Our Penal System

There is a misconception that the conservatives are pro free market and liberals anti. The reality is that it is not a question of pro or con free market but who should ensure that the market not only functions, but does so for the benefit of society as a whole. I believe both sides (possibly with the exclusion of Libertarians) believe that the market unconstrained will implode. Edmund Burke, an icon of conservatives writing in the 18th century, warns of the dangers of rampant innovation driven by misguided intellectuals and the “new moneyed”. He felt that it was the role of aristocracy and existing institutions to temper this innovation. In fact to this day one can still hear rants from the right about the “elite” intellectuals. Today, though there technically is no “aristocracy” in our country, there is their equivalent in the “old money”.

The conservatives, by definition, want to maintain, if not strengthen, the position of these institutions, businesses and the wealthy. The Republicans, driven by this ideology, are promoting policies that advantage their constituency and in fact have represented them interests effectively over the last several decades shifting an ever larger portion of the national wealth and thus power into the hands of the few wealthiest.

The liberals on the other hand, believe that the tempering of the innovation in the market is a key responsibility of government. And whereas the conservatives believe that the good of society will be served best by ensuring the well-being of the wealthy and institutions, the liberals, represented by Democrats, do not have an intermediary and look to directly serve the benefit of society and in so doing wind up speaking more loudly for the workers and disadvantaged who do not have a voice on the other side. With the added responsibility of ensuring that the markets serve society, the role of government and therefore its cost is greater and both from a liberal perspective are justified.

In the marketplace there is a healthy tension between business and labor with each looking to get the best deal in the transaction and thus the overall good generally is well served. There are occasions when segments of each, business and labor, benefit from the same policies. They lobby, if not together directly, in parallel. In recent years portions of our penal system have been privatized and private enterprises, driven by the profit motive want their businesses to grow. A way to do this is to increase the population of inmates. To that end they lobby for legislation to make imprisonment mandatory for as many crimes as they can, taking away discretionary power from our judiciary. More and more states now have the “three strikes and your out” laws, requiring mandatory long prison sentences for three time offenders for ever lesser crimes. I don’t know this to be a fact but I suspect the prison industry would lobby very hard against legislation decriminalizing drug offenses. In this case business and labor are on the same side. Like the private jails, strong unions representing the prison workers have an interest in not only keeping prison jobs, but increasing them. They lobby for many of the same policies as the penal corporations. Though there are still areas where they compete like wages and benefits, having heard about the contracts won by the California’s prison guards, I would not be surprised if there is, if not an outright deal, then at least an informal quid pro quo understanding between business and labor in this case.

In this type of situation where there is a common goal for competing entities, the probability of the general good being served is very slim. Such is the case with the current penal system in the United States. We rate number one in the world in the number of our people in prison with 753.2 per 100.000. That’s 0.75% of our population in jail. We are ahead of Russia who is second with 660.3, third is Rwanda with 593.4 followed by the Virgin Islands (US) with 593.4 and Cuba with 531.24. Jails harden criminals. Young people incarcerated for petty crimes come out not only more bitter, but more willing and able to commit more serious crimes. For those who may want to go straight, having a record makes it very difficult to get a job. Society is hit with a triple whammy. Not only the inmates but their families, particularly their children suffer. We spend a fortune incarcerating an ever-larger population and grow an ever-increasing number of unemployable individuals who instead of being productive members of our society become a drain.

I know; I know “if you do the crime, you do the time”. The question is how do we as society benefit from access incarcerations? Prisons don’t reduce crime. We are not keeping individuals who are a danger to society off the streets in very many cases. We are not reforming them. So what justifies the great expenditure? It must not be profits for the penal industry or jobs for prison guards. The price is too high not only in dollars but in damages to our society. But I digress. My main point is that in our system everyone is vying for a maximum advantage and competition on an even playing field generally serves society well. But when the field gets tilted the suffering on the part of one or another segment of society increases. As in the case of the penal system, when one of the few powerful lobbies on the left, labor, sides with business, there is not enough clout with the civil and human rights organizations to adequately impact government policy and we suffer a great disservice.