Incarceration

February 1st, 2024

“In 2023, over five million people are under supervision by the (U.S.) criminal justice system, with nearly two million people incarcerated in state or federal prisons and local jails. The United States has the largest known prison population in the world.” – Wikipedia

Last week, I took my grandson, Asher, to a local library to hang out. Libraries are good places to do that. The children’s section often has games and toys in addition to hundreds of books for kids to read. Asher is only three years old, so he can’t read yet, but he enjoys looking at picture books.

While we were there, he started playing with a little blonde girl who was only a month or so younger than him. The girl was grumpy. Her mother, a young woman sporting an oversized knit cap, tried to convince her daughter that she should share her toys with Asher. The child was having none of it. Asher didn’t care. He played with her anyway.

As the toddlers interacted, I struck up a conversation with the young mom. Generally, I don’t have much to discuss with new parents. They belong to a different generation, and it is hard for me to find common ground with them. Except for the fact that we were both raising little ones, I didn’t know what else to talk about. Somehow, I mentioned to the woman that I knew somebody who had done prison time. Surprisingly, she volunteered the fact that she had been in prison too. After that, we had plenty to talk about.

The young woman looked just like all the other mothers herding their children in the library. There was absolutely nothing unusual in her appearance. There was nothing strange in how she related with her little girl. If she had not told me about her past, I would have never guessed that she had been incarcerated. Maybe, years ago, I would have been astonished by her confession, but I am used to this sort of thing now.

I had a similar experience a few weeks ago. I was at lunch with three former coworkers. We are all retired, and we are just typical old white guys, living in the suburbs and trying to make sense of our lives. While we ate burgers and drank beer, the subject of jails and prisons came up. All but one of us knew somebody, a close friend or a relative, who was doing time or had done time in the past. We had a very interesting, albeit depressing conversation.

Based on statistics, it really is not that odd that so many people in our country know someone who has been incarcerated. Actually, it is just as likely that a person knows an ex-prisoner as it is that they would know somebody who has been in the military. Millions of Americans have spent time behind bars. Some segments of the U.S. population, based on race and socio-economic status, are more heavily represented in this enormous group, but nobody is excluded. Hell, I was in jail, and I am generally rather law-abiding.

Being a felon does not quite carry the stigma that it used to have. That is because we have created so many of them. Especially in today’s tight job market, employers don’t give arrests or jail time that much weight anymore. I know somebody with four drunk driving convictions. They applied for a job and had an interview. The only question the interviewer had for this person was, “So, do you have a way to get to work every day?” Likewise, drug possession convictions are pretty standard in our day and age. Those black marks hardly raise an eyebrow in some industries.

Why does the United States have so many of its citizens in jails or prisons? I think that there are several factors involved. First, the prison industry is exactly that; it is an industry, a profitmaking operation. Prison cells are like hotel rooms; they only make money for somebody when they are full. Even when prisons are run by the government, there are numerous private vendors making vast sums by providing goods and services to inmates at premium prices. Prisons are often located in isolated rural locations where jobs are scarce. Prisons bring money to struggling local economies.

Second, there is a political fetish in our country about getting “tough on crime”. I have heard that from politicians since I was a teenager. Yet, after all these years, I don’t feel any safer. We lock up more people, but there is still violence. I will grant you that there are individuals who are dangerous and need to be kept away from the public at large. However, many people in prison are there for nonviolent crimes, and many of them are there because they are mentally ill. I know from experience that incarceration has nothing to do with rehabilitation. Prisons are just warehouses for humans who have run afoul of our nation’s laws. It is rare that a prisoner reenters the outside world as a better person.

So, what should we do? Well, locking people up doesn’t seem to help. We have to look at how we can reintegrate ex-prisoners back into society. Restorative justice may be useful. The idea of the felon making some kind of amends to the people they hurt could be healing for everyone involved. The point is that unless we want these ex-prisoners to commit more crimes and once again occupy a cell, we need to make them into useful members of their communities. It can be done. I have seen it happen. We just have to want it.