I have a tendency to get excitable about the injustices in our criminal justice system. However, I wanted to find some good, reliable facts about the problems currently facing the criminal justice system. I could not, however, find a quality informational source. There were many sources essentially compiling news articles about recent sensations in the criminal justice system. Actual information, however, is a lot harder to find.

Here is the one that got my attention rolling in the first place, though. The average operational cost for keeping a prisoner is $24,000 per annum (this number from Amicus). One out of every hundred Americans is currently incarcerated. This is a huge social cost, both in what we have to pay in taxes and in the lost contributions from these individuals. And yes, I do believe that criminals can contribute. If we let them become anything other than criminals (This is not so as to say that they did nothing wrong; only by making them personally responsible for their actions can we also allow them the possibility of and responsibility for personal redemption).

Perhaps we could cut all prison sentences in half, and for what was originally a two year drug sentence, imprison someone for a year, and then get her clean, with a GED, job skills, and improved mental health. Or use that money, and invest it ahead of time, to give her an education and future before things go terribly awry.

One major predictor for reoffense is whether or not an offender successfully reintegrates into the community. This is a joint effort on the part of criminals AND society. If someone who molested a child cannot find a church that will welcome him, it will in fact make him more likely to reoffend.

Not that this is easy for either offender or community to be open to. However, my personal perspective was significantly readjusted when I learned that the greatest predictor for sexually abusing children was having, one's self been abused as a child. So we can sit on our high horses, and say "he should have known better," lock him up for life, and never teach him better... or we could get down off our fear and pride and make things truly better.

It is quite frightening to address issues like child sexual abuse as public health issues. It's a huge move to make to say that this a problem that the, well, public has, as opposed to those scary monsters over there, who we shall lock up the minute we find them out (I shan't even begin to expound on the notion that perhaps it would be better to not have this problem happen in the first place, and that prevention is more than paranoia and extreme reactions). And it is a problem truly belonging to us; 90% of children are abused by a family member or other known and trusted adult.

It is so much nicer to think that you can lock monsters away, you can slay them, vanquish them, speak in grand terms that appeal to people who would like someone else to police the problems out there, thank you, instead of having to realize there are problems here, and everywhere. It is so much easier to sensationalize, to make men into monsters we can punish and keep at bay, than to try to address the intergenerational roots of problems such as drugs, alcoholism, child sexual abuse, racial inequalities, violence, and despair.

Prisons in no way solve the problems that sent men and women there. They just allow us to dust our hands of them. A 'serious' and 'tough' approach to crime would deal with crime prevention, including recidivism, rather than the monsters we weave around the real human suffering and misery represented by offenders.

To treat criminals as the people they are, to look into their eyes and say -- you might, but for the grace of God, have been me -- is by far more true, helpful, and humane. Our urge to punish and shun just condemns us, and our children to more of the crimes we claim to abhor, and to more lives lost into the swirl of the criminal justice system.