Carol p. getty, phd associate professor of criminal justice, park university, parkville, missouri, usa fulbright scholarAMERICA’S HIGH INCARCERATION RATES У статті наголошено на важливості дотримання прав людини, захисті прав людини на національному та міжнародному рівні, а також приділено увагу отриманню якісної освіти щодо прав людини. Certainly sentenced offenders should have limited civil rights as part of punishment for offending but too many prisoners in America are incarcerated for too long and loose too much while incarcerated and when released. I am fortunate to be an Americana living in country which recognizes violations of human rights where they occur and seeks to remedy existing situations; however, I am distressed about America’s high incarceration rates and the culture that produced and practices incarceration for many instead of seeking a different resolution for some criminal behaviors. Human rights are those which allow for life, liberty and freedom of thought and expression, equality before the law, that is, human rights are those which allow dignity and justice for all. Protections include documenting violations, seeking remedies for victims, and combating cultures which allow for violations. Almost all countries of the world have national mechanisms and laws regarding human rights and numerous international organizations promote human rights, among them the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. Various National Governmental Organizations (NGOs), including Amnesty International, are also actively promote human rights and denounce human rights abuses. The United States has been especially active in identifying human rights abuses nationally and internationally and in supporting remedies for victims and combating the cultures which allow these violations to occur. However, as reported by CNN, in 1998, for the first time ever, Amnesty International (AI) launched a campaign against a western nation; this was worldwide campaign against the United States (US) prison system accusing it of a “persistent and widespread pattern of human violations.” The 153 page report “Rights for All” discussed women in labor, stun guns, sexual abuse of female prisoners, and especially number of prisoners awaiting execution. (www.cnn.com/US/9810/05/humanrights, retrieved 8/26/08) Crime rates in American have been dropping since 1992. According to Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) statistics, in the last 20 years violent crime rates in America have decreased 25\%, while incarceration rates have continued to increase. (https://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/cp.htm, retrieved 9/7/08) Harsh sentencing policies, especially for drug offenders, continue to fuel expansion of the nations’ jail and prison population, which reached a new high in 2007 of 2.3 million persons. The United States, which has less than 5\% of the world’s population, holds nearly 23\%v of the world’s prisoners. (https://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/23/america/23prison.php, retrieved 9/7/09) According to a New York Times 2008 article, the incarceration rate in the US is 751/100,000, the highest in the world. With 230,000,000 adults in the US and a prison population of 2.3 million, this means that 1 in every 100 persons is incarcerate, a record high for the US. (For the record, the actual rate is 1 for every 99.1.) This incarceration rate of 751/100,000, or 762 according to another source, is five to 10 times larger than other western democracies (www.amswers.com/topic/human rights, retrieved 8/27/08). As a comparison China, with four times the US population, is second with a prison population of 1.6 million, although this figure excludes the hundreds of thousands held in administrative detention in an extrajudicial system of re-education. The median incarceration rate is 125/100,000. Twenty five years ago American’s rates were close to the median. Russia’s current reported rate is 627; countries with low rates include Germany at 88 and Japan at 43 (https://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/us/28cnd-prison.html?hp, retrieved 9/7/09). Part of the reason American incarceration rates are high can be attribute to effective systems of arrest for all offenders and a judicial process which celebrates equality for all offenders. It is true that part of the reason crime rates have decreased is due to the extensive removal of criminal offenders from the community. However, a larger explanation for the quadrupling of the prison population in the 20 year period from the 1980s to 2000 stems from draconian sentencing policies and failure to provide appropriate support for those who finish their sentences and return to the community. Politically motivated tough on crime and tough on drug offender policies caused the legislature to create a fixed sentencing system with long prison sentences for most offenders and also create a most difficult post-prison environment for offenders. America’s relative recent response to crime as incarceration may not always be the appropriate response. For example, Americans are locked up for crimes for writing bad checks or using drugs, whereas in most countries these violations would rarely produce prison sentences (https://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/23/america/23prison.php, retrieved 9/7/08). While I do not intend to concentrate on the death penalty, I will briefly discuss the subject, because the Amnesty International report referred to at the beginning of this paper also sanctioned American not only for its high incarceration rate but also for its support of the death penalty, the ultimate violation of one’s civil liberties. In 2006, 3223 men and women were on death row and about 80 persons who committed their crimes when they were less than 18 years of age, an increase from the previous year. In 2007, 42 persons were executed, 11 fewer than in the previous year. The Amnesty International report condemned the US for executing persons who committed their crimes as children. This action places the US in the same category as Nigeria, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia. Because of “get tough” policies American is currently more willing to transfer juvenile offenders (under age 18)to adult prisons.; the US has some 3500 child convicts in adult prisons. (https://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/cp.htm) The following chart reports the executions in 2007, as highlighted in a US Department of Justice Department, Bureau of Justice Statistics.
According to AI, 129 innocent people have been released from death row. Additionally Amnesty International considers the America’s policy toward the death penalty a human rights abuse because it’s applied in an arbitrary manner subject to bias because of the defendant’s race or economic status, or driven buy political ambitions of those who impose it.” I am concerned, as our many scholars, that that the US incarcerates the greatest number of people in the world and also incarcerates at the highest rate. Over the last two decades incarcerations rates have increased regardless of whether the crime rate was increasing or decreasing. Three ill-conceived, politically motivated policies have created this situation: a war on drugs, draconian sentencing laws, and punitive parole and probation supervision polices created by the “get tough” environment. Depending on the questions, when the American public is surveyed, they want to be more lenient and give some offenders another chance. Americans generally agree that: sentences could be shorter, especially for drug offenses; alternatives to incarceration should be expanded; and that more programming in prisons is desirable. Politicians have begun to understand the public’s attitudes and have realized the costly consequence of the current incarceration policy where average yearly incarceration costs per offender are $24,000. In the last few years not only the public’s ideas but also the political culture and the law have changed. In the fall of 2007, Congress passed the Second Chance Act and President Bush signed it into law on April 9, 2008. This act is federal legislation designed to ensure the safe and successful return of prisoners to the community. This first-of-its-kind legislation will authorize various grants to government agencies and nonprofit groups to provide employment assistance, substance abuse treatment, housing, family programming, mentoring, victims support, and other services that can help reduce re-offending and violations of probation and parole. When signing this act, the President said: The country was built on the belief that each human being has limitless potential and worth. Everybody matters. We believe that even those who have struggled with a dark past can find brighter days ahead. One way we act on that belief is by helping former prisoners who've paid for their crimes -- we help them build new lives as productive members of our society. (https://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/04/20080409-2.html) Additionally, in the case of United States v Booker (543 U.S. 200 (2005)) the US Supreme Court declared the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, which had been in effect for 20 years, unconstitutional. These will now be advisory instead of required for federal criminal sentencing. Other fixed guideline systems in several states have also been declared unconstitutional, according their state’s constitutions. Currently criminal sentencing in the United States is in turmoil and the outcome of criminal sentencing is uncertain, but I think the end result will give judges more discretion in sentencing and they will not need to follow the previously prescribed, harsh drug sentences. Sentences will be shorter for non violent offenders, although they may remain the same for violent offenders Because of the change in sentencing requirements and the passage and funding of the Second Chance Act, I hope that America will return to a more reasonable correction system which will include incarceration for dangerous offenders but more treatment and alternative sanctions in the community for the non-dangerous so that American’s incarcerate rate will not be the highest in the world. In my opinion American will then have a system for offenders which will be more just while still allowing for societal protections. REFERENCES www.answers.com/topic/human-rights www.cnn.com/US/9810/08/human rights https://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2005/01/13/usdom9853.htm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_rate https://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/us/28cnd-prison.html?hp https://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/23/america/23prison.php https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment https://www.aclu.org/capital/index.html https://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/cp.htm https://reentrypolicy.org/government_affairs/second_chance_act https://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/04/20080409-2.html https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/04-104.ZS.html |
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