 The Safety of the
Public is the First Obligation of Government Now that so many criminals have been released from our prisons and jails, and those who remain incarcerated have been made more comfortable, maybe we should spend a little time worrying about the safety of the rest of us who just work hard everyday, obey the laws and pay the taxes. However, If you ask many legislators or newspaper editorial writers about our prisons and jails, they will tell you that "we put too many people in prison." They are wrong. The truth is, we are putting far too few criminals in prison, and the law-abiding public is suffering as a result. Make no mistake about it, every violent criminal who is in prison is a criminal who is not committing more crimes. As it is:
Yes, we will have to build more prisons to be able to incarcerate more criminals, and yes, this will cost money. But it will clearly reduce crime and protect the public—which, after all, is the first responsibility of government.
Prisons and Jails Work History has shown us that when the incarceration rate is up, the crime rate drops. The opposite is also true. When the incarceration rate is down, the crime rate goes up. There can be no debate. Prisons and jails do keep criminals from committing additional crimes. Unlike probation and parole, incarceration makes it physically impossible for criminals to victimize the public with new crimes for as long as they are locked up. A Failure to Incarcerate Leads to Increased Crime It is equally clear that the failure to incarcerate convicted criminals will lead to additional crimes. A significant percentage of offenders who are released and placed on probation commit new crimes while on probation. In addition, offenders who are released early from prison often commit new crimes during the period when they would otherwise have been confined in prison. New Crimes by Probationers In theory, probation is a sentence that allows a person convicted of a crime to avoid incarceration and remain free subject to certain conditions. Unfortunately, The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) estimated that 62% of those criminals placed on probation had either a felony arrest for a new crime or a disciplinary hearing for a violation of the conditions of their probation within three years of being placed on probation. New Crimes by Prisoners Released Early Many states, including Kentucky, have parole systems that release prisoners before they have served their full-sentence. Others have implemented early-release programs that are designed to keep down prison populations. As a result of these programs, many crimes are committed against victims which would not have been committed if the prisoners had been required to remain in custody for the duration of their sentence. A BJS study estimated that about 69 percent of parolees age 17 to 22 were charged with another felony or serious misdemeanor within 6 years of release from prison, and that about 29 percent of those new arrests occurred before they were first eligible for discharge from parole on the first charge. The National Academy of Sciences reported in 1986 that in 1982 the inmate population had almost doubled since 1970. And further the increased incapacitation of those prisoners had the effect of reducing robberies and burglaries by 35 to 45 percent. Clearly, incarceration does prevent crimes. We Are Not Over-Incarcerating Those opposed to incarceration often release statistics which they claim show that we have "too many" people in prison or that the incarceration rate is "too high." Typically, American incarceration figures are shown to be higher than other nations surveyed. Those studies do not present an accurate picture. They do not take into consideration the high crime rate that plagues our country. If the differences in crime rates between nations were taken into account, the difference in incarceration rates between nations would, in all likelihood, disappear. Failure to Incarcerate Costs More Than Incarcerating Criminals How much of the human and financial toll of crime could be prevented by simply incarcerating violent and repeat criminals for all or most of their sentences? According to the studies, a great deal. Of course it costs to build prisons. But remember, prisons have a useful life of several decades. But, a proper evaluation of the cost of increasing prison space must include an analysis of the cost of not increasing prison space. That requires the examination of the cost of crime and the cost of crimes that could be prevented by the incarceration of criminals. Many studies have compared the cost of building more prisons with the benefits to our communities of incarcerating criminals. All have found that the social benefits of imprisonment exceed the costs of building and operating more prisons. A New Jersey study found that it costs society more than twice as much to let the typical prisoner out as it does to keep him in. The National Institute of Justice also found the benefit to society of incarcerating a criminal is twice the cost of building and operating a new cell. A Wisconsin study reached the same conclusion. Most of the opposition to prison construction is based on cost. Opponents say that we can’t afford to incarcerate all of the people who commit crimes. To the contrary, we can’t afford not to incarcerate criminals. The concern about the cost of prisons ignores the costs to our society by our failure to send convicted criminals to prison. The problem is not too much incarceration; the problem is too much crime. The simple fact is that the best way to stop crime is to put criminals in prison. Those who think that building prisons is too expensive have the moral burden of justifying that the personal and financial costs of those additional crimes to the victims is too great a cost to bear. |
