Prison Gulags Downsizing

Prisons are big business and now, in these recessionary times, have to downsize like any other business. Facing a cash crunch, the States simply can’t affo
rd to transfer as much cash to the private enterprises and payrolls, and so they are cutting back on the supply of raw material – inmates.

One story I saw today put it in context: Rise in Inmates Slowed in 2001 :

The U.S. inmate population in 2001 rose at the slowest pace in almost 30 years … States facing budget shortfalls are now more sensitive to the cost of imprisoning people who break the law … The three states with the highest rates of incarceration — Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi — in the past two years have tried to limit the growth of their prison populations.

This extract sums up for me the ludicrousness of the prison system in the US.

So one of the reasons the US incarcerates more of its population per capita than any other is simply that it can afford to do this, and in the process make big bucks for those companies involved in the business.

It also runs counter to how crime statistics correlate with economics. Forget about increased incarceration rates and mandatory sentencing, the main reason for the drop in crime rates in the 90s was the economic boom — when there are more jobs there is less opportunity and incentive for people to do crime (I am excepting corporate crimes here). Recessions happen and crime ticks up. You might expect, then, that prison populations would rise. And if they were rationally and logically related to the severity of crime, this would be so. But we see from the above example this model is seriously flawed.

So I have to say to myself — if and when this recession ends, will we see a big decline in crime rates, yet paradoxically accompanied by a big rise in prison populations? I think so.

Earlier here.